For some horses, the mental and emotional strain can also be quite difficult as holding this position takes some degree of confidence.
Soft feel is something you will build over time. You wouldn’t for example, expect a horse that is new to it, to hold the flex long enough to do a full dressage test or reining pattern. Imagine trying to hold a phone book out to your side with one arm for 10 minutes! If you make your horse hold it for too long, they will start to try to find ways to relieve the stiffness and strain. Often they will tuck their noses in toward their chests and flex at the 7th and 8th vertebrae instead of at the pole, to relieve stiffness and avoid exposing the death spot, as we discussed in Lesson Nine. After a time of repeating this, the muscle that resembles an inverted bowl will start to build up at this spot. Look at many horse that have been lunged repeatedly in side reins or who only ever do dressage without any cross training and you will see this big hard muscle. Lots of massage and lateral flexion will help remove it.
Have you ever seen a horse leave the dressage arena looking like he has some tension built up in his neck? As soon as the reins are released a little, they will stretch their necks out to release the pressure and toxin build up. Often they will yawn and stretch their jaws. This is a release of mental, emotional and physical tension.
A really great rule of thumb when working on the Contact Riding sections of your Foundation Programme, is to remember the 80 / 20 principle. That is, do not allow your actual contact riding time take up more than 20% of the total time you play with your horse. Try to balance it out with some other tasks or games. For example; you might spend 20% of your time tuning your horse in with groundwork or liberty. You then might spend 30% of your session checking out your rein positions and impulsion exercises. Then you will do your contact riding, another 20%, followed up by impulsion checks again to ensure you haven’t over done it, then just go for a nice trot or stroll to cool your horse down again. All in all 20% concentrated contact riding and 80% other things like warm ups and cool downs.
If you can be patient enough to take the time that your horse needs in preparing for soft feel and vertical flexion, ultimately you will have a softer, lighter more willing horse. Better preparation affords greater long-term results.
Read More Road To Horsemanship articles.
- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.