Do you think we’d do our best? It’s possible that we would begin to feel a little resentful and look for ways to avoid doing as we were told.
In order to have some degree of finesse and refinement with our horses, we need to become more aware of how we communicate our message to them. Are we asking politely and setting it up for our horse to find it easy and comfortable to do as we ask? Or are we not trusting that he’ll be light and take the offer, and instead pushing him and making do our bidding?
Make, at this level, can be as little as not asking politely. For example, let’s look at a trot to canter transition. Do you, personally, set it up and offer the direct rein as the open door, giving your horse somewhere to go toward comfort? Or do you look where you want to go and put your outside leg on straight away to push him into the transition? It doesn’t mean that you are pushing hard, just the simple fact of the leg coming on before the offer is made, is enough to be ‘make’. The direct rein is the offer of an open door, squeezing with your legs is the hurry up.
When riding with close contact, these kinds of ‘make’ yields will inevitably have consequences. Let’s use the transition example again. You set up the direction and ask for the transition by putting your outside leg on. The outside leg changes the flex of the horse so now he is bent the wrong way, away from the direction you are going, making it harder to get the lead you want. Being harder, he will also find it difficult to stay in soft feel so he will brace against your hands resulting in him becoming heavy. You may well get your transition, at the expense of your soft feel, your flex in the direction you were going and any kind of gracefulness and softness. This kind of scenario is just as appropriate to working a cow as it is to dressage or any other style of riding. Either its soft, light, responsive and clear … or its not!
By this level, your horse should make his turns with his nose leading. Thus also makes it easier for him to get his outside hind foot underneath him. If his head, neck or shoulders are the first part of him to turn, he is falling into his turns either from a lack of impulsion or impulsiveness, or you are pushing him around the turn rather than offering it. If you are too quick to make him turn, you will cause him to flex to the outside. This may be useful when bull fighting, however we’ll leave that to another level. Make sure you offer the open door, set the flex and then make the turn.
Read More Road To Horsemanship articles.
- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.