Going into Collection Laterally
Part I
A horse needs to be loose, supple, forward, straight, engaged with good balance and impulsion, to start collected work. These qualities are mostly developed by lateral work.
I normally start lateral work very early in the training, even before the horse is ridden. When a horse knows to work on the lunge fitted with snaffle bridle, cavesson, saddle and side reins, I begin to teach the first steps of lateral work from the ground. For example, starting on the left rein, I hold the lunge with my left hand about 10 to 15 cm away from the attachment of the cavesson and in my right hand, I hold a dressage whip pointed towards the middle of the horse's thigh where I touch gently in order to make the horse move away from the whip. If the horse tries to move forward only, which he normally does, I prevent him with the cavesson, and I touch again with the whip. When confirmed in this work, this exercise can be done by holding the reins as illustrated in the photos below.
It is important that the horse move forward and sideways in all of this lateral work in hand. To do this, I advise the rider to always walk backwards in order not to move against the horse. I do this work to both sides, changing from one to the other frequently. The first lateral lesson that I give under saddle is the shoulder-in. Normally I do not use leg yielding because I do not agree with having lateral movement without bend.
I start at the walk by doing a small circle around my inside leg, it is a type of shoulder-in on a two to three meter circle. It is very important in this work to have the horse moving more forward than sideways. I have to be able to see the outside shoulder moving forward, never sideways. I will use this exercise all the time at the beginning of each session to do three things : to put the horse around my inside leg on my outside rein and on the bit.
Normally, after the previous work in hand, the horse finds this exercise very easy to learn and to execute.
Before asking for lateral work at the trot, I would confirm the transitions upward and downward within the trot.
I go from working trot sitting to an increasing trot rising for several strides and then back to working trot sitting, alternating from one to the other frequently. I also make sure the transitions from trot to walk and back to trot are well established. When the horse is ready to begin lateral work at the trot I have the horse on a 20 metre circle in working trot sitting. I increase the bend, and with my inside leg on the girth, I ask for a few strides of shoulder-in. When he obeys, I rise and lengthen the trot while maintaining the circle, and reward with a pat and use of the voice.
"Ten metre circles, twenty metre circles, working trot, increasing trot, shoulder in, that's the cocktail that makes up suppleness"
It is very important to keep the circle the correct size in order to prevent the horse from drifting out. Design your circle well, be very accurate with the design of your circle.
After one or two circles, of rising lengthened trot I repeat the exercise. If the horse is responding well I can begin asking more frequently, and then later, increase the number of strides in the shoulder-in position. The progression from this, is from the 20 metre circle to a10 metre circle, in order to confirm the influence of my outside leg I push with my inside leg to the outside rein, controlling the hind quarters with the outside leg.
When the horse is established in this work, I start by going from the shoulder-in on the circle to the contra-shoulder-in along the wall, which improves again the suppleness, obedience and engagement in this phase of training.
I finish the work on the shoulder-in on the circle, and of the counter shoulder-in by going to a rising working trot on a 20 metre circle, with lowered neck, in other words by riding round and down. When the horse is established in these exercises, he is ready to start learning the shoulder-in along the wall.
"The horse should not stretch the neck down, the horse should arch and lengthen the topline of the neck."
In preparation for shoulder-in along the wall I would ask the horse for some transitions on a 20 metre circle. Transitions from working trot sitting to medium trot rising and back again to working trot sitting as well as from trot to walk and back to trot again. This ensures that I have impulsion and obedience to the half-halt with a firm but soft contact.
"You have to put his neck where you feel more swing in his back. Don't block with your hands, oblige him to give more. Give and take, keep the poll flexed, and then ask for shoulder in."
Having completed this initial work I then progress to a 10m circle on the second corner of the short wall and on returning to the corner I keep the bend with my inside leg and rein, controlling the bend with my outside rein, I bring the shoulders a little bit in, and with both legs I keep the movement forward.
In this position of shoulder-fore, I slide along the wall for a few strides. In order to reward good strides I put him on a10 metre circle, I pat and walk.
When the horse is confident in this exercise, I first increase the number of strides and when I feel he can do this without loss of balance, I can then increase the angle off the wall to the shoulder-in position.
"We use exercises to make the horse submissive and light and to help him find self carriage."
Of course we must remember that all exercises are only useful if they are executed correctly. We must feel that the shoulder-in makes the horse improve his suppleness, engagement, impulsion, and gives us some collection. I know that my horse is correct when it is able to keep the same rhythm, the same contact, not trying to change its outline or balance. As always, when we teach something new to the horse, we have to remember the old saying, ask often - expect little, and reward generously. In reference to the shoulder-in this means that at the beginning, what is important is to have good strides of shoulder-in. We should not ask too many, but we should ask often.
When we have the horse doing correctly the shoulder-in, we have the horse ready to do the more advanced lateral work. In the more advanced work we aim to develop more collection.
Part II
We have the horse doing the shoulder-in correctly, and we are now ready to do more advanced work in order to achieve more collection.
In all the work we have done, our horse has been bent around the inside leg and moving in the opposite direction of his bend. Now he is going to be bent around the inside leg and he is going to move in the direction of his bend.
I start again at walk by doing a small circle around the inside leg in the shoulder-in position. When I feel the horse round, supple, forward and on the bit, I stop the action of my inside leg (it stays in the same place on ‘stand by’) and I increase the action of my outside leg in order to bring his hindquarters in.
If he stops, I push him energetically forward and if he loose the bend I return to the small circle around the inside leg to achieve the bend again. When he understands what I am asking and he obeys by doing one or two steps with the hindquarters in, I reward with a pat and make him move forward.
I ask only a few steps at a time, alternating between the hindquarters in and the turn around the inside leg. When the horse is responding well, I ask more frequently and later I increase the number of steps with the hindquarters in. When confirmed in this work, I can make a full circle, I can make the circle smaller and I can gradually decrease the circle to finish with the pirouette at the walk.
This work introduces the horse to the first lateral movement looking in the direction in which he is moving and now he is ready to start this kind of work at the trot.
All this work enables the horse to collect the trot, when we proceed on in lateral work, from shoulder-in inclusive, the work is executed in collected trot.
On a 20 metre circle after asking for some transitions from collected trot to medium trot and back to collected trot to ensure that the horse has impulsion and is obedient to the half halt with a firm but soft contact (the correct contact is the result of the correct balance and impulsion) I put my horse in the shoulder-in position. When I feel him well bent around my inside leg, I increase the action of my outside leg to bring his quarters in. When he obeys, I reward with a pat, I rise and lengthen the trot while maintaining the circle.
Again I remember the old saying ‘ask often, expect little and reward generously’. I ask only for a few strides at each time, when the horse responds well, I begin asking more frequently and later on, I can increase the number of strides with the hindquarters in. This is the technique I am going to use in all the lateral work that is to follow.
It is very important to be accurate in the geometrical shape of the circle and maintaining the correct and the same rhythm. If the horse loses the bend I bring him back to the shoulder-in position to recover the bend, once the bend is re-established, I start to ask the hindquarters in again.
The advantage of starting this work on a circle is being able to correct and start again at any time. Suppose we start by teaching the half pass and at the end of the diagonal the horse loses the bend, I can’t correct straight away I have to go back and begin the whole movement again. If I am on the circle and I lose the bend, I can immediately start the hindquarters in again. I can also do it more often without increasing the number of strides when the horse is still learning the exercise. If I increase the number of strides at the beginning, the horse can find it difficult and begin resisting and trying to find an easier and incorrect way. By repeating the exercise more often, at the end I have done the same amount of work without letting the horse find the work too difficult.
When the horse is comfortable in this work and I can do a full circle with the hindquarters in, I can start the training of the half pass, travers and renvers. Normally I start first with the half pass, but we can start with the travers - in any case, the half pass is nothing more than a variation of the travers.
To teach the half pass at the middle of the short wall I put the horse in shoulder-in position, I cross the corner in that position and at the beginning of the long wall, I increase the action of my outside leg and I start the half pass. After a few strides, I reward, and I make my horse move forward, straight and parallel to the long wall. If I lost the bend during the half pass, I put him in shoulder-in position again. I always use the shoulder-in to re-establish the bend.
To teach the travers, I do the same on the short wall, but I don’t cross the corner, I start the travers when the horse’s shoulders reach the beginning of the long wall. When the horse is established in this work, I will not have any problems training the renvers, which is the inverse movement in relation to the travers, and I have my horse doing the more important gymnastic exercises he needs to develop and increase the collection at this stage of training.
Use of the wall will influence differently the travers and the renvers. On the travers, the wall will reinforce the psychological and physical effect of the half halt, because the horse’s instinct tells him that he cannot go through the wall. With the renvers, the wall will control the inside hind leg making it easier for the rider to keep the horse’s hind leg underneath his body.
Also at this stage I should have started the lateral work at the canter, but this work will be dealt with in a future article. I am now going to explain some transitions and combinations of exercises that I use to further develop collection and to improve the quality of the piaffe and passage later on.
The first exercise is the transition from the shoulder-in on the straight to the hindquarters-in on the circle, from the hindquarters-in to the medium trot while maintaining the circle and collecting again by returning to the shoulder-in. It is important to keep the rhythm especially in the hindquarters-in and not allow the hindquarters come in too much, because if so, he will lose the fluency of the trot.
Another exercise I use to develop suppleness and collection is transitions from shoulder-in to travers and back to shoulder-in. Again the maintenance of the rhythm is one of the proofs of the maintenance of correct balance and impulsion. I have to pay special attention to the control of the inside leg of the weaker side of the horse when doing travers to this side. If he escapes and brings the hindquarters in too much, I must correct by bringing him back to shoulder-in.
I make transitions from this shoulder-in in trot, to walk in shoulder-in, to increase the engagement action of my half halt, which passes through better in this balance. Also from the shoulder-in I make transitions to medium trot on the circle taking advantage of the suppleness, engagement and impulsion developed by the transitions, shoulder-in - travers.
The next exercise I use normally is the transition, travers-renvers-travers-renvers etc. I make transitions to walk in renvers, and from this renvers, I make the horse straight, I halt, and rein back, and depart in trot again. I only do the smallest number of steps at the walk, only the ones I need to do to straighten the horse up and to halt straight and square. I find this exercise extremely useful to develop the piaffe and passage.
To develop the piaffe activity after a few transitions travers-renvers, I make the horse straight and ask for piaffe.
To develop the piaffe engagement, I make the transitions travers-rein back -piaffe.
To develop the passage, I make some transitions, travers-renvers and from renvers, when I feel good collection and impulsion, I take the passage.
One other example of the use of the exercises, is the situation where the horse is lazy with one leg, say the right leg, while performing passage. I make transitions from trot in hindquarters in on a circle to the right, to passage, and back to the trot putting the hindquarters in, if I feel the right hind leg lazy again.
There are many different transitions and combinations of exercises we can use in the training. The ones that I have spoken about are only the basic ones that I have found good to use as examples. There is not such a thing as a catalogue that sets out a precise combination of exercises that you can find in a book, and follow to the letter to train your horse. Every rider and trainer should use his or her imagination and choose which exercises the horse needs to develop any particular basics or quality - it is a question of common sense, knowledge and experience.
At the beginning of this article, I said that the correct contact is the result of correct balance and impulsion. Contact has always been the cause of arguments, misconceptions and misinterpretations: contact is a result of a combination of qualities, contact does not make anything happen, what makes things happen is that combination of qualities. If I try to get the contact directly by an opposing resistance with my hands to the pushing of my legs, probably I will end up having some sort of contact, but I don’t believe this kind of contact will produce anything useful. I think because of this, we find so many riders complaining that their horses are too strong, this is no doubt a very modern and kinder way of says that the horse is heavy, unbalanced and contracted.
We also find riders who have abandoned their horse, without contact and any kind of impulsion and engagement, long and on the forehand - with the rider thinking that their horse is light.
Lightness to me is the perfect obedience of the horse to the rider’s aids, where the slightest possible use of the aids, gets the maximum possible response from the horse.
To produce this we have to have contact, but a contact that is the result of the correct balance and impulsion. This correct balance and impulsion, also gives us self carriage.
Part III
In order to confirm and develop this balance and impulsion, I start by making transitions from the 20 metre circle to the 10 metre circle, making sure that the horse does not slow down the canter and that he keeps a jump in his stride - especially on the 10 metre circle. If he loses his balance or drops the impulsion while moving to the smaller circle, I enlarge again the circle and increase my aids in order to re-establish the qualities of balance and impulsion, that I lost. I then bring him back to the 10 metre circle, from which I continue along the arena going large and straight while paying close attention to maintaining the same rhythm in the canter. When I feel the horse becoming comfortable with this exercise, I start the counter canter work, which is a very good way to develop suppleness and straightness. At the same time, I start making transitions from canter to walk and from walk to canter. On the 10 metre circle, I do transitions to the walk and I go back to the canter on the 20 metre circle. It is very important to keep the impulsion at the walk after making a transition from the canter (we should only walk a few steps).
Our ability to maintain this impulsion will increase the quality and the ease with which we do the flying change later on. I only do the transitions to walk when the quality of the canter is good (my canter being marked by good impulsion and a correct and consistent balance). I ask for these transitions from canter to walk and from walk to canter to ensure that I have impulsion and obedience to the half halt with a steady and soft contact.
These transitions also help prepare my horse for shoulder-in at the canter, which I ask for after leaving the second corner of the short wall as I start down the long side of the arena. I bring the shoulders a little bit in from the wall (more of a shoulder-fore position) with my attention on keeping the movement very forward. In this position of shoulder-fore I slide along the wall for a few strides, and I finish the exercise by bringing the horse to the 1Om circle and asking for a transition to walk, rewarding and patting.
When the horse is comfortable with this work I can increase the number of strides and increase the angle of the horse from the wall to the position of the shoulder-in. I can then make my transition to the walk along the wall while maintaining the position of the shoulder-in (I then walk forward and straighten my horse along the wall, taking the canter again as soon as my horse is straight.)
Because the horse already knows the half-pass, travers and renvers at the trot, I normally have no problems in teaching these exercises at the canter.
Usually at the canter I start the training of the half-pass at the same time I begin training the hindquarters-in exercises, following the same progression I did at the trot. When I am doing hindquarters-in on the circle at the canter, I am very careful about controlling the hindquarters. The horse has to bring the hindquarters in while keeping the engagement. (I have to be careful that he does not start 'dropping' the hindquarters or 'falling' in to the circle.) To achieve this I make frequent transitions from the hindquarters-in to the shoulder-in on the circle in order to control his inside hind leg, returning again to the hindquarters-in position. During this exercise we have to feel the horse improving his suppleness, engagement, impulsion and collection.
I am going now to explain some transitions and combinations of exercises that I use to further develop collection and later on develop the pirouette at the canter.
I start by riding on the 20 metre circle with the hindquarters in, making transitions from the 20 metre circle to the 10 metre circle while keeping the hindquarters in. Then while on that 10 metre circle I make frequent transitions from the hindquarters-in position to a straight position (always maintaining the 10 metre circle), returning to the hindquarters-in, on that circle.
When my horse shows the ability to make these transitions from the hindquarter-in on the 10 metre circle to a straight position on the circle and then back to the hindquarters-in, this tells me that he is in balance and proves he is not just drifting in with the hindquarters.
Another exercise that I find very useful to develop collection at the canter is the renvers at the counter canter. While riding the renvers at the canter and upon reaching the middle of the long wall, I over-collect the horse and ride two or three strides of what is almost a canter on the spot.
After these two or three strides I let go again and return to the normal canter white maintaining the renvers position. When I have my horse accepting this work with ease, I do the same counter canter along the wall in the renvers position, and about 15 metres before the corner I take my horse off the wall, pointing towards the middle of the next short wall. (Leaving the wall just past B or E, and riding towards A or C.) I then ride a half circle with the hindquarters in and I return to the same long wall at the true canter, riding forward along that wall in the travers position. Later on, instead of riding a half circle with the hindquarters in after leaving the wall, I will make a half pirouette.
To train the half pirouette I leave the wall and begin the half circle with the hindquarters in, but progressively I decrease the size of the half circle until I have achieved the pirouette.
Returning to the long wall while riding in the travers position helps the horse to keep his balance with that degree of collection. And now when I reach the end of the long wall (in the travers position) I can ride another half circle with the hindquarters in, followed by a sharp half pass back to the wall. Once returning to the wall I can slide along the wall again at a counter canter in the renvers position.
This exercise (renvers - half circle with the hindquarters in - travers - half circle with the hindquarters in - renvers again at the counter canter) is a very useful gymnastic exercise that develops the qualities the horse has to have to do the pirouette at the canter. When we achieve the pirouette, we achieve the highest degree of collection that we will ask for at the canter.
While thinking about this, it is very important not to become confused about the difference between engagement and collection. Engagement is one particular quality of collection.
Engagement by itself does not mean collection. When the horse gallops, or when the horse extends the trot, he engages to a very high degree, and yet, he is not collected. I can make a very good transition from trot to walk without needing collection - needing only engagement. (Unless, of course, I am making the transition from the collected trot to the collected walk.) When ridden in collection, the horse takes the weight on his hindquarters, carries the weight on his hindquarters, and pushes the weight more upwards. It is this upward direction of his movement that shows the collection. If the horse pushes the weight much more forward than upward - for example, when he gallops - it is certain that he is extremely engaged, but he is definitely not collected. This means of course that engagement is one very important element of collection, but not its only defining characteristic. The way we use engagement - forward vs. upward- is what determines whether we are showing collection.