Friday, October 23, 2009

Riding straight

Straightness seems to be one of the most elusive feelings in dressage. Because all horses are to some degree crooked by nature, the rider must then "fix" this by making them straight through training. Many books discuss the importance of straightness but rarely do you actually understand how it feels and how it is done. I always think of riding the outside shoulder of the horse. If mother nature tends to have the horse with it's shoulder going out and it's inside hind leg travelling to the inside, then the key is to bring the outside shoulder in and the inside hind leg under. So, having said that how does that happen. If you think of the movement "Shoulder-in".
we displace the shoulder of the horse to the inside track using our outside rein and leg aids while maintaining the bend, and forward motion with our inside leg and a little inside rein but the dominent aids are the outside aids to move the shoulder. Shoulder fore (which really just means straight) is a mini version of shoulder in. So, if you can do a shoulder in , you should be able to ride the horse straight at all times. The "feel" for straight can also be elusive. When the horse is truly straight, they do not feel heavy on one rein or the other, they feel lighter on their feet because the hind legs are working under the horses body not out to the side so more pushing power is being created and the horse does not lean on the inside rein. A true test of correctness is that you can soften the inside rein, and still have correct inside bend, with the horses neck coming straight out of the shoulder and inside flexion. Then they are straight. There is a visual difference too. When the horse is crooked, the movement is less, the expression is less and the overall picture is uncomfortable looking, usually for both horse and rider.