Dressage musings...contact and hands

[FrodoBeutlin]

I always thought the point of self carriage was that the horse would stay in "correct" carriage by his self. Hence the point in some dressage tests about giving and retaking the rein and all that.

Yes, my trainer actually used those same words (err, are you my trainer by any chance?! ) - she said precisely that, that 'self carriage' means he has to stay there by himself, and that when you give and retake the reins nothing must change, neither outline nor tempo etc.

Personally, I prefer an ideal of working off just the weight of the reins, as to me that's the point of the "self" carriage ideal. However, there is of course a danger there that you can kid yourself that the horse is working properly when in fact they're just hiding away from the bit, I realise.....

You can definitely feel the difference though, when a horse is truly carrying himself and light in the hand you can still feel a connection (and if unsure just half halt, if the half halt goes through then the contact is spot on!), while if a horse is hiding behind the bit you feel NOTHING, my horse used to do it quite a bit and trust me, you can definitely feel the difference!

 

[Kelpie]

LOL, FB - I'd love to know who your trainer is? maybe pm me?

yup, definately know what you mean about that difference between feeling "a nothing" and "a connection" - even if that connection is just the weight of the reins

Now here's one that really boggles my mind, tho - to get to a light contact, do you have to go through a phase of having a heavier contact first? Particularly with a green horse who has never worked into an outline before. Even the trainers I follow that do go for a light contact seem to differ on their ideas there, so again there's no surprise us mere mortals get confuddled!

 

[FrodoBeutlin]

Now here's one that really boggles my mind, tho - to get to a light contact, do you have to go through a phase of having a heavier contact first? Particularly with a green horse who has never worked into an outline before. Even the trainers I follow that do go for a light contact seem to differ on their ideas there, so again there's no surprise us mere mortals get confuddled!

I'm not sure, but I guess that as the horse goes on in his training, self carriage AND lightness should improve - in the same way that a horse's sensitivity to the aids improves through the years and the training (my horse is far more sensitive and reactive now that he is ten, he really needs the very lightest of aids etc - he definitely wasn't like this when he was 4 or 5!)

But I do think it depends a lot on the horse, for instance when I first got here my trainer used to tell me all the time, because of my horse's history of dropping behind the bit, that in his case having a firmer contact was far better and we actually worked for months on this, and it's only fairly recently, with the development of half steps / piaffe and really collected (pirouette) canter, that he started to truly carry himself.

 

[Booboos]

What an interesting thread! Here's my two pennies worth:

From my extremely limited experience I have the impression that the amount of contact depends on the horse. R tends to lean on me, so he needs little, mini give and re-takes constantly, especially with the inside rein as he loves to have me carry him around and I oblige (naughty inside hand won't stay still! Sometimes I hold onto straps and that makes a huge difference). F, on the other hand, does not put any weight on the hand, he is tense and short in his neck. With him I was advised to put more weight onto a very still hand , not worry about the BTV as such because by letting go of the rein when he was BTV I was making it worse. Rather he needed something to push himself into (clearly legs and seat have a huge role to play in this, otherwise it doesn't work).

Inside leg to outside hand is repeated so often, I think people assume it must be really easy to do, but it's (at least for me!) very, very tough!