Exercise(s) to help shoulder position during walk/trot transitions?

[soloequestrian]

To start: trying my best to organise a lesson. My instructor is the best when she is actually here but trying to communicate with her when she isn't is virtually impossible.
I'm struggling with walk to trot transitions - yes, pretty basic. My green horse finds it easy to push her inside shoulder to the inside as she goes up into trot and then this makes the trot crooked and steering very difficult. I'm trying to show her how to lift her inside shoulder up and in towards her body as she does the transition so she has the correct bend, but I'm finding it difficult to do that clearly and end up nagging. We've done lots of walk groundwork exercises and I have reasonable control of the shoulders in walk (although I still have to work quite hard), but during the upwards transition it just goes all to pot. We did manage some reasonable work on the left rein today but right is more difficult. Does anyone have any exercises they can recommend to help her understand what I want? She's very happy to try her best, I'm just not managing to let her know exactly what I mean at the moment!

 

[Bernster]

Lots to unpick as you know, and always easier to work out in person. But I’ll share what I’m working on with my horse who is always leaning onto his left shoulder - so we fall out on the right and in on the left. On the left it’s shoulder in and leg yield to get him moving off my left leg and bending left. On the right it’s counter bend and whatever shoulder out is properly called (ie the opposite of what we do on the left!).

A lot of it is him not pushing through the hind so we work on that too and it helps him straighten up but essentially it’s lots of lateral work, and active back end, and controlling the shoulder and bend around the left leg.

And I also find that having a marker to work around really helps, so a pole or cone that you can focus on bending around it and into the corner (we are worse on corners).

 

[paddi22]

what happens if you try transitions with flex and counter flex?

 

[soloequestrian]

what happens if you try transitions with flex and counter flex?

Ha, ha, if only! We're not quite that refined yet.... I think I would need to have control of the shoulders to be able to ask for the flexion.

 

[soloequestrian]

On the left it’s shoulder in and leg yield to get him moving off my left leg and bending left. On the right it’s counter bend and whatever shoulder out is properly called (ie the opposite of what we do on the left!).

A lot of it is him not pushing through the hind so we work on that too and it helps him straighten up but essentially it’s lots of lateral work, and active back end, and controlling the shoulder and bend around the left leg.

And I also find that having a marker to work around really helps, so a pole or cone that you can focus on bending around it and into the corner (we are worse on corners).

Thanks, mine is interesting in that although she tends to fall in more to the right, she also tends to fall in to the left! I did some amateurish TRT type pattern moves today and hope that helped her a little. I'm not sure if I should just stick to walk while ridden for a bit to get the shoulder control better before we progress to trot or try to keep going with sorting the transition out at the same time as the walk... only walking gets a bit dull and feels finicky for a young horse...
A marker that's slightly spooky might do the trick - get her to lift herself away from it!

 

[DabDab]

In very broad brush terms the thing that gives you control of the shoulder is riding from inside leg to outside rein. Without wanting to be teaching granny to suck eggs, are you actually riding her inside leg to outside rein? And if so does she understand/is she accepting of it? You should be able to walk a 20m circle in the middle of the arena without needing any contact on your inside rein to stay on the right line.

It sounds a little bit (though could be wrong as is a hard thing to judge without seeing), like you are supporting her too much with your inside rein, so when you give with the reins when transitioning into trot she is plunging her weight onto the inside shoulder.

 

[LEC]

I find setting up a large square with poles on the straight bits really helpful for straightness and getting a horse to use itself properly and then add in the transitions. I think I spend my life riding in shoulder fore on young horses to try and sort this issue. I do a lot of it out hacking as tends to be easier for them and in straight lines. I then add leg yeild, travers etc all in walk as they are nice and forwards and get it easier.

The Square Exercise with Caroline Moore - British Eventing Training Exercises - YouTube

 

[soloequestrian]

I'm definitely riding her inside to outside, trying to ignore the reins although part of the shoulder dropped inwards is to turn her head to the outside.
I'm glad it's not just me with the shoulder-fore thing - pretty much all the time we're moving I'm asking for her to move her shoulder and it gets to feel like mithering! We're just getting going with hacking because I don't have anyone to go with so it's been a slow process to get her confident on her own. That's probably the answer though - hopefully get her fitter and stronger over the summer.

 

[LiquidMetal]

I have an OTTB who does the same thing. When I first got him, it was awful. He’d slowly drift to the right in every gait and struggled to flex that way. He raced on a counter clockwise track so was to be expected. It was improved substantially but if he gets some time off, he’ll try to work it back into his routine.

I’m a follower in the Equitation Science method of horse training made popular by Andrew McLean. It centers on the horse being in self carriage from the very beginning. Basically at the lower levels, you pick a line and tempo and your horse maintains it until you do something different. If you are holding your horse up with one leg or rein, it will never attain self carriage. It’s important to teach this from very beginning so you can remove all rein and leg pressure (negative reinforcement) and horse will maintain line and tempo. I worked very hard (and still do) to correct my horse and leave him. Even if I knew he’d fall back to right within a few strides. I’d use indirect rein to correct, remove pressure and wait. He’d carry straight line for a few strides and then drift again. I would repeat about 1000 times. He’s much better now and I typically only have to make corrections in warmup.

I’d focus on improving your indirect rein turns. This is what controls the shoulders. I cannot adequately describe how hideous our indirect rein turns off right rein were for the first 6 months. Like truly awful. It might take the length of arena to get him to step shoulders to left just one step. Now I could do 3 turns each way within length of arena and horse supples easily.

My last tip is to review how you’re sitting in saddle. I naturally twist my hips to right a bit due to scoliosis so I exacerbate my horse’s tendency to drift right. If I concentrate on making sure my hips are straight and I’m stepping down evenly into stirrups, drifting improves a lot.

 

[scats]

I would take the focus off the inside shoulder and think more about where that weight is going- likely onto the outside shoulder.
Before you go into trot- walk lots of squares, concentrating on bringing the outside shoulder round the corner of each square, rather than turning using the inside leg and hand (which will cause over bending to the inside and falling onto the outside shoulder). You will likely find one rein harder than the other.
Once you feel like you have taken the weight off off the outside shoulder in turns, and the horse is responding to the outside aids and moving away from them rather than falling into them, then go large and move into trot, but try to keep the same thought process during the transition that you want the horse to come off the outside aids. If you ask for trot and feel them curl to the inside and the weight load onto the shoulder again, go back to walk and put some more squares in until they are off that outside aid again. Sometimes it helps to keep the outside knee firmly against the saddle, as it acts as a bit of a block to help keep them straight.

 

[soloequestrian]

Thanks, that's helpful. I've been trying to keep the aids minimal but it's good to think about it very clearly. I'd love to ready more of Andrew Maclean's stuff but it seems to be both expensive and fairly inaccessible - they don't seem to have e-versions of things!

 

[soloequestrian]

I would take the focus off the inside shoulder and think more about where that weight is going- likely onto the outside shoulder..

My problem is that the weight is going into her inside shoulder, not outside - I'd like to get it to go more into the outside to even up.

 

[scats]

My problem is that the weight is going into her inside shoulder, not outside - I'd like to get it to go more into the outside to even up.

So she’s falling in, not out? Sorry, I read it that she was bending/curling into her inside shoulder.

Is it on both reins or just one?

 

[Equi]

I find carrying a short whip to the side they fall in/out on helps. Just to place at the shoulder as a “blocker” not to be used. It can give you time then to work out your own leg and aid. Once they then get what you’re asking the whip can be removed.

 

[soloequestrian]

Pleased today. I tried both the square exercise and concentrating more on stopping the aids as soon as she responded. We has two very soft trot transitions to the left (her better rein) - the transition itself was slow to come and we only trotted a few strides but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she's sorting her brain and body out rather than just can't be bothered! To the right we had some good steps in walk but I've given myself permission to not trot until things are a bit more consistent.
Just to clarify - she falls onto her inside shoulder on both reins but it's more pronounced on the right rein. I do also carry a stick (with my clicker taped to it) and it does help to sometimes reinforce the inside aid.
Thank you for the help so far - any further suggestions welcome!