Keeping the correct bend, and resolving "loosing the shoulder"

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KatB

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Mare bag has really started to work nicely on the flat 95% of the time, but is still an opinionated little madam on occasions!

She naturally works a lot better on the right rein than the left, which I have always thought is probably slightly down to me! On the left rein, she will spook at LOTS of things to drop her left shoulder inwards and bend to the outside, will struggle to take the right rein and would much rather scoot past things unbalanced bending to the ouside...

Now I have tried lots of different things to keep her even down both reins, and off both legs equally, including leg yielding, shoulder in, etc, and she CAN do it, but will still get spooky in certain parts of the school on the left rein, and drop to the inside.

I have tried loads of things including letting go of the left rein when she does this and pushing her over with my left leg into the right rein, lifting my left hand and pushing her over with my left leg, flicking her with the whip on the left side to keep her off my leg, widening my hands to keep an even contact and to keep her straighter, but everything results in her scooting off, getting tense and grabbing the left rein.

When she is working nicely, she can flex equally on both reins, do flexion and counter flexion on both reins, and work in different outlines easily, so I don't think it's a phsyical thing... I have also been working really hard to make sure i keep wieght in my left seatbone, as I know she can throw me to the right, which just assists her!!

Anyone got any ideas please how to resolve this?! Or do I just avoid the spooky corners in the school that cause this!?!
 
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With mine on the left rein (which is the stiffest too) I work large on the left rein making sure she is absolutely straight from both my legs into both my hands, this is very important, then when you have that throughness go onto a 20 metre circle (left rein) and think of controlling the outside shoulder by bringing it round with your outside rein against the neck (make sure your hand doesn't cross the wither) and your outside leg on. Gradually spiral the circle down to much smaller until you have the 'give' and bend and then spiral out again. I then go large think straight again, then when happy with that, go shoulder-in and then back to the spiralling. This works for mine who are both stiffest on the left.
 
One thing that I have been recently taught by a new instructuor is that actually both my horses lean on my leg (for me its the right not the left) - i had always thought that if a horse is leaning one way then you should use the leg they are leaning in to, to push them off it (which is obviously true to a certain extent) but what was happening with me was that they were actually leaning on it for support and therefore i was escalating the problem. When they lean to the inside now i actually take my leg away a little and step into the opposite stirrup so they have nothing to lean on and balance themselves. This might not be your issue but it has really helped me with with the one sidedness issues so might be worth a go!
 
B is very similar. He's quite spooky at the moment. One minute he's going lovely, the next he's staring to the outside at the tractor/filler/pile of grit that we've already passed many times.

I'm still trying to work out how to resolve it, but yesterday I found that turning onto a 15 metre circle as soon as he spooked and maintaining the circle until he's back listening to me, bending properly and ignoring the object seemed to work quite well. He pretty soon improved quite a bit in walk and trot. He was still terrible in canter, but he's only 5 and his canter is extremely green, so that was only to be expected.

Not sure if it'll work for yours, but it improved him.
 
I was riding my friends mare (it is rather a pea on a drum situation!) because she is so big I struggle to keep her from falling out through the shoulders, to stop this I just carried my whip down the shoulder (whichever way she was falling out). Obviously this is only temporary but I did find it helped my boy too
 
this is my tip for coping with spooking....

when riding towards the spooky area (assuming it's a known point)
bring the horse back to walk before that spooky spot
make sure to make a nice downwards transition well before the tension to spook builds
as you approach the spooky spot DO NOT apply lots of leg, instead work the necfk making sure she remains soft and NOT BLOCKED
Kicking a horse forwards/sideways etc into a blocked neck is futile.
Go past the spooky spot in a nice soft necked walk, then ask for an upwards transition again
Repeat this until she forgets all about the spook, and attempt a trot by
if she spooks in trot repeat the walking stuff above

This is so helpful to mine, and was told to me only recently (last year) and has totally changed the way I react to spooking noe, the main gem about it is

'if you have a soft supple neck you can control the horse, kicking into a blocked neck is only going to make them spook quicker or tense up more, and you have no more control'


Hope that helps feel free to ignore me :) ;)
 
I find setting up a physical barrier really helpful for things like this. So I just put poles on the ground in a large square with gaps to ride through. You can then get the shoulder under control with the correct bend especially working on turning the shoulders in front of you. When it has been established you can move on round the arena and if they start to bulge again just ride back into the square. It helps the rider stay really precise and the horse as they have to stay within the square. Its great as well for making sure you are even in both seat bones and legs as you will get thrown to one side to begin with.
 
A suggestion I was given a couple of weeks ago, although mine wasn't for spooking, more incorrect bend and falling through, was to actually ask for the incorrect bend. I forget the reasoning though!
 
Could you clarify exactly what she does, as I am not sure I understand (sorry, I am being very dim!!!)? If she's on the left rein and droping the left shoulder she should be overbending to the outside in which case you need to counter-flex her to correct this. If she's on the left rein and bending the 'wrong way' to the outside then she is not droping the left shoulder, she is droping the right shoulder and overburdening the left - to correct this she needs to respect your left leg. What happens if you use spurs, or boot her with the left leg or tap her on the left shoulder with a stick?

This may be completely off the mark, but the spooking would worry me a tiny bit. All horses are stiffer on one rein than the other but if she is persistently stiff and spooky on one rein I would wonder whether there is a bit of a physical cause. It needn't be something serious, a muscle tweak could make a sensitive horse react to the pain by spooking, so it might be worth looking into that possibility.
 
What I have found has really worked on my horse who was spooking was to work the horse away from the spooky area for as long as it takes to get the horse soft and listening. I try and get him in a fairly deep contact and ensure that I can move his neck whereever I need to without loosing his whole body.
With regards to keeping the bend without loosing the outside rein, I have found that if I have my outside rein slightly forward of my inside rein and against his neck, I can then ask for the bend with the inside rein. Some times I have to do quite large inside flexions but still supporting with the outside rein and outside leg.
Also, before moving to the scary area do some shoulder in and leg yeild and make sure she is really infront of the leg. A good way to do this is to ride the lateral work almost to a medium trot and stay in rising.
Finally, counter flexion, if you ask her to counter flex, you will keep the shoulder straighter.
 
Are you right handed? apparently very common for right handed people to collapse slightly on the right side of their thorax and thus transfer weight slightly to the right. this then causes horse to fall out onto right shoulder and overbend to left. (have exactly this problem with Bailey) I have found imagining you are stretching up through your right rib cage and slightly pushing it forward (if that makes sense) so you dont collapse, whilst keeping your shoulders down and relaxed shifts your balance slightly more to the left. This brings your right leg more in contact with the saddle and horse and supports the horses right shoulder without actually using the leg as such.

may just be that i collapse badly but this has certainly helped me, hope i explained it ok, will show you sometime if not :D
 
sorry also meant to say:

B used to be v naughty on right rein too, think his lack of balance made it hard work so he evaded. because all his weight was going through the right shoulder he would hang onto the left rein almost like it was holding him upright. did lots work in walk making sure i kept my weight central (which felt like up and left cos id been slouching too long!) bringing his right shoulder more underneath him and letting him support himself with right hind. became much more even in contact and once i could coordinate and he could balance well in walk with good bend, moved up to small bits of trot. still work in progress but getting there
 
She sounds identical to T (excepting that the contact still has to be negotiated at the start of a schooling session, but that's just her!). Completely agree with Chloe - if they resist through the neck then you'd had it until they soften, and they won't soften if they are being nappy little madams and evading, and the cycle continues! With T I find that trying to predict when I'll loose the shoulder is a bit of a game (which invariably I loose!) so instead when I do loose it I pop her straight onto a 10/15m circle, coming back to walk if needed, and then insisting on getting her to soften through the neck and jaw so that I can ride her up and over the back, from the leg to the hand. Depending on what I was wanting in the first place will determine what sort of "give" I'll demand. For example, today we were jumping (so working in an outline was more or less out of the question as jumps are just too much fun) so when I lost the shoulder it was back to working on a 15m circle, in that spot, until she softened. If I've had a negotiation about the contact and I'm actually wanting to school on the flat I'll get her much deeper and if she is being a total toad and completely chucks her front end around I have been known to put her into an almost Rolkur position for a few minutes, getting lots of L/R flexion before sending her forward and up into the contact.

Problem with these mares is that 9/10 you have to negotiate and plant a suggestion so sometimes you ask for more so when they offer what you actually want you can say "thats even better thankyou, lets work with this, well done, clever girl for thinking of that ;) ;) ;) "
 
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