Tips to get a horse to move off your leg

Jenna1406

Jenna1406

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Looking for tips to get a horse more forward off your leg. M is a 16'1 warmblood, very intelligent and if he can get out of working he will, he is very thrawn but never bad. He can work perfectly fine but will choose not to put effort into it. We currently do lots of transitions to try and get him more sharp but when trying to keep him in a good trot he feels lazier and lazier and basically you feel the burn on your legs. He is occasionally ridden in fairly blunt spurs and schooling whip to back the aids up.

Does anyone have any tips or exercises that would help with this?

TIA Jenna
 
I would start on the ground, asking him to move over from pressure where your leg aid would be.

Then its all about consistency, I would ditch the spurs and ride with two schooling whips, ie one either side!

Ask with your leg lightly, if he doesn't go then a flip with both whips to send him on. Forget about outline, pace straightness etc, its all about moving off your leg.

I presume he is not young?

It is certainly worth having a few lessons close together to make sure that you are not giving him mixed signals - then it is up to you to be disciplined enough to always ride him in this way - which is really hard btw :)
 
LJR said:
I would start on the ground, asking him to move over from pressure where your leg aid would be.

Then its all about consistency, I would ditch the spurs and ride with two schooling whips, ie one either side!

Ask with your leg lightly, if he doesn't go then a flip with both whips to send him on. Forget about outline, pace straightness etc, its all about moving off your leg.

I presume he is not young?

It is certainly worth having a few lessons close together to make sure that you are not giving him mixed signals - then it is up to you to be disciplined enough to always ride him in this way - which is really hard btw :)
Click to expand...

On the ground he moves away from you regardless of where to push him. Sometimes when he is in one of his awkward moods he will push against you until he is ready to move but now that we know he does that, we think ahead an he generally moves straight away.

He is 9 years old. OH has owned him for a year. He must have been well schooled at some point as he can do it and when it does its beautiful but there are a few years that we know he managed to get away with an awful lot.

I will get my OH to try with the two schooling whips. There has been various people that have ridden him and it all comes back the same. OH can get the best tune out of him but he knows him alot better.

Jenna
 
Two things it sounds like to me - you refer to using your legs a lot, so you are probably very effectively teaching him to ignore them. Don't use them to keep him going, just to transition, and once in the pace, if he slows down (mine does this so I do know how it feels) transition a few times in quick succession. Five or ten strides walk, same trot, same walk, halt, trot etc.
And I have come to realise that a lot of so called "lazy" horses are really on the forehand and need to learn to shift their balance back and engage their hinds, don't know if this applies to yours? Rein back has helped us a lot - it gets the hind legs underneath and is a bit of a gymnastic exercise, strengthening them each time. Rein back to walk, then eventually to trot and you hopefully will have a horse who "takes" you, mine does now. The other useful exercise is half halt, so transitions to halt and then onwards are good preparations for that. Good luck - stop using yur legs and work on engagement, and you will find it is much more pleasant.
 
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