Training that seemed like a good idea, but then caused issues later down the line!

[kerilli]

i dont use inside leg for canter at all, outside leg back, inside seatbone enagaged a little. wouldnt say outside leg is pushing in, but is definately *the aid*.
for flying changes it is the change in seatbone and swing of new outside leg back then asks for the changes-when you ride tempis your seatbones and outside leg settle in to the swing/rhythm and that is IMO the easiest and neatest way to get them. trying to get your legs to do different things (outside leg back but passive, inside leg on) AND changing your seatbones gives you too much to think about in 2 and 1 time tempis.

once very established the changes come from the change in seatbones, but the outside leg still moves back, as a back up indicator.

Ah right, very similar to what i've been taught then, thanks for the clarification.

 

[smiffyimp]

umm, i was always taught to use outside leg actively for canter strike off, and from bitter experience i now know that this is absolutely wrong, and totally screws up your trot half-pass later... you swing your leg back and they expect it to be a canter aid, and then have a strop when you correct and say 'no, wrong, stay in trot'... had quite a few pesade/courbette moments in Adv tests with my lovely but opinionated grey over that one... she did NOT like to be corrected! as far as she was concerned, she was right and i was wrong.


This is soo, true - i was taught hard on with the outside leg! Thankfully my now 7yo was saved the confusion when I backed him as I got shouted at for using the outside

 

[TarrSteps]

We teach horses to stop from any pace at a 'whoa' when they are two year olds in the round pen - it's a safety thing as well as good training, especially if they are going on to do reining.
The only thing is that you have to remember not to say it if you don't mean it or even any word that sounds like it - I have a lovely 3yo that will absolutely plant himself in the sand if you say it, even from a speedy baby canter and it's a bit disconcerting !

The "auto whoa" is a real QH thing and they drum it in to the horses until they stop like you've dropped anchor.

We had a bit of "cross pollination" one place I worked, where we moved QHs between showing over fences in breed classes and in regular hunter/jumper competition, where the culture is to say "whoa-ho" quietly when you want the horse to steady in a related difference. One very good pro took one on to jump in bigger classes an I TOLD him this but in the heat of the moment I guess he forgot . . . the horse whoa-ed alright, half way down the line. Rider didn't though.

On the other hand, I saw another horse I knew get loose at a show and knew he had a QH background so as he pelted past me I yelled WHOA at him and he stopped like he'd hit a wall. Everyone around was very impressed.

I had one that had to bribed into the ring (he had taken to flipping over in the gate/start box) so we sort of clicker trained him with a box full of mints to follow my groom. We did know not to shake/show him the box but he got so canny he started to notice when she went to put her hand in her pocket. I was warming up in the absolutely pouring rain and just as I went past her she put her hands in her pockets and the horse turned back so fast I was sitting in middair. Then mud.

On a more serious and pervasive note, this is pretty much a standard problem for any rider/trainer. The fact is you don't know the repercussions of what you teach until sometimes years later so if you're not super managed but someone with a LOT more experience (and even then), you're going to get it wrong sometimes. And the horse is going to pay. I had a trainer who used to say he was using his hard won knowledge to do penance for all the horses he'd ruined when he was younger and I've adopted the motto myself. Sad but true. So many things people tell you not to do really don't seem so bad at the time - sometimes quite the opposite - and it's only ages later, sometimes on a totally different horse, that you see why they warned you.

 

[TarrSteps]

Re the canter thing . . . but the "outside leg back" is not really the aid to canter, it's sort of a short form for the whole aid, which is "horse, position yourself this way, up and forward push!". All the outside leg is doing is activating that hindleg and pushing it slightly under the body (less and less as the horse gets stronger and straighter). It's not an arbitrary signal, but it is part of a "construct" not one entire aid in isolation. So the hind leg back in other circumstances shouldn't mean "canter", it should mean "activate the hind leg and step under the body", the rest of the aid dictates pace etc. Aids are conversations not orders.

You *could* teach a horse to canter by pulling on its ear. And most horses canter fine off a vocal cue, but we use the ridden aid we do for a reason, because it's built out of the component parts.

I never understand the "inside leg only" aid as how does only energizing the inside hind leg get the job done when that's not the leg that initiates the change from halt/walk/trot to canter? And what about the seat to shape the horse? How do you have the inside seatbone forward without also, even subtly, having the outside one back?

 

[ecrozier]

I'm confusing myself with this aid to canter discussion! With my older horse I think what I do is nudge with inside leg on girth whilst sliding outside leg back but not with any real pressure, and this is what I have been aiming for with young horse.... Is this about right?! Not sure we will ever get to half pass level but am worried now! Someone on here said something about thinking about lifting a horse's forehand into canter and I have been actively thinking about that recently and it's definately improved youngster's upwards transitions!

 

[noodle_]

i canter by leg back (outside) inside on the girth .......... how do you lot ask?

(im asking cause that ^ is how i was taught..........?)

When she was 4 it was a boot to get the message, now its literally a tickle with my leg

 

[SpottedCat]

On a more serious and pervasive note, this is pretty much a standard problem for any rider/trainer. The fact is you don't know the repercussions of what you teach until sometimes years later so if you're not super managed but someone with a LOT more experience (and even then), you're going to get it wrong sometimes. And the horse is going to pay. I had a trainer who used to say he was using his hard won knowledge to do penance for all the horses he'd ruined when he was younger and I've adopted the motto myself. Sad but true. So many things people tell you not to do really don't seem so bad at the time - sometimes quite the opposite - and it's only ages later, sometimes on a totally different horse, that you see why they warned you.

Isn't it Ian Stark who said you ruin a few good horses on the way to the top? Meaning, I suppose, just this point!

I think the seatbone positioning thing is really fascinating - I've had a lot of training by a lot of good people, and can count on one hand, in fact on two fingers (!) the number of people who have actively taught me this - one in the USA and one in the UK, whom I sought out having learnt the basics in the USA (would have learnt more than the basics had I been there longer, and I would kill to go back). I wonder if it's because really good people do it without realising it, leaving those of us who are not natural riders (I've fought hard for every bit of skill I have, and I've learnt every single thing, I'm not a natural rider by any means), floundering because it doesn't occur to us?!

 

[Auslander]

Teaching horses to stop when you pull on the neck strap. Great out hacking - but not so great when your horse takes the worlds longest flier at quite a big hedge out hunting. I grabbed the handle so as not to remove any teeth, and giraffe horse obligingly slammed on the anchors on landing. Time elapsed between horse stopping, and me faceplanting was about 3 hours - Not sure how far I flew, but apparently there was time for a string of profanities and much waggling of arms and legs...

 

[Tnavas]

Some years ago I allowed a friend to take my horse to a cross country training course held by an Olympic rider. Friend was rather inclined to fiddle with horses mouth - classically schooled you only had to put your leg on him and he'd drop into the contact) Olympic person said as he is fighting into the jump you are to go down the grid and halt him in the middle of it.

Horse obligingly did as was asked and discovered that "OK I don't have to go over fences I'm presented at" and from that day on was inclined to stop if he felt like doing so. Prior to that he had never ever stopped - I taught him to jump and even when he was in his early stages of training he went over a fence, even if he climbed on it or knocked it all down. I was so dissapointed in the Olympic riders training methods that I would never reccommend again.

 

[Festive_Felicitations]

I've ridden a few horses with 'surprise' handbrakes The best would have to be the mare where if you took both feet out of the stirrups stopped dead, great if your falling off not so great if you trying to get your feet clear of rocks/water...

And a QHx I never worked out what his 'cue' was, and no one else knew as he was knew on the yard but he impaled me on the horn of his western saddle a couple of times

 

[TarrSteps]

Isn't it Ian Stark who said you ruin a few good horses on the way to the top? Meaning, I suppose, just this point!

ANY top rider will admit to this - I've heard it from the very, very best. I think it's one of the secrets to improving one's riding, actually. Once you accept that you WILL ruin horses then you're free to work on minimizing the damage. It's just the specific version of all those pithy aphorisms about things like having to break eggs and failing upwards. People tend to either have as a goal to do "nothing" which almost certainly means not improving, either, or they simply don't want to know that their actions might be bad for the horse (although they might pay lip service in an attempt to get people on internet forums to insist otherwise ) and so can't recognise that it's within their power to change those actions or at least ameliorate the effects of the things they can't change.

I think the seatbone positioning thing is really fascinating - I've had a lot of training by a lot of good people, and can count on one hand, in fact on two fingers (!) the number of people who have actively taught me this - one in the USA and one in the UK, whom I sought out having learnt the basics in the USA (would have learnt more than the basics had I been there longer, and I would kill to go back). I wonder if it's because really good people do it without realising it, leaving those of us who are not natural riders (I've fought hard for every bit of skill I have, and I've learnt every single thing, I'm not a natural rider by any means), floundering because it doesn't occur to us?!

Interesting. I suspect it starts because as absolute beginners most of us were taught "outside leg back and canter" because it's simply too tricky and confusing to do otherwise in a group and/or with very novice riders. Suitable horses know the shorthand so they canter and voila, a misunderstanding is born. Then perhaps later instructors just assume students know it already. . . . That's part of what makes teaching riding so hard, you never know what people do or don't know. I've found that particularly difficult since moving - people here do not tend to know the same things as people where I'm from but they tend to know different things. It's one of those "you don't know what you don't know so you don't ask" situations.

 

[Gamebird]

gah! flying changes seem to cause havoc! I'm deffo going to make sure I only teach them when I need to

Don't panic, and teach them sooner rather than later but be absolutely clear in what you want and when.

I have a horse who will canter across a diagonal in his jumping saddle and me in a lightish seat and will change every time perfectly like clockwork. Put a dressage saddle on, sit up and keep the aids clear and he will counter canter serpentines/figures of eight/loops/circles etc. He has never, never changed whilst in counter canter (unless asked to). He is generally quite obedient and understands what you want if you ask clearly. I can get him to alternately strike off in true or counter canter correctly every time so long as I use my brain!

 

[KatB]

Don't panic, and teach them sooner rather than later but be absolutely clear in what you want and when.

I have a horse who will canter across a diagonal in his jumping saddle and me in a lightish seat and will change every time perfectly like clockwork. Put a dressage saddle on, sit up and keep the aids clear and he will counter canter serpentines/figures of eight/loops/circles etc. He has never, never changed whilst in counter canter (unless asked to). He is generally quite obedient and understands what you want if you ask clearly. I can get him to alternately strike off in true or counter canter correctly every time so long as I use my brain!

Would agree with this, I taught my mare at 5, and she will still do counter canter as she knows to wait for the aid. She occasionally "forgets", but that's due to her being a smart arse and she would do that regardless of whether I had taught her changes or not!!!

 

[duckling]

I've ridden a few horses with 'surprise' handbrakes The best would have to be the mare where if you took both feet out of the stirrups stopped dead, great if your falling off not so great if you trying to get your feet clear of rocks/water...

When I used to help out at a riding school, the ponies were taught to stop when the rider fell off - and on the whole it worked well One day we were doing a yard gymkhana, all of us lined up for the 'ride and run' race, galloped to the end, jumped off... and the ponies all froze, none of them would budge! The instructors and yard owners were wetting themselves!

 

[TarrSteps]

Don't panic, and teach them sooner rather than later but be absolutely clear in what you want and when.

I have a horse who will canter across a diagonal in his jumping saddle and me in a lightish seat and will change every time perfectly like clockwork. Put a dressage saddle on, sit up and keep the aids clear and he will counter canter serpentines/figures of eight/loops/circles etc. He has never, never changed whilst in counter canter (unless asked to). He is generally quite obedient and understands what you want if you ask clearly. I can get him to alternately strike off in true or counter canter correctly every time so long as I use my brain!

As above. I would say there is a "window" for teaching changes and the horse will not find them as easy to learn if you leave it too late.

In North America we differentiate between "hunter" changes and "dressage" changes because a missed change in our working hunter classes basically means no chance of a placing, so lots of horses are taught them very early on and encouraged to do them "automatically". But if they're taught correctly and carefully, lots of horses learn both very comfortably. I suspect they think of them as two separate movements and it certainly helps if riders do likewise.

I ride one here that was "taught" to change off a tap with the stick. I'm sure it wasn't intentional but it's now a pretty significant problem because he's not a very engaged horse naturally and if you even think about touching him with the stick in counter canter he'll change but if you ride strongly enough to prevent it he gets very upset, starts to chuck himself around and has a meltdown. Very annoying. I suspect whomever taught him thought they were quite smart for getting it done but he's paying the price now.

 

[kirstyhen]

Mal has always done Flying Changes, since the day she learnt to canter, she is another smart arse mare who would skip along changing as soon as she felt me shift my weight
But equally I can keep her in Counter Canter as long as I get it right!

I am still to find out what bad affects my crappy training has had on Mal, I shouldn't imagine I'll have to wait long

 

[LEC]

I feel very guilty reading all this about teaching counter canter and flying changes on young horses as I seem to spend all my time trying to get the basics right and until you can have collection and sit in the canter I do not think the flying changes are good enough quality. I am now wondering about how backwards my horse is in his flatwork because I am just not happy enough with the contact, bend and engagement so until he is uphill and perfect in that stuff he will not be doing anything more complicated.

 

[Baydale]

I feel very guilty reading all this about teaching counter canter and flying changes on young horses as I seem to spend all my time trying to get the basics right and until you can have collection and sit in the canter I do not think the flying changes are good enough quality. I am now wondering about how backwards my horse is in his flatwork because I am just not happy enough with the contact, bend and engagement so until he is uphill and perfect in that stuff he will not be doing anything more complicated.

If it makes you feel any better I only teach them to make my showjumping rounds smoother, therefore it's not so important if they're not Uthopia-like in their quality.

 

[kirstyhen]

If it makes you feel any better I only teach them to make my showjumping rounds smoother, therefore it's not so important if they're not Uthopia-like in their quality.

Mine are more British Airways-style...

 

[TarrSteps]

If it makes you feel any better I only teach them to make my showjumping rounds smoother, therefore it's not so important if they're not Uthopia-like in their quality.

That was my point above. In the Colonies it's common to teach "hunter changes" to jumping horses almost as soon as their canter is stable, but they wouldn't win any dressage prizes for them. Apples and, well, at least pears.

 

[kerilli]

hmm, i just can't agree with the 'you will ruin horses' thing - not if you have a decent trainer regularly enough, and/or not if you actually care about horses!
i don't think teaching a horse something in a certain way which later comes back to bite you (or someone else) on the bum is 'ruining' it, but it depends what that thing was.
e.g. i've seen horses ruined very quickly - by being socked in the chops over fences, by being socked with the inside hand when they wouldn't work in an outline. the horse's confidence can just evaporate and then you have the devil of a job to convince it that it won't happen again... but those weren't really done while trying to teach something else, iyswim.
i freely admit that there are plenty of horses i didn't get the very best out of - a better, more experienced, maybe more ruthless rider would have won more and gotten them further, but i can hand-on-heart say i haven't ruined any... unless you count breaking a good horse down after running it at a 3-day when a top vet had just scanned it (because i was worried) and pronounced it 'absolutely fine'... but i kept him to the end of his days, in luxury, so maybe he coped with the fact that he didn't get to 3* or more...
re: changes - imho the horse's natural aptitude depends hugely on its natural balance and the quality of its canter. if it has a really good canter with a clear moment of suspension, it'll do them really easily and automatically, you hardly need to teach them for sj rounds etc. if it is earthbound and modest then it'll be tricky to teach and your timing will need to be absolutely spot on... i think they're better taught early fwiw, if possible, but not until the canter is fairly well balanced. sometimes we forget that the horse knows how to do them perfectly on its own (i've watched my foal do 2-time changes down the field fgs), it's just showing him/her that they can still do them with you on top, and ideally when you want them...

 

[TarrSteps]

hmm, i just can't agree with the 'you will ruin horses' thing - not if you have a decent trainer regularly enough, and/or not if you actually care about horses!
i don't think teaching a horse something in a certain way which later comes back to bite you (or someone else) on the bum is 'ruining' it, but it depends what that thing was.
e.g. i've seen horses ruined very quickly - by being socked in the chops over fences, by being socked with the inside hand when they wouldn't work in an outline. the horse's confidence can just evaporate and then you have the devil of a job to convince it that it won't happen again... but those weren't really done while trying to teach something else, iyswim.
i freely admit that there are plenty of horses i didn't get the very best out of - a better, more experienced, maybe more ruthless rider would have won more and gotten them further, but i can hand-on-heart say i haven't ruined any...

Perhaps it depends on your definition of "ruined". What I (and apparently Ian Stark and Mark Todd and Klaus Balkenhol and, according to something I just read, Harry Boldt . . .) mean is that you are always learning so you will not teach the horses at the beginning of your career as well as you will teach the horses that come later because you will learn from the mistakes you've made along the way. But those mistakes will cost the horses. Every extra jump, every unnecessary circle is, technically, taking something away from the horse. And you (well, not you , but you know what I mean) will let horses be heavy or crooked or underpowered, even for just a short period of time. Or you will ask extra of them when they're underprepared or tired or confused. Or you will use a saddle that doesn't fit or a farrier who doesn't know his job or ride on a bad surface or use a contraindicated piece of equipment or take advice from someone you shouldn't. "You" won't do any of these things because you MEAN to but the fact is not WANTING to hurt someone/thing doesn't mean you're NOT hurting them. And after it's happened you'll know a bit more about it and you'll be able to do it better the next time.

The horse I know who changes off the stick is a little bit ruined. He will NEVER have the quality of flying change he would have had otherwise. He has been confused and made anxious over something that never needed to happen. I know that's a mild example but having the job of trying to fix him, I will now be forever after careful that I, personally, never inadvertently fall into that trap with another horse. I'll just make other mistakes. I ruined another one's changes by asking too little, too late and he always struggled with them, both jumping and in dressage. He had a good enough canter when he was 4/5, I just didn't know enough to know the window was closing.

The problem is, when you're working with animals (or people) a living thing pays the price for the ignorance, however well intentioned. This is very, very hard to swallow. Especially since people ride horses because, at least in some way, they love and admire them. And one of the major blocks to postitive change is refusing to see that your decisions up to that point might not have been the best . . .

I've met a lot of old men and women - brilliant horsemen - who would give a great deal to have some of the horses of their youth back for a "do over" knowing what they know now because they recognise the mistakes they've made and the costs involved. I think that is a very courageous - and productive - view. It allows them to alway seek ways of doing it better, to avoid the mistakes of the past. What is it they say about not knowing history . . . .


And btw, I know how this sounds. I can see people rolling their eyes from here. But it's what I was taught. And I think it's a GOOD thing. No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes. There is no shame in it. But as Baydale's sig says, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." (Samuel Beckett)

 

[kerilli]

Ah right, we're on the same page then. yes, i unhappily admit i didn't get the best out of certain horses, would give my soul to have my 2 Vere horses as raw 5 and 6 year olds again, they were too good for me back then, and I listened to the wrong people, was at times taught by the wrong people, and did the wrong things, often, unfortunately. totally agree with that.
i guess my interpretation of 'ruin' is far stronger though, in the realms of 'create a monster' or 'totally destroy the poor thing's mouth/faith/etc'...

 

[TarrSteps]

And btw, I would add, learn from other people's mistakes, it's a LOT cheaper, easier (and possibly) more ethical than making them all yourself.

 

[kerilli]

And btw, I would add, learn from other people's mistakes, it's a LOT cheaper, easier (and possibly) more ethical than making them all yourself.

amen to that.

 

[Gamebird]

And btw, I would add, learn from other people's mistakes, it's a LOT cheaper, easier (and possibly) more ethical than making them all yourself.

I walk XC courses with someone who's fairly new to the game and am utterly forgiven for being a teeny bit bossy sometimes on the basis that I've made the mistakes so that she doesn't have to!!

 

[LEC]

But that is what choosing a good trainer is about - they have been there made the mistakes and try to stop you from doing the same through education. The reasons they have tools in the box is because they have had to have many different approaches with different horses/riders.

 

[Kelpie]

Great thread!

One that's really affected me has been actually teaching my horses to stop too sharply, a la western/ NH training style. Had a really good trainer at it too, just unfortunately the trainer was very good at western/ NH and not very "dressage".

2 of my horses will stop on basically an exhale from me and a stilling of my hips but actually I've gone and screwed up the quality of their transitions by having initially taught this by using too much hand and now I'm having to undo that by actually deliberately making my transitions more gradual and trying to go back to where I was before I taught the sharp stops, so that from there the horses can in effect re-learn the right way.

So, even with a "good" trainer, I guess you can still screw up (tho point well made above that of course there's srewing up and there is srewing up!)

 

[stencilface]

I truly wish I could have my teenage horse again, as he really could have been a great horse, but lack of experience in me, and lack of knowledge and lack of knowing what to do and find the right people mean he really got the raw end of the deal. If I got my hands on some of the awful instructors and 'experts' I had then, argh, the things I would want to say

 

[TarrSteps]

Re your instructors. . .it works exactly the same way for teaching! Every time I've learned something new, I've felt like I should write letters of apologies to former students! God help the poor souls I taught when I was in my 20s!