There is a great description of the rider’s aids and their function in riding the horse on the bit that was written by the Austrian Lt.col. Gustav von Dreyhausen. It is a fairly lengthy piece that I will break up into smaller segments so that I can comment on certain statements he makes and explain some aspects in more detail.
Gustav v.Dreyhausen (1951, translation: TR):
“If we continue our observation of the young horse, because the effect of the aids is most visible here, we see that the calf produced the motion, the stepping under of the hind legs. The seat then placed more and more weight on them and flexed them as they became more confirmed, and even started driving. Now, this impulsion has to find its limit somewhere, in order to be utilized for the horse's balance. Otherwise, the horse will run away without any balance. This is where the hand comes in.
“The driving effect of the calf aid and the forward guiding effect of the seat induces the horse to step under lively with his hind legs and to stretch his back forward. This affects the neck as well, which now makes contact with the rein that is presented softly and relatively long.”
Commentary:
The neck makes contact with the rein, if the thrust of the hind legs is passed along by the vertebrae, as we have seen in earlier installments of this series. The more connected and the more supple the horse’s body is, the better you can see and feel this mechanism at work. At the same time, the horse can only make contact with the reins, if the rider holds them with a length that puts the bit within the horse’s reach. If the reins are too long, then the horse cannot reach them and at some point he will get frustrated and stop trying to find the elusive hand.
Translation:
"The horse ‘seeks the hand’. Once he has found it, the rein contact is confirmed, and the hand forms a barrier to which the impulsion flows from back to front. It sends as much of the impulsion back as is necessary for collection. Calf and seat continue to drive tactfully forward. The hand either receives the arriving pressure passively and transforms it into poll flexion, or it sends any excessive pressure back by half halts that must be applied at the precise moment when the horse goes against the hand.“
Commentary:
The word ‘barrier’ is perhaps not the best choice, because it could create a mental image of inflexibility. The hand should receive and recycle the energy of the haunches. Some of the energy has to be released forward-upward or forward-downward, just like a valve releases a percentage of the pressure within the system so that it cannot build up to the point where the machine explodes. Some of the energy has to be filtered out and returned to the hind legs, which helps to create and maintain a swinging back and swinging hind legs by supporting the loading and unloading, the compressing and extending of the hind legs. This requires a certain mixture of passively receiving the energy, releasing it, and actively squeezing it backwards with the help of the reins.
The ‘passive’ hand that some authors like to postulate is not unproblematic, either, because there is a fine line between a passive hand and a dead hand. A strictly passive hand is often insufficient in producing poll flexion. It can easily result in a horse who braces his neck and poll against the rider’s hand. In order to obtain poll flexion, the rider has to frame the horse’s shoulder with one rein and flex the poll laterally with the other rein from time to time on many horses or send the energy he receives in his hands through one of the front legs into the ground with the help of the rein. Once the neck-shoulder connection is established and the front legs allow the rein aids to go through, the rider can send the energy back to the hind legs through the application of half halts. It is extremely important that the hands become neither dead nor too busy.
Von Dreyhausen’s remark that the calf and seat continue to drive has to be taken with a grain of salt as well. It should not be taken to mean that the rider should drive every step of the way. The rider assigns the horse a specific tempo, stride length, and energy level with his aids. It is the horse’s job to maintain these parameters on his own, without the rider’s constant reminders. The driving aids are only applied when the horse slacks off and slows down or loses his energy level.
Translation:
“They have to be as intense as necessary, but they have to cease as soon as they achieve their effect. This backward squeeze of the rein closes the joints of the hind legs via the neck and back – ‘it goes through’. However, it must cease as soon as it has had its effect, so that the horse can relax in the new posture. - If the rider gets stuck in it, or if the rein is too short for the horse's ability to collect, it provokes an opposition against it even in obedient horses the moment the horse is no longer able to yield more - and this moment arrives very quickly. In this case, the horse pushes against the hand with his hind legs via back and neck. The stiff horse is complete. Other horses will go behind the bit.
“Obviously, the rider's torso must anchor these half halts to the necessary degree.
“In the course of the training, the reins become shorter. The hand can temporarily be used with an active backward squeeze in order to demand elevation and flexion of the haunches, until it becomes almost completely passive again on the trained horse.”
Commentary:
To summarize the most important points of this paragraph: the purpose of the half halt is to flex the joints of the haunches. This can only happen if the aid is applied at the right time, if the rider does not get stuck by hanging on the reins, if the reins have the right length, and if the rein aid is supported by the rider’s seat and weight. A rein aid that is not backed up by the seat and weight makes no sense to the horse. It has to be considered to be merely pulling on the horse’s mouth and will produce resistance. The rein has to be a part of the rider’s pelvis so that the rider can create an energy conduit from the hind legs to his seat bones, from his seat bones through his hips to his elbows, and from his elbows to the bit. Rein, hand, and forearm become one and the same, and the rein looks and feels as if it came out of the rider’s lower back. This is achieved by connecting the rider’s hips and elbows with each other, not by bringing the elbows back to the body, but by bringing the pelvis forward, in between the elbows, in other words by engaging the oblique muscles, back muscles, and abdominal muscles, not the arm muscles. When the core muscles are sufficiently engaged, the surface muscles that are in direct contact with the horse – including the hands and arms – can relax.
If the half halt is applied at the wrong time, if it is held for too long without release, if the reins are too short, or if the reins are not supported by the rider’s seat and weight, the horse will brace against the rein and become stiffer instead of more supple.
Translation:
“The rein length determines the degree of the elevation and with it the degree of the demand that is made in terms of the flexion of the haunches, i.e. the collection. The longer the rein, the smaller is the collection. The shorter, the rein, the higher is the collection. If the rider leans back with his torso in addition to having the reins too short, the horse will usually run away against the rein, mostly with his head up in the air.”
Commentary:
This can be misunderstood as well. The elevation is not just created through the rein length. It is created primarily through the flexion of the haunches and the rider’s seat. The more the joints of the hind legs flex, and the more the pelvis is tucked, the more the horse will elevate his head and neck. The rider supports and helps to create the tucking of the pelvis by lowering his own seat bones and lifting his pubic bone and solar plexus. This requires a certain engagement of the core muscles. The rider’s inner thigh muscles may have to engage as well to create extra leverage for the torso which makes the seat more effective. The flexion of the haunches (=collection) and the tucking of the pelvis create the so-called ‘bascule’, the longitudinal flexion of the spine. The elevation and arching of the neck is a part of this mechanism. The end result is that the distance from the horse’s seat bones to the bit becomes shorter, while the distance from the ears to the tail along the spine should become longer as a result of the stretching of the topline. A byproduct of this process is that the reins have to be shortened when the collection and the elevation increase. But they should never become so short that the elbows lose touch with the hips or that the neck becomes artificially shortened. Even in the highest degree of collection and elevation the neck should still be long and stretched. If the reins become too short and the rider sits down too heavily, the horse’s back is forced to drop, and the horse inverts.
However, it is true that the collection can be increased by increasing the elevation first in order to use the weight and leverage of the horse’s head and neck against the hind legs. But even this specific case, the reins are only effective as a part of the seat. It is still the seat that brings about the weight shift and the change in posture. The reins are supporting aids.
Translation:
“Poll flexion, however, or better: relaxation of the entire horse, is created when the calf and the seat produce impulsion that meets the passive hand from back to front. The hand becomes active only when the horse starts to lean.
“The importance of adjusting the rein length correctly with respect to the horse's ability is self-evident.
“In addition, the hands guide the forehand and participate with lateral aids in turning and bending.
“We see that the hand can apply aids that collect, regulate the tempo, and indicate the direction. It must be used mainly in combination with seat aids and - apart from some exceptions - after the leg and seat aids have made the horse receptive for the rein aids. The exception is the case where the horse throws himself onto the hand. In these moments the hand has to regain the horse's respect with determined half halts.
“As we have seen most clearly with respect to the rein aids, each aid has its measure and its limit. If I use the hand too much, I either get a horse that is stiff and cranked up in front, coiled up, pulling or sucking back behind the bit. If the seat presses down too much and at the wrong moment, the horse will not swing in his back any more. If I lean back permanently, I hinder the free forward reach of the hind legs. If I drive recklessly with my calf in moments in which I want to introduce a greater flexion of the haunches with seat and hand, the horse does not know what to do and starts rushing instead of flexing his haunches more. The greatest danger, however, lies in the excessive use of the hand.”
Commentary:
As mentioned befor, a merely passive hand is often not enough to bring the horse on the bit. Sometimes it only makes the horse brace and invert. In those cases, one rein may have to breathe while the other rein flexes the poll or the neck a little. In other words, the hand has to become active, not only when the horse bears down onto the bit, but also when he inverts and braces, or when he drifts over one shoulder.
Von Dreyhausen addresses this when he mentions the role of the reins in bending and turning. The outside rein can apply a pressure against the muscles at the base of the neck, instead of the bit, to move the shoulder over in turns or when the horse drifts out of the circle or the turn with the outside shoulder. When the shoulder falls in, the inside rein can do the same to bring the shoulders out and onto the correct track again. As a general rule of thumb, the inside rein supports the inside calf in bending, the outside rein supports the outside leg in turning. It is very important that the rider turns the horse by turning the shoulders with his knees and reins, in conjunction with a rotation of his pelvis, and not by pulling the nose into the turn with the inside rein.
The last paragraph mentions some very important points that every rider has to remember and to study on each horse. Each aid can only be effective when it is applied during the right moment in the footfall sequence, when it has the right intensity and duration, and when it is followed by a release. Any permanent pressure will lead to bracing and stiffness. This applies not only to leg and rein aids, but also to seat aids. A heavy seat that presses down permanently suppresses the horse’s back and consequently prevents any engagement of the hind legs.
Gustav v.Dreyhausen (1951, translation: TR):
“The posture of the head and neck has to be left up to the horse who will place them correctly if the rider addresses the horse’s body as a whole. An activity of the hand that addresses only the head position is wrong and harmful.”
This is a very different philosophy than what you commonly encounter nowadays. The old masters were more willing to set up the parameters for the horse and then to wait for him to find the position on the bit, instead of forcing him into a headset with the reins alone. If the rider rides his horse in a steady tempo, on a precise arena pattern, with the correct alignment of the hips and shoulders, and with a sufficient energy level, the horse will usually find the correct head and neck position. Sometimes there are muscle stiffnesses in the poll or neck or other areas of the body that prevent the horse from coming on the bit, even if the main parameters are all correct. In that case, the rider has to eliminate the bracing through flexions or other exercises. As soon as these resistances are gone, the horse will be on the bit.
To be continued…
Feel free to e-mail me with questions and comments.
Thomas Ritter
