Introduction
Aids are used for a variety of purposes. They are a means of communicating our intentions to the horse. They are sensors that feel the horse’s muscle tone and mood. We can use them as probes that follow the pathways of the horse’s bones and muscles to find any stiff, inflexible joints and muscles. And they can be used to frame the horse and create boundaries within which we want the horse to move.
Most discussions of the aids focus more or less on their role in telling the horse what to do. The other aspects are rarely addressed, although they are at least as important. Today I want to look at the concept of using the rider’s legs and reins to form a channel in which the horse is moving. The idea is not new, of course. Antoine de Coux (2012, 38) mentions it in his collection of notes that he took while watching Nuño Oliveira teaching clinics:
“The channel or corridor of the aids.
To the right: right hand and right leg.
To the left: left hand and left leg.
For example, to bend the horse in the volte: the inside leg and hand bend and the outside hand and leg “wrap around”, channeling the horse.”
And again on page 41: “Your legs must be like two walls and your horse will work in a corridor (“channel of aids”).”
At the beginning of the last century, the idea of a channel or a corridor was mentioned by Adolph Schmidt, (1909, p. 138): “If we imagine that the horse is moving between two parallel walls that touch his hips, his head and spine must be carried exactly in the middle between these two walls.” And more than half a century earlier, Louis Seeger (1844, 19) used the image of a corridor to explain the concept of straightness: “The horse is straight when the distances between the shoulders and the parallel lines of the hips are identical. If you picture the horse standing between two parallel walls so that they touch the hips, the distances between the shoulders and the walls must be the same on both sides. The spine then forms the middle between both parallels.”
Ship In A Canal
I like to visualise the horse moving like a ship in a narrow canal. The walls of the canal are formed by the rider’s legs and reins. The lower legs frame the hind legs, the thighs frame the rib cage, and the knees and reins frame the horse’s shoulders. When the horse gets crooked and bumps into one of the walls of the canal, he will almost self-correct. If the shoulder drifts to one side, the tension on the rein of that side increases like a rubber band, so that the horse almost straightens himself. In addition, the rider can return the impulse by giving a little nudge with her knee and rein that the horse is bumping into. As soon as the horse becomes straight again, it triggers an automatic release.
If the horse drifts with his croup to one side, he will bump into the rider’s calf on that side. The rider then only has to return the nudge with her leg to bring the croup back to the middle.
Surrounding the horse with the legs and reins like that enables the rider to monitor the horse’s alignment and to nip any deviation in the bud. The contact of both legs and reins is like an early warning system that informs the rider of any developing crookedness.
As long as the horse is moving with the correct alignment on the chosen line of travel, with the tempo, stride length, and energy level that the rider has assigned to him, the aids can remain passive and listening, observing. When the rider wants to change one of these parameters, or if the horse gets crooked, speeds up or slows down, the aids become active and restore the alignment, tempo, stride length, and energy level.
This requires the rider to maintain a consistent, steady, light contact with her legs and reins. The muscles that are in touch with the horse have to be soft and relaxed, while the torso needs to be stable and well balanced.
When there is no connection between the rider’s legs and the horse’s rib cage or between the reins and the mouth, horse and rider won’t be able to feel each other.
On the other hand, if the rider’s legs and hands are braced and hard, the rider won’t be able to feel anything, either, because hard, stiff muscles don’t let anything go through. If the horse braces his rib cage, he won’t be able to feel the rider’s leg aids very well. If he braces his neck and poll, he won’t be able to feel the finer rein aids.
Gaps in the rider’s aids also invite the horse to “leak” out, i.e. if one rein is too loose, or if the hands are carried too wide, the horse’s shoulder can drift through this opening.
If one of the rider’s lower legs is not in touch with the horse’s rib cage, the hind leg can escape sideways in this direction.
I have also frequently noticed that when one of the rider’s elbows sticks out, the horse’s shoulder tends to drift through this hole. The reason is probably that the gap between the elbow and the waist is a consequence of a misalignment of the rider’s torso (collapsed waist or rounded back) that makes it difficult to align the horse correctly.
Although we need to monitor and frame all four corners of the horse’s body with our legs and reins, we need to pay special attention to the shoulder of the so-called stiff (naturally convex) side and the hind leg of the so-called hollow (naturally concave) side because they are the ones that are most likely to drift away from the line of travel.
Front Door, Back Door
In addition to setting lateral boundaries, the rider’s aids can also provide a boundary behind the horse and in front of the horse. Keeping the torso vertical with engaged back muscles closes the “back door”. Tipping forward and slackening the back muscles can open the back door, which is why some horses get behind the aids and spin around or run backwards when the rider’s shoulders cross an invisible line towards the front or when the back muscle engagement drops below a certain threshold.
If the rider’s elbows are not sufficiently connected to her pelvis/waist, some horses push against the bit in an effort to open the “front door” all the way and to steal the reins from the rider. If this succeeds, the horse falls onto the forehand and the hind legs don’t have to carry the rider’s weight any more.
When the rider establishes a good connection between her elbows and her pelvis/waist, the horse can’t steal the reins. Any push against the reins by the horse will be immediately transmitted through the reins and the rider’s forearms to her hips, and from her hips to the horse’s hind legs.
When the horse pushes against the bit, one hind leg is always on the ground behind the vertical. Usually it is the same one every time. The jerk on the rein that the rider feels begins with this pushing hind leg. If the rider’s seat is well connected, the horse’s push against the rein is transformed into a half halt that addresses this exact same hind leg, which helps to bring the horse back into balance.
The connection between the rider’s elbows and her pelvis/waist creates greater stability of the rider’s torso, the rider’s body mass anchors and supports the rein contact and the rein aids, and it helps to create a direct connection between the hind leg and the bit. This connection often prevents the hind legs from lagging behind in the first place. When it is lacking, the hind legs tend to get left behind, and the horse starts pushing against the reins with his head and neck and against the rider’s seat with his hind legs and croup.
