Better Communication Through Our Riding Aids - Part 2

I have found in my travels that a lot of people ignore the advice that I gave in the last article. However, our hand, leg and body position greatly influence how our horses move and how they perceive our requests. I hope you tried the little experiments that I had suggested and found that they make a difference. Now I’m not saying that if you ride any other way than the way I suggested, that you would not be able to communicate properly, or that you will “screw your horse up”. What I am saying is that your lines of communication will be better. Your horse will be more balanced, better able to understand you, happier and more confident. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to watch top-level riders in various disciplines and observe the differences. For example, if you watch top-level Jumpers on TV, you will see some have their thumbs on top, some facing each other, and then I would like for you to observe the different actions they have on that particular horse, and on the rider’s elbows. Or you can watch their legs and see what impact that has too. Obviously to be at that level you have to know something about riding, and riding habits have already been formed (good or bad). However, most, if not all, top riders have coaches to help them become the best they can be and they will all continue striving to gain more knowledge. I think we should all do the same. Sometimes we can make a small change in our seat or rein or leg aid that can make a big difference. So, never close your mind to different ideas or thoughts. Think about them, and if they sound safe for all involved and if it gets you to think, then that’s a good thing.

Rein of Opposition (ROO)

I said I would save this aid for a little later, however we need to understand this aid as we will use it to help us make corrections.

IMPORTANT: the rein of opposition is used to correct a shoulder, that is its function, but I’ve found that once I teach this, riders tend to over-use it and stop teaching their horses how to do things properly and just correct the horses shoulder instead. What do I mean by that? A quick example: If I am asking my horse to turn and my horse continues to drop his shoulder, thereby ignoring my inside leg, I could just use the ROO (rein of opposition) to solve that problem, however, my horse will continue to lean on, or ignore my inside leg and drop his shoulder. He would think that its ok to look the opposite direction from where I’m turning, and that I would always use the ROO to “get through” the corner. NOW, THAT IS THE ROOs FUNCTION, but I also owe it to my horse to teach him to carry himself properly, and I can use the ROO to help me teach him the proper way to move, that dropping his shoulder and looking to the outside is NOT the way to turn, and that the ROO is only to be used as a correction as is its function.

Another example is something that we have all done at one time or another: We are loping (or cantering) along in the arena and are approaching the corner where our horse decides to make the turn earlier or sharper than we wanted, so, we put that inside leg on, and bring both our reins to the opposite side. We have all done this.

The ROO Aid

The aids for the ROO are;

-       Inside leg on to help support the inside shoulder, (your outside leg should already be back behind the cinch to control the hips, because you are more than likely turning…but not always)

-       Your inside rein goes in the direction to your opposite hip (for a small correction) or to your opposite shoulder (for a larger correction) and your outside rein must have tension. It will help keep the original amount of flexion (at the poll) and will support the inside rein. The outside rein MUST be working.

Now that we have added this aid to our bank of information we can begin teaching our horses some more skills. When you start teaching your horse things under saddle, you need to start by teaching them that reins and legs mean something. When they feel certain pressures they must respond appropriately. As before, when we did ground work we started with a little bit of information and built on that. Remember, we cannot ask them to do anything we have not taught them. I usually teach horses to move away from pressure while I am on the ground; however, I know we all want to get to work under saddle, so I will continue to explain how we do that.

Before we start, I want to try clarifying a point that is always brought up. DOES A HORSE MOVE INTO PRESSURE OR AWAY FROM PRESSURE? A horse will move away from pressure. Try a little experiment…. using a pulsating pressure like we used when teaching our horse to back up from the ground, on any non-ticklish part of the horse, such as on the side of the shoulder. Continue with that pulsating pressure and the horse will move away from the pressure. Now, if you just lay your hand on the shoulder and apply a little pressure, initially the horse may lean away, however in a matter of a few seconds they will get accustomed to it and actually start to lean back against you. After about a minute just quickly take your hand away and you will see them drop towards you. So, if you ask with a pulsating type pressure, they have nothing to lean on, and they will move away from pressure, and if you apply constant pressure they will lean into it.  Think about it another way; if you are riding a turn and put your inside leg on to ask them to move away, they will actually lean on it and fall in more. Since I rarely apply constant pressure, I find that they move away from pressure. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Start from the Basics

In my previous article I discussed the rein aids and how to apply them. Now I will explain a little more about our leg aids, and combine the two in order to better communicate with our horses.

Assuming your horse has already been started under saddle, you are now on your horses back and you need to teach him what your rein and leg aids mean. First you need to establish a base line, in considering that horses will move away from pressure, this is where we will begin.

You will now ask your horse to move forward by squeezing with both legs at the cinch. That will indicate to your horse that you want them to move their hind end forward. How do they figure this out? The same way they did before. You ask for a response and let them give you the answers, and when it’s correct you will release whatever pressure you have applied.

To walk, you will squeeze with both legs (thighs and calves) and wait for your horse to give you an answer. If he doesn’t move, you will continue squeezing with your thighs and now gently bump with your calves until he moves forward. This may take a short while but once you start, you are committed to continue until you get the desired response. If your horse backs up, that is an incorrect answer, so you will continue bumping to you get a forward step. Once the answer is a step forward, you will relax all your aids to let him know that he gave you the correct answer.

Remember, apply pressure and release from pressure; this is how your horse will know that they did what you asked.

You will let him be. Obviously, a basic stop would be to apply two direct reins as explained previously until he comes to a complete stop and again a release of (rein) aids. You built a wall with your hands, and then you released that pressure. By squeezing with your legs you have started to teach him that when he feels leg pressure it means something, and if he tries to move away, or forward when you squeeze, or bump lightly, you will relax that pressure. You have taken the first step in teaching him to do something when he feels pressure. Your horse has taken that first step under saddle to “try”, and also to respond in a certain way. Together, the two of you have both of your minds working in a language you both can understand.

To continue on teaching a horse to walk, I like to think, “Bottoms Up”. My aids start from the bottom and continue upwards. I will squeeze with both legs and then I will slightly bring my hands forward to indicate forward motion with no walls. If required I then use my vocal aid which we learned in the beginning.

When You Want To Turn You Have Options

You can use a direct rein or an open rein (both were discussed previously). The trick is in how much pressure to apply. As much as is necessary and as little as you can get away with. If I use a direct rein I will slightly elevate my inside rein (to help keep my horse’s inside shoulder elevated as well as mine) and I will “check” or gently bump with that inside rein until my horse flexes at the poll and looks in the direction. If I use an open rein, I must also use an indirect rein (the indirect rein is actually the turning rein). Again, how much pressure you use depends on the horse and how they react to it. This is where you are on your own. Only YOU can “feel “if the horse is responding or not, and how much pressure is needed to achieve what you are asking. But it’s very important to note here: If you ask for something, you must must get "that" something. It is paramount that you do not teach your horse to ignore you. On the other hand if you don’t want anything, don’t ask. Remember our job is to teach them and then to correct them when they make a decision on their own. It is our job as the leader to make the decisions.

We have now started to ask things of our horses by bumping gently with our legs and by “checking” or bumping gently with our reins. We now have their brains working and have them focusing on us. If you bump with both legs at the cinch, you would expect your horse to start moving and if you continued to bump, it would be a safe bet to assume that your horse would walk faster, and if you continued to bump…. you guessed it, they would probably start to jog, and if you continued that they would then trot. So as you see, you can get your horse moving at ever increasing speeds by how long you bump. If you were trotting and you wanted your horse to slow down, obviously you would pull on the reins until your horse slowed to a jog or you could “check” with your reins, (a pulsating feeling). Then with more rein pressure you would come down to a walk or even a stop. At this point you are thinking that I am stating the obvious…and I am. …But, we are now communicating our intentions to our horse by applying and releasing pressure at certain times to get certain things, and that’s always been the key, and therein lies the secret. Knowing when to apply and release leg or rein pressure.

Now, to gain even more control it bottoms up. Remember when I mentioned earlier about thinking bottoms up? Well, do that on a downward transition. If my horse understands to move his hind end forward when I apply pressure (both legs) at the cinch, and I want to slow from a trot to a jog without the horse being on his front end (in other words, collected) then I would apply a little leg pressure at the cinch and also use two direct reins (to build a wall) slowing my horse down using a combination of both to get the desired result of a smooth collected downwards transition. I would also have to slow my seat’s motion by sitting deep in the saddle. To do this correctly, I would squeeze a little with both legs at the cinch just enough to say “keep going, don’t stop”, while sitting deep (slowing or stopping my motion to indicate to my horse that I want to change the pace). Then apply a little rein pressure to achieve the transition from trot to jog. You can use this for any downward transition. Depending on how you apply those aids and how well your horse is trained to respond. As I mentioned earlier …you have to feel how much rein or leg to use, applying them so your horse understands. Since you need to do basically the same things, whether doing upward or downward transitions, we’ve kept it simple…K.I.S.S. The only difficulty is ours…applying the proper amount of pressure…but it’s simple for the horse to understand, and most importantly the horse must be thinking and that is a good thing.

Let us now compare that to stopping or turning a horse using a different method. If I want to stop, I just pull back on the reins till the horse stops, but did the horse learn how to slow or do they just feel that wall (reins) and stop? Will they do it collected or with their nose in the air trying to fight the bit? Will it be comfortable for both of us? In comparison, if we teach our horse to slow or stop by listening to our seat’s action (or lack of motion), or even a combination of seat and a small amount of rein pressure to slow or impede forward motion. Personally I like my horse to think, be focused and react to my requests.

If you turn by pulling your horse’s nose around and he stops turning when you stop pulling and then you pull again to turn more, has your horse learned to turn or to just react? We can apply certain rein aids (direct, and/or a combination of open and indirect) and leg pressure to tell them just how much we want them to turn, and that gets their minds involved and they ask “is that what you wanted?” Are they now thinking or again just reacting? Are we teaching them? Are they enjoying themselves or are they just plodding along singing-a-song, looking for little birdies or thinking of food or even spooky things? To make them a part of the process while teaching them, they will enjoy working with us, strengthening the partnership.

As I stated in the beginning of these articles, I want to be able to ask my horse to, for example, move over one inch and he will know how to do that because I have taught him which aids mean what, and in the mean time, I have given him responsibility and have motivated him to think and focus which makes him feel good about himself.

I have discussed how to teach our horses to go forward and to turn using our leg aids. I have said, “I will “annoy” you (bump with our legs) or check (using on our hands with the reins)) until I get the correct answer and then I will release or stop doing what I was doing when the correct answer is given”. Our horse has learned what some basic leg and rein aids mean, however, we now have to teach them that we want to control more specific parts of their body: their hips and shoulders. It is more complex than I will be covering here at this time. This will give you the aids for basic control so you can begin teaching your horse. K.I.S.S…for both of you.

Our legs are going to control the body and our reins will control their face. It is not that simple however we need to start somewhere. We have already discussed our rein aids in this and the previous article, so I will talk about our leg position now.

Where we position our legs and most importantly where the movement comes from, speaks very clearly to our horse. So if we want to “talk” to their shoulder we place our inside leg on and at the cinch/girth. If we want to “talk” to their hips we will slide our leg approx. 4 inches (10 cm.) back (behind) the cinch/girth, and that movement comes from our hip, NOT our knee. That is very important. This was also talked about previously.

Leg Yield

This is the first thing I teach my horse. A basic leg yield is where the horse, naturally, yields to leg pressure.

Walking, going to the left, you will stay off the rail, approx. 5-6 feet. You will bring your left leg back (from the hip) and gently bump if necessary asking your horse to move away from that left leg pressure, and move to the right. You can then reverse the leg aids, bringing your right leg back (from the hip) asking your horse to move to the left. At this point I have not mentioned reins yet, this is because I want to focus on teaching the horse to move away from leg pressure. Once you are good at leg yielding you can then begin to use your reins and make matters more technical for your horse. You can start to control hips and shoulders and get a straighter line.

Now we can add our rein aids and do a simple leg-yield. The aids are inside leg on; outside leg back, and 2 direct reins, (no pressure on the reins, just in the position). To make it easier for the horse we will use a direct rein pressure to tip the horse’s nose in the opposite direction that we are moving (then return to home base…no pressure…but still in the direct rein line). Our goal now is to keep the horse’s body parallel to the rail, and to go forward while crossing their outside legs over their inside legs.

Ask with your outside leg (from hip) pressure as before, however this time you want to keep your horse’s shoulder parallel with the rail so your inside leg may need to apply pressure to ask the shoulder not to lead and if your horse doesn’t understand you can use a small rein of opposition (ROO) to address the shoulder. Here comes the hard part again. You must “feel “how much pressure to use with all the aids, for requests and corrections. After, again leg yielding towards the wall; reverse all aids and leg yield away from the rail. Plus we must do all this and still try to remain centred in the saddle so as not to put our horse off balance and hinder them…. whew.

In doing these two things, we have started to control our horse as a whole. We have “talked” to their hips (with our leg back from our hip), we have “talked” to their shoulder (with our inside leg) and we have “talked” firmly to their shoulder (with our ROO) and to their face with our rein aids, (with and without pressure).

By now you have probably figured out that there is a lot going on with all the aids and that we have to finesse our way through, (asking and releasing rein and leg pressure simultaneously and individually). For our horse to do this correctly they must be paying attention and more importantly, they have to be trying. Horse and rider are now communicating with leg, rein and seat and both horse and rider must concentrate to achieve the desired result. In essence our horse, thanks to us, is now starting to figure out when to do more or less, and to move what part of their body, how much or how little…whew, again. This is how we teach our horse to move over an inch if asked. With patience and practice by both, horse and rider, we will only improve.

In review you will be on your own when it comes to how much pressure to apply and when to release it. That is a personal sense which changes with each horse and actually each time you ask a specific horse. You will learn to know your own horse, but they may become distracted, they may not feel like working, or they may want to play. Just remember CPP, use as much as you need and as little as you can get away with. However, that last statement is not permission to abuse. You have to go through the steps of teaching and as you progress you will find the correct amount of pressure required will be less, if you apply your aids properly as described previously.

Other Manoeuvres

The next step is to teach your horse to do a turn on the forehand.

The aids are, inside leg on (to help support the shoulder) outside leg back (to address the hips) two direct reins, hands low (to indicate weight on the forehand). There are many ways to teach this however the easiest way is to have your horse facing a wall. This will take away the idea of too much forward motion.

Asking your horse’s hips to move to the left, you will have two direct reins (home base), your left leg on (light contact) at the cinch, and your right leg back. You will use your reins as a correction. If your horse steps to the left, you will use a ROO to block that shoulder, if he backs you will move your hands forward (you have probably used too much rein pressure if he wants to back up), you have a wall in front so forward motion is discouraged, but if you don’t use the wall, and your horse walks forward, increase two direct rein pressure to stop and then relax and ask all aids again properly. To stop the TOF apply some inside leg.

Turning on their haunches is where we ask our horse to move their front end while pivoting on their inside hind leg.

The aids are open inside rein (to lead their nose in the direction and give them a space to move into) outside indirect rein, (to ask them to move away from) your hands should be elevated to indicate weight on its haunches, your inside leg on (to support the shoulder) and outside leg back (to build a wall for the hips and remind them not to move) It is most common for the horse to be on its forehand and want to swing their hips around. One way to help is to bring your horse into a collected stop, using legs, seat, and reins. Or another is way to help is to pick up your horses shoulders with both reins by elevating them and then just keep them slightly elevated as stated before.

Again start on the wall, but his time stay parallel and that way their butt can not swing around as easily. Don’t be afraid to break it down into small manoeuvres. Start with a 45-degree turn or a 90-degree, and to stop the TOH close the open inside rein and apply your inside leg.

I hope these articles have helped you obtain a better relationship with your horse and that I have pointed out details you had not known before or put things in a different way that makes more sense. Unfortunately this will be my last article for a while as I have a few other matters on the go. However, if you have some specific question, please feel free to email me and I will try to do a “training tip” section each month instead.

If you found that you need more info I can do a specific manoeuvre each month also. I have enjoyed myself immensely! Remember the winter month's are a perfect time for horse and rider to learn together. So keep learning and you will truly have Better Communication Through Understanding.

Thank you for letting me be a part of your horse life, Walter Alzner  

If you would like to contact me, please do so at, eternaldreamshorse@hotmail.com