Training Tips: Dressage Lateral Work

From the August Issue of Local Horse Magazine

As dressage tests become more advanced, the horse is asked to do ‘lateral work’ or ‘ work on two tracks’ - the hind feet follow a different track from the forefeet.

This happens when he moves sideways, or forward and sideways at the same time, and demonstrates his suppleness, balance and agility. 

TURN ON THE FOREHAND

You have probably asked your horse to go sideways alread without noticing it. Think when someone is mucking out a stable with the horse tied up in it. Once they have done one half, they say ‘over’ and the horse moves across the stable, making it easier to muck out the other half.

The movement that the horse makes is a sort of ‘turn on the forehand’ which is one of the first mounted exercises you do when starting lateral work.. The turn on the forehand is a useful exercise fore three main reasons:

it teaches your horse to move away from your leg

it teaches you to ‘blend’ the aides given with your legs and your hands

it has many everyday uses, such as when opening gates or turning in confined spaces

In this exercise the horse turns in a half-circle through 180 degrees, so that he changes the direction in which he is facing. It starts from a good, square halt. The outside forefoot marks time (shipping up and down in the same place_ and he pivots around it.

The inside forefoot makes a small half circle around the pivoting outside forefoot, and the hind feet make a large half- circle to complete the turn.

GIVING THE AIDS

The turn on the forehand is made almost entirely with leg aids. The hands do very little. To make a turn to the right (in which you start on the left rein and end up on the right rein), your horse should first be standing quire and on the bit.

Ask your horse to look slightly to the rich by giving little squeezes with the fingers of your right hand, until you can just see his right eye. Don’t pull back with this hand, or your horse may step backwards, which is a serious fault.

Your left hand keeps a steady contact, ready to tell the horse that he is not to stop forward. Keep your left leg just at the girth, in contact with the horse’s side to keep him up in to your hands, and to discourage him from stepping backward.

Your right leg, drawn back a little behind the girth, asks him to turn his hindquarters through the half-circle. Once the turn is complete, ride the horse energetically forward without hesitation. You must ride forward immediately so

that the horse maintains his forward impulsion, which his hind legs underneath him.

YIELDING TO THE LEG

The next exercise that is usually taught in lateral work is ‘leg yielding’. Here the horse is asked to walk or trot forward and sideways at the same time, while remaining parallel to the side of the arena.

An easy way to start this work is to use an exercise that is know as ‘yielding to the leg’. It sounds the same as leg-yielding but is not.

Starting on a 10m circle (in walk to begin with, and later in trot) ask your horse to make the circle gradually smaller. You could make it a meter smaller on each circuit, down to about 12 metres.

Keeping the horse bent on the track of the circle - but not with too much bend in his neck- use your inside leg just at the girth to ask him to step forward and sideways back out to the 20m circle.

When doing this in trot, it is best to make sitting trot from about the 16m circle downward, and when ‘yielding to the leg’. this is because it is difficult to rise to the trot on very small circles and still maintain a rhythmical balanced trot.

When you reach the 20m circle start rising again. The work should be done as evenly as possible on both reign. You horse will almost certainly find it easier one way that the other.

LEG YIELDING

When you can do ‘yielding to the leg’ fairly easily on both reins, try ‘leg yielding’ on a straight line, first in walk and then in trot.

On the left rein start the exercise by making a half 10 metre circle from M or K to bring you onto the centre line (C t oA).

Once your horse is moving straight on the centre line, ask him with your inside leg (left leg on the left rein) to move sideways as well as forward toward the opposite quarter market K or M. Try to keep the horse paralellel to the side of the arena by keeping your outside leg against him to encourage him forward.

Be content with just two or three steps in ‘leg yielding’ to start with, then ride the horse straight forward with both legs. As with any new exercise, praise your horse when he achieves what you are asking him to do. 

Horsezone is pleased to be working with Local Horse Magazine and welcomes their contributions. For more great articles like this one go to www.localhorsemagazine.com.au