Many riding methods do not distinguish between breaking and training. In fact, they are two operations that take place continuously without a clear boundary between them. But to speak of breaking-in nowadays is to deal mainly with the phase that consists of making the foal accept the harness, the rider and the basic obedience to the aids. It lasts from one day to a few weeks, depending on the method used. The breaking-in and training that will be developed here concern the sport or leisure horse. What are the techniques for training your horse? What do you need to know about dressage horses? How to become a better horse trainer?
Having spent more than sixty years in a circus and having trained myself or having seen all kinds of animals trained, I can tell you that the horse is one of the most difficult”. This important testimony puts us on the difficult and controversial path of training these wonderful animals, the horses. There are many methods of training horses. They vary from country to country. They are adapted to both the type of horse and its intended use.
It is easy to understand that a racehorse will not be trained in the same way as a trail horse or a high school horse.
The distinction between breaking-in and training is a legacy of our military cavalry. The latter provided for the education of young horses to last two years. The breaking-in period took place in the first year of service of the foal, which was then 4 to 5 years old. The young horse was considered to be trained when it could perform everything that was prescribed in the rider’s school.
Training the horse: Breaking in
The first period of a horse’s education, breaking-in, begins as soon as the foal, leaving its breeding, arrives in the new environment where its training will be undertaken, generally at the age of 3 years. It would be more accurate to say that breaking-in begins at birth. This is what happens more and more nowadays in certain farms where young horses are taken care of at a very young age. Naturally docile, even gentle and affectionate, the horse is an excessively sensitive and reactive animal whose power can make it dangerous when its movements are uncontrolled or disordered. It has a great memory. This is very useful for training, but will compound the mistakes of an inexperienced or clumsy trainer.
One of the oldest animals in creation, it was, from the beginning, the prey of wild animals, then of man, who hunted it to eat it. Poorly armed to defend itself, it could only find salvation in flight. We remember the Solutré rock from the top of which our ancestors threw horses into the void by frightening them. With this ancestral fear, the horse’s sight, smell and hearing have developed, senses which are very refined in him.
The trainer should never lose sight of the fact that the horse will perceive him as a predator rather than as a partner, an idea that is often lost when one sees the prowess of complicity displayed during dressage competitions.
Horse training: the contribution of ethology and the American “natural horsemanship” trend
Breaking-in will therefore consist firstly of “neutralising the external safeguarding behaviours of the foal, which perceives our actions as predatory signals” (J.-C. Barrey).
Secondly, it is a matter of establishing a conventional language that allows the horse to be understood by the rider and the rider to be obeyed by his mount. In this double perspective, ethologists have proved to be very useful, as they have made significant progress in the knowledge of the horse’s behaviour in its environment.
Stemming from a cognitivist current, modern ethology was founded in 1935 by Lorentz and Tinbergen. The comparative study of animal behaviour, with the collaboration of other sciences, leads to a qualitative and quantitative approach to this behaviour, making it possible to evaluate the context in which it occurs and in what proportions.
After spending ten years working with foals in the traditional way in the American West in the 1950s, veterinary doctor Robert Miller found a way of eliminating their fear of humans by gently desensitising them a few hours after birth.
In his wake, Pat Parelli developed a different approach to horses, replacing the borrowed, sometimes fearful and often intimidating attitude of humans with a behaviour based on communication, understanding and psychology. The results are spectacular.
Monty Roberts is a member of this movement and has become famous throughout the world. It should be noted that the French-Czech André Slavkov spread the method of this American master in Europe and in several countries on other continents. Furthermore, inventor of “virtual equitation”, Slavkov, through a process he calls “isodynamics”, helps experienced riders to solve a problem of attitude through “equestrian mime”.
Making oneself understood and then being obeyed is obtained by applying a fundamental law of psychology to horse riding: the law of associations. This law includes associations by contiguity and associations by resemblance. Gustave Le Bon explained it well at the beginning of the last century. Let us give him the floor.
“The principle of associations by contiguity is as follows: when impressions have been produced simultaneously or have followed one another immediately, it is sufficient for one to be present in the mind for the others to be represented at once. The principle of associations by resemblance can be formulated as follows: present impressions revive past impressions which resemble them.
Let us note in this respect a difficulty in horse riding: if this sort of coded language is not the same from one rider to another, the use of the same horse by two different riders can be very difficult.
Horse training: The qualities of the horse trainer
Dressing implies having a particular set of qualities without which breaking in and training are random adventures.
“Young rider, old horse, young horse, old rider. This long-standing saying makes it clear that the first and foremost quality of the dresser will be experience. Any attempt to train a horse by a rider who is too young or inexperienced will fail.
As a corollary we will add that of being a “horseman”, that is to say, having as complete a knowledge as possible of the physical and psychological functioning of the foal and its limits in these two areas, as well as the care it requires. It is to have an imperturbable attitude, which allows a great precision of the gesture.
It also means being calm, self-controlled, having common sense and imagination. It means being methodical in your work and measured in your demands. The ideal attitude of the trainer during this period will be one that combines gentleness and patience without excluding firmness.
The rule is:
- always know what you want to achieve at any given time;
- know how to ask for little and only what is within the horse’s reach;
- go from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the compound;
- use the same aids to obtain the same effects;
- never fight two resistances at the same time.
Training the horse: The aids
The means used to train are called “aids”.
Training a horse by voice
The voice is the first and most important. By its tone, it will reassure, calm, encourage, reward or, on the contrary, scold, dissuade, punish. Not very receptive at the beginning to the meaning of the words used, the horse understands very well on the other hand, by the tone of his voice, what feelings animate his rider. Better still, its great sensitivity allows it to instantly perceive the moods of its trainer: satisfaction or displeasure, joy or anger, confidence or apprehension.
Training a horse by the legs
The rider then uses the other natural aids of the legs, hands, seat, loins and body weight.
The use of body weight in the training or use of the horse was the subject of a very thorough study by Paul Veillas, a horseman and engineer, inventor of a method known as “balances”. In this method, after having learned how the horse distributes its mass on its four limbs to be able to hold itself in a gait, to carry out a change of direction or of attitude, the rider knew when and how he could help his horse to modify this distribution by his “weight aids” alone.
Dressage aids
Also available to the trainer are the so-called artificial aids. These are accessories such as spurs, whips, and whips, which are often confused with whips: the latter are used to punish, i.e. rarely; the whip is used to indicate, i.e. often. We should also mention the cavesson and the loin, which must be attached to the cavesson and not to the bit as is often seen, the mouth having to be preserved and respected to remain sensitive. The chambriere, indispensable for the work with the longe, completes these “tools”.
Training a horse by Preparatory work, on the lunge and in hand
The lunging work is essential in this part of the training of the horse. The exercises will consist of walking straight, then in a circle. It is a question of determining the horse in the impulse, between the longe and the chambriere, as it will be later, mounted, between the hand and the rider’s legs. The basic gait for this work will be the trot. But it will be useful to teach the horse very quickly the transitions from walk to trot, then from trot to canter and vice versa.
Later on, the lunging work will remain very useful to the rider, in all disciplines, for the relaxation of his horse before the mounted work. It will also allow the rider to learn and perfect jumping, and to prepare for dressage, particularly that which is carried out in view of the high school. General Decarpentry has devoted a chapter of Equitation académique to this subject.
Hand work can be combined with lunging work, of which it is a complement. Also called footwork, this method has many advantages. By avoiding the anxiety of the rider on the horse’s back and giving the horse more freedom of balance and movement, footwork allows the trainer to teach the partner the language of the aids more easily and to prepare him for mounted lessons.
The key is to develop the impulsion in a gymnastics that alternates lateral flexion in circular and straight movements. In this way the foal will be trained to move his hips around his shoulders and his shoulders around his hips. He will learn to shoulder in and back up. The neck will be supported naturally.
Training a horse through mounted work
In the continuation of what was done in the longe, it will be a question of ensuring the balance of the young horse in the forward movement. This work will always start with a long relaxation in the longe. It will be carried out in the riding school the first days, the horse being more supervised than outside and less distracted. The first outings outside will always be done in the company of an older horse to secure the foal. These outings are essential to give the horse some drive. It is advisable to alternate them with sessions in the riding school. The gaits will be straightforward, the balance corresponding to a natural attitude. Then begins the dressage proper, i.e. the learning by the young horse of the basic work of the sport horse, all disciplines included. Specialisations such as show jumping, eventing and dressage will be added to this equestrian core curriculum.
Photo: After the disordered leaps of the foal released alone for the first time, everything quickly returns to order and, reassured, Junker gently rests on his rider’s hand in a natural harmonious attitude which will be the normal attitude of the work (Les Garennes – Saumur, D. Gauthier)
The heart of dressage
Following on from breaking-in, the aim of dressage is to make the young horse “easy and pleasant to ride” in all sporting disciplines. To achieve this, the horse must be willing, balanced in the activity and perfectly obedient to the aids.
In order for the horse to be willing, it is necessary to have eliminated any desire to defend itself, any resistance. The solution will be found first of all in the pursuit of the total confidence that he will have in his rider and in the clear understanding of what is asked of him.
The importance of psychological balance in dressage
Resistance, in fact, has its origin in the following two cases:
- the horse has not understood what the rider wants and he executes the wrong way;
- The horse has understood, but is unable to respond because the exercise or movement is beyond its capabilities.
It is very rare that the horse refuses to perform when he has understood what is expected of him and is able to meet the request. This is the only case in which the rider has the right to get angry.
But the solution also lies in the playful atmosphere that the trainer has managed to create in the man-horse relationship. Good submission, as General Decarpentry said, “must take on the character of joyful eagerness which makes it, so to speak, smiling”. In short, it is a question of obtaining a good psychological balance of the horse.
The importance of physical balance in dressage
Physical balance is a key concept in horsemanship and is paradoxically difficult to explain. It is necessary to distinguish two types of balance: static balance and dynamic balance.
Static equilibrium is that of the horse at a standstill. A series of experiments carried out in the middle of the 19th century by Baucher and Morris tells us that, in a horse at rest, the weight supported by the forelegs outweighs that of the hindquarters by about one-ninth. But when the horse is mounted, the rider’s weight is borne two-thirds by the forehand and one-third by the hindquarters. This suggests the difficulty of riding, as the rider’s art consists, among other things, in skilfully playing with the distribution of the horse’s weight.
Dynamic balance is that of the horse in motion. The horse in action can be balanced on the forehand or on the hips, depending on whether the weight is predominantly on the forehand or on the hindquarters. It is customary to say that a horse balances easily when he can be made to transfer weight to his hindquarters without difficulty. But this is the language of horsemanship, not science.
Balancing: is when the rider modifies the dynamic balance of his horse in a specific way. Balancing is a “system specific to each horse, determined by its natural reflexes, which allows it to manage the static and dynamic balance of its mass” (P. Veillas).
Equestrian balance will be all the more easily achieved if the horse’s shoulders and hips are straight, if its hindquarters are engaged, if its withers are supported.
But to be able to play with the attitude of his horse and to arrange it in the different postures which will be the best adapted to the varied circumstances of his use, the rider will have to make his horse perfectly obedient to the aids. Balancing in submission to the aids is the whole art of horsemanship.
What is the best method of dressage?
There are many methods, because riding is more of an art than a science, there is no single way, strictly speaking, as each trainer’s way is a function of his experience, his sensitivity, the way in which he will apprehend the particular problem he is faced with. And each horse is a special case.
Training method: Baucherism
The bauchery current, marginal in our country, although it still fascinates and many would like a return to its original practice, will only be mentioned because it is practically not used in the sport or leisure orientation. A method in its own right, the main characteristic of Baucherism is that it claims to improve movement through balance and not the other way round. Balance is ensured by “lightness”, which is manifested by the mobility of the jaw, which is both the index and the guarantee of it. It is therefore necessary to look for balance at a standstill first, then at slow speeds, then at other speeds. The temptation of the bauchery is great and seduces some riders of academic dressage. But, very demanding, this practice requires a great experience, a total control of the aids and a perfect knowledge of the method, elements which are very difficult to gather…
Baucherism has never left the head squires of the Ecole de Cavalerie indifferent, and they have integrated elements of it into the French equestrian movement, which they were responsible for transmitting and developing. It has been said that the guiding principle of Saumur was “a measured Baucherism, grafted onto a classical tradition”.
This trend is based on two strong lines:
- “Calm, forward, straight.” Both suc- cessive objectives and permanent guides, capable of keeping the rider on the right path.
- “Combine impulsion and flexibility of the springs. This clearly means that all equitation originates in the impulse, an impulse that is exploited in flexibility. This is the lesson of General L’Hotte, chief equestrian on the eve of the 1870 war. This type of riding avoids the effects of force and gives pride of place to lightness.
Dresser will thus consist in developing impulsion and flexibility in the observation of the above mentioned objectives.
The impulse is, at the beginning, only forward movement. It becomes a desire, then an obsession of this one and ends up making only one with the submission to put our horse in a state of availability suitable to obey its rider with the finger and the eye in all that it will ask him. The ideal, as our elders taught us, is to dominate the horse while letting him believe that he is the master.
As far as flexibility is concerned, lieutenant-colonel Margot reminds us that in French equitation it is in everything: “le ramener, flexibilité du bout de devant; le rassembler, flexibilité des hanches”. We will develop it in an alternation of lateral and longitudinal flexibility exercises. The first step will consist in setting up the topline by finding the right position of the head and the neck in the activity of the hindquarters. It is the obtaining of the bring back.
It is not necessary to be a rider to understand that on the good or bad position of the head of the horse will depend the general disposition of its forces. The rider will be able to act usefully on the whole of his horse, up to the hindquarters, if the head is bent on the neck and the muzzle slightly in front of the vertical of the ears. It is the useful “bring back”, contrary to the reversed neck, which makes the horse uncontrollable.
The way in which the bring back is requested will depend on the continuation of the training, any obtaining carried out in force or prematurely can definitively spoil the horse. The right way is to obtain it:
- in a back to front riding ;
- by pushing the horse’s ears over his mouth and not withdrawing the mouth below the ears;
- by rounding the topline;
- in supporting the withers to keep balance.
In fact, it is a question of bringing the horse to cross its bit without it locking up, i.e. without it taking the vicious position of hooding itself, a position contrary to the reversal of the neck but which makes it possible to escape, towards the back, the actions of the hand. This is only possible if the horse is trained early to extend the neck, bringing it back into the rounding of the topline.
This is only possible if the horse is trained early in the extension of the neck, bringing it back into the rounding of the topline by an “intelligent opposition of the hand to the impulsion”, the neck supported naturally and extended. “Only when the rider can extend the neck at will can he shorten it without fear that the horse may pass behind the hand.” (Commandant Licart)
The spirit of the dressage method
The gymnastics will only be fully effective if the following conditions are met.
- The work times will be short, repeated, the rider knowing “to be satisfied with little, to ask often, to reward much” (Faverot de Kerbrecht).
- The exercises or movements will satisfy the triple requirement: impulse, cadence, relaxation… any movement badly done being not only useless, but also harmful. The result is the horse in muscular harmony or the right horse, which can be presented as follows: the right horse is calm and comfortable. He is in the impulse, round; he accepts the hand and the legs; he stretches his reins at the will of his rider, without pulling; he can go instantly to the extension of the neck.
The starting point of the dressage, the bring back is therefore not a preliminary obtained by force, as we often see nowadays, but the result of a first stage in the elementary submission of the sport horse.
The second step is to obtain the rassembler, the mark of superior horsemanship. The rassembler is characterised by the possibility for the rider to perfect the balance of his horse by a pronounced engagement of his hips in a more accentuated support of his withers.
The equestrian world does not always speak with one voice, to say the least. And while there are hundreds of books on horse training, none of them is the indisputable reference that one might expect. This is due to the fact that, more of an art than a science, horse riding is understood and experienced as an element of the individual’s culture, personality and tastes. This is what makes it fascinating and explains why those who practice it are passionate.
Boxed text: As in horse riding “to understand is to feel”, the meaning of words is the first obstacle to communication between trainers. We must therefore clarify the lines we have just written by specifying the content of certain key notions that are often interpreted differently.
Controversial issues in training
The question of the nature of the relationship to be established between the rider’s hand and the horse’s mouth is very differently interpreted in the equestrian world. It varies from a few grams to a firm grip on the hand. What is it?
Contact is only the relationship between the rider’s hand and the horse’s mouth. Making contact will therefore be the first operation to be carried out in the training of horses. It will take years to establish a constant and light contact. Contact leads to support.
Support is nothing more than the tension of the reins. It could be measured with a dynamometer. The horse that is well put together can stretch its reins at the will of its rider. He never takes the initiative. Otherwise he is said to pull, which makes him less manageable and disturbs his balance. The good support was remarkably defined by the commander Guérin, chief squire of the Cadre Noir in the middle of the 19th century, as “beginning and ending at the minimum of the contact”. Tension: a sport horse is said to be tense when it is in impulsion. The tension of the horse is independent of the tension of the reins. A horse that is wrapped up stretches its reins with a force of several kilos, but its impulse is null. A horse that is pawing in total lightness does not stretch its reins, but its impulse is at its maximum. “It is not necessary for the electric wires to be taut for the current to flow. ”
Raising the neck deepens the back and keeps the hindquarters away
The answer is yes, if the raising is done by pulling on the reins. It is not, if the raising is done without pulling, in a light riding, because it then causes the big neck (posterior part of it) to be pushed backwards, itself causing the ribcage to rise between the shoulders and the iliac plateau to tilt. This places the topline in the direction of convexity, which is the correct direction. This is, at least, the Baucherist position.
The extension lowering of the neck puts the horses in balance
The answer is no, if this operation is carried out without the support of the withers, the neck in ploughshare. However, it is very useful if it is requested in the rounding of the topline with withers support. It is then the basis of the gymnastics in elongation of the sport horses. It is in this posture that OIiveira advised to start the foals.
Discover also the Royal Horse complementary feed, specially designed for competition horses.
