Is the timing of your aids holding you back?

I’m sure you’ve heard time and again how important the timing and feel of your aids are.

But try as you might you have no idea what you’re even meant to be feeling for!!!

I’m going to share with you a couple of neat tricks that you can start using today that will get you those wins!

The timing of your leg aid when you are ready to work your horse in to contact is so important!! You need first to decide if you want to influence the hind legs or the forelegs and what you are wanting to influence them to do. So here’s a couple of tips.

• If you put your leg on when the leg is grounded you will create more forwardness and drive which could result in speed or a short choppy stride.

• If you put your leg on as the leg is back coming through you will create more lift and through but may result in your horse going behind your leg.

• If you put your leg on as the shoulder is forward coming back you will encourage your horse to lengthen its neck and if elasticity allows lower but will put your horse on the forehand.

• If you put your leg on as the shoulder is back coming through you will get more lift and reach through the shoulder but may hollow the back and disengage the hind.

These are important timings for balancing engagement, throughness and over the back under saddle. Practicing it in walk first helps.

You can develop straightness also with the timing of the aid. The horses tend to try to find the easy way out so will drop the hip, twist the pelvis and drop the shoulder so as to avoid using their core. We can feel this in the saddle and time our aids to straighten them up.

For a dropped/disengaged hind squeeze soften the same rein and leg as the hind leg is back coming through to ask it through further. Asking the hind leg to step through further to meet the opposite hind leg can help to straighten the pelvis. Quite often the horse will then drop the other hind so we end up bumping each through until we get equal power and throughness of both hind legs.

For a dropped shoulder, same rein and leg as the shoulder is forward coming back shifts the balance into the other shoulder so that they can lift and extend through the dropped shoulder. As above they will probably drop the other shoulder and you will need to bump it back until the horse starts to carry itself.

Second big tip:

When you have your horse walking actively in front of your leg they will be moving your seat. It will rock a little left and right and your seat swings up and through that is the hind leg that is coming through. If you put your leg on as your hip is swinging up and forward that is when the hind leg is back coming through and you are asking it through more.

In trot if you have the correct rising trot diagonal (in Australia its as the outside fore lifts you rise) you need to be applying your leg as you’re standing out of the saddle to step the inside hind higher and more through. Putting your leg on as you rise is actually quite hard and we are more inclined to put our leg on while we sit so we are actually grounding and disengaging the hind leg when we do that.

In canter we cuddle lift with each stride. Squeezing the inside leg and the outside rein as you cuddle lift can keep the jump in the stride if your horse has an established working canter.

If you think your aids are holding you back, or you need more help with your riding, we encourage you to sign up to the Green to Self Carriage course, filled with lesson plans and bonus coaching to help you fully begin to develop the correct aids and movements for postural soundness of your horse.