Episode 20: The Hierarchy of the Riders Aids as the Horse Advances

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Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall, and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horse in this podcast. I'd like to bring together two ideas that I've talked about the grade levels that a horse moves through and the riders use of AIDS in episode six. I discussed the idea that I believed that the horse's path and the riders path are different. And for this example, we're going to talk about the horse's path of kindergarten to grade school, tie school to college. And then I want to bring in layer in the idea of the the changing use of the riders aides. For this example, let me go ahead and quickly run you through the idea of what a horse in my training program would learn. I would begin with a horse learning groundwork and emotional control. So Presto is now a three year old. He's the foal that I adopted from the Last Chance Corral and I will start riding him in the next month or so. But what I do before I ride them is I do a lot of groundwork and emotional control stuff so I can whip around him, send him over tarps. He understands going fast and then stopping and standing and he understands a lot of emotional control. When I first get on and ride him, I will keep it very simple. If you want to see an example of this. You can jump onto my YouTube channel at Stacy l Westfall on youtube you'll find Stacy Westfall.

Pretty easy on there. And look for Stacie's video diary. Jack and I actually documented with the horse the whole first year of training and I especially covered a war in the first month. So what you'll see on there and what you'll see when I start presto is when I go to get on this horse, I'm going to keep it really simple. Think about if I were ground driving, if I'm ground driving the horse. That means that I've got long rains running back through and I'm driving from behind. So in that instance, my lunge whip or whatever I'm using to act as a gas pedal is pretty basic because I'm not mounted. I'm following along behind the horse. And if I pull on the left rein, he goes left, pull on the right rein. He goes right and legs. Well, I'm not on him. So there are no legs. So my lunge whip would be a driving aid. And so basically it's in the place of my legs because I'm not onem yet. And the legs or whip in this case just mean go forward. When I go to get on presto, I'm going to keep that same thought process. I'm not going to start to complicate and expect him to be able to think, oh, she's using her left leg a little more or her right leg a little more. I'm going to keep my legs cues very simple. They're going to be gas pedaling forward and I'm going to keep my rain cues really simple.

And I'm going to expect to use basically an inside rain like we talked about in the last episode. I'm going to pull on the left. Rain to go left. I'm going to pull on the right. Rain to go right. And here's an interesting fact. I'm going to spend a lot more time in arcs of circles than I am in straight lines because I don't want to get into this wobbly, sneaky feeling thing. And he won't have enough training to understand how to be balanced between all the AIDS. Really. Even so, I'm going to have that little I'm but I'm going to use them to use the inside bend and then I'm gonna use my legs as gas pedal and my legs as gas pedal can actually get me an outward motion just because of centrifugal force. So again, if I get on presto and I'm basically don't have an outside rein to lead him out too yet because that's too complicated for him in the beginning. What I'll be doing is I would have my inside rein to bend him. I could lighten up a little bit on the inside rain and I could add more gas pedal with my legs and that will send him into a bigger circle or a bigger arc because of centrifugal force. So this is how I can still keep that inside bend and and not have this weeble wobbly sneaky feeling by using both of my reins on a horse that doesn't understand this.

Now somewhere around and it's a little different for each horse. But you know, by the time I get around 30 days or something like that, he's going to understand a lot more about how I've connected the reins to his shoulders. So first it's gonna be rain is left. Rain means go left, right, rain means go right, legs mean go forward. If I want to stop, I'm going to bend him and bring him around into more of a bending circle and bend him down to a stop. Now, when I go to move on to the next grade level, the next thing he's going to start learning is going to be what I talked about in the last podcast, which is that I can be bending him to the left and I can pick up with that outside right rain and ask his shoulder to move out. But I'm also going to just drive his shoulder out there by just using more gas pedal, which is what I've been doing already. And I'm going to start to build that bridge to where he starts to understand, oh, I can follow this. Right, rain out. And so then when he understands all that, then I'm going to start to ask him to do a little bit more advanced thing. So I'm going to ask him to be able. To really move that shoulder out by that right outside rain again, Kit. Picture me still circling to the left and pitcher that right, rain being strong enough to pull him out without maybe my legs having to do any extra because he's got the legs are going to be just keeping basic forward motion.

And that right hand is going to lead him out and he's going to follow because he's starting to understand the concept vs. a few weeks earlier than that, when my hand would phantom that motion out there. And then if he didn't go, my legs would get strong and drive him out there. Now, the next step for me, he would now be, look, he will have learned that he can follow the inside rain. He will have learned that he can follow that outside rain. And now after we've had a fair bit of time practicing that, I'll start to exaggerate both the inside rain meaning more and the outside rain meaning more. So the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to start working on something like you might just think of it like a spin, but to me, it's just going to be more refined steering to the inside. So now instead of keeping on on these bigger asking circles, I'm going to start thinking about having that inside rain really leading. So I'm still going to the left. I promise I don't ride my horses this much to the left. I'm just keeping us all mentally circling to the left. Always balance these things out left and right, but not while I'm talking in the podcast.

So now imagine I'm riding around to the left. I'm going to actually exaggerate that. I want to build a pick up that left rain and I almost want him to feel a little bit like a marionette puppet with that left inside leg feeling like it's connected to my left inside rain where my timing can be good and I can actually like feel where his left foot lands. And then I'm going to pick up with that inside left brain and try to make him feel like a marionette puppet and step that inside left leg instead of stepping straight forward to eleven or twelve o'clock. I want to see if I can make it step over to ten o'clock or nine o'clock. And if I want to start teaching him the spin, I would start getting him to step back to like eight o'clock. Would that inside front leg. So I'm going to start to get a little more refined about what I'm asking there and then to balance that out. I'm actually going to do the same thing with the outside rain, except if it's going to stay a true outside rain, then that means I'm going to keep this bend to the left and that inside rain is gonna be doing nothing but holding the bend of the left. And then I'm going to actually use my outside right rain to also get kind of that marching step where that right leg comes out. And instead of that right leg stepping to twelve o'clock, it's going to step to one o'clock or two o'clock.

Now if he's essentially in a counterman, if he's bent to the left and I'm leading that right front leg over to the right, I'm not going to ever be able to bring that right front leg like really sharp. It's gonna be more that just pitcher for now that one o'clock or two o'clock step. So that's how you're gonna be the lead that horse out into a counter bend eventually. Now, when I say that bend, if you're going to the left and you can see the horse's left eye, that's bend. If you lead that horse out into a right circle without changing the bend. So that left hand keeps kind of an anchor on your thigh so that horses bend to the left and you can kind of lead that horse out there with that right rein when you establish a right circle. But you still have the horse's head bent to the left. Now you're traveling to the right, but you can see the horse's left eye. That's counter-trend. One question I get a lot is why in the world would you want to countermand a horse? Well, it proves control of the shoulders because if you've ever had a horse run away with you, a lot of times you'll notice that if a horse is running away, say, back to the barn, that you can actually pull the horse's head very far around.

But the shoulders are still taking you back to the barn. As soon as you've experienced that or if you can picture and you happening in your mind, as soon as you've experienced that, what you'll find is that horses do not always follow their head. They do always follow their shoulder. So when we're doing this counter bending and or bending them to the left, but relieving the shoulder to the right, we're basically proving a level of control that's going to be necessary when we move up into these higher maneuvers, especially something like the lead change where we're going to need to be able to isolate the shoulders and the hips and have this much control over the horse. So right now to me, we're getting like upper level elementary school bordering on like some of the high school stuff. When I start to really move into being able to control, I've got this excellent control, the horse's shoulders. It's all in my hands. And my legs are essentially just keeping that horse moving forward. Because when you go to go out and a counter bend and and you've got a bending rain holding the horse to the left and you've got a cow, a leading rain leading the horse to the right while they're bending to the left. I guarantee you're going to need gas pedal. And so for right now, it's important that your legs are being used evenly as a gas pedal. And where people get in trouble here is that when they're trying to use their leg to help influence the moving of the shoulder, it's very tempting.

And I'm not saying that you can't touch that here or there if you need to maybe spark the idea with the horse. So maybe maybe you flutter a leg in that horse takes a step and you've released. But the problem is most people, when they're going around the circle, the left, the horse is bending left or circling left. They start working on moving the horse, leading that horse out to the right with the right rein. What a lot of people want to do is they want to start using a lot of left leg to take the horse to the right. That will be a stage we go through. But early on with my horses, I really use both legs evenly so that that right rain can become independently strong for leading that horse out there, because where people get stuck if they don't conquer this at some point is that if you're using the left leg to drive the horse to the right. And that's the only way you can do it. What is going to happen is when you need to be able to say move the horse's shoulder to the right. But the hip to the left. Now you're going to feel a little bit stuck trying not to get you guys lost here. So take your imaginary horse back onto your left circle. Your left hand is bending.

Now your right hand is is floating out towards 2 o'clock and leading this shoulder out. Now, imagine that you're using that that left leg to help drive that horse to that right rein. I'm saying use both legs to drive that horse to that right rein. At this stage, because you need to be to have this as a fallback because someday you're going to want to be able to do it, lead change. And if we were walking, unbend your horse now, walk your horse in your head on a straight line. If you drive in a car, this is great. Don't start swerving everywhere. But you're just going straight line. So you're going in a straight line. And let's say all your aides or or even a lead change. If you were on the if we were on the left lead, we would imagine that the horse's shoulders would feel slightly right or the hip would feel slightly left. And that would that would give us this. Imagine skipping with your left leg leading. That's going to give you this. This left lead, if you wanted to do a lead change, you're going to have to be able to move that horse's shoulder ever so slightly to the left and then move the hips to the right. This is where it's going to be really important that at some point you can independently control the shoulders with your hands, in the hips, with your legs. Where I think a lot of people get confused is that the stages before this and after this are slightly different, meaning the stages before this.

You might need to use your inside leg to help drive the horse to that outside rein. And that's going to. You're going to hear that coming up over and over again. But I'm also introduced the idea that that right. Rein, if you can strengthen it so that both legs are just being used even in that right. Rein can lead that horse out there. All of a sudden, we know that horse really understands it. And then remember, I told you later on, I'm going to ride bridles. Later on, my legs are actually going to control that shoulder. And that hip on that side. That's a big concept leap, so let's not go too far there, but let's just introduce that as a possibility. Conflicting aides tend to happen when the rider doesn't understand what to do, when the horse doesn't respond to a request. In the beginning, when the horse is very green and the rider is saying, you know, left ring left, right, rain right, it's a little bit more clear what to do if it doesn't work. But especially as you start to advance and have something like an indirect aid, which I'm going to use the example of a neck rain, which is an indirect aid or a request if that doesn't work. So if you're walking to the left and you lay the right rain on as a request to turn sharper or more to the left if the horse doesn't respond.

What often happens is that the rider will use that indirect aid harder and harder, which actually will pull the horse out of position. If the horse doesn't understand. So it's very common to see a rider who tries to neke rain to the left, who then polls that right rain very far across the horse's neck and invert the horse. And it's it's definitely pulling the horse out of position because that's an indirect aid. If the horse doesn't respond to the neck rain, that nectarine needs to be reinforced by a direct aid, which would be more the inside rain or the outside leg. That would then be the follow through when the more vancity doesn't work. If they don't know how to walk back down to the more basic aid that will work. That's when they start to do a lot of conflicting type aids. So I call it conflicting if the aid causes a missed shipment or misalignment of the horse. In this example, if you're attempting to neke rain the horse to the left and the horse doesn't respond to that indirect rain, that right rain being laid on the neck requesting please turn left. If the horse doesn't respond to that and you pull harder, you will then actually pull the horse into a position where it's locking up their shoulders. It's pulling their head into this weird position a lot of times because they're already fighting it, because they either don't understand it or they're excited or whatever is going on that they're ignoring the request.

If you just apply that particular aid harder, you're actually getting the horse out of position. So it's important that the rider understands that that's a requesting indirect and then you need to make the direct rain or the more direct aid and whatever that situation is. That's the one that has to step in. To me, that's an example of moving down that hierarchy. So maybe you thought you were gonna be working on lead changes today, but then you go to move the shoulder and you realize that your gentle requests to move the shoulder isn't being listened to. Then you need to say I'm not working on lead changes today because I need to go back and ask this horse to respond to these aides. That would be coming prior to the lead change. So if you can't fluidly move the shoulder without losing forward motion and rhythm, then you're not going to get the lead change. There's no reason to go through with asking for the actual lead change because you're not set up for success. When I'm riding a younger, greener horse, I really do keep it clean and simple when I'm writing an older horse. The starting to be, you know, somebody brings a horse in the horse. Maybe they've been working on lead changes and maybe they've been showing, but they're just having some problems if that horse looks nervous.

If the horse looks a little antsy. If that rider looks nervous. If that rider looks a little antsy, even though they may have been doing advanced maneuvers, I will totally take them back and have a day like I did yesterday with Gabbie where I say, let's go back to the basics, because a lot of times when we take off that pressure, we go back to basics. We can do two things. We can clarify some of the things that might not be working. And we could also just let that horse be like, OK, I remember legs are forward and it's amazing this pretty shape that they'll get when there's just this one shaping rain and not all these other conflicting aides that are going on. I hope that the number one thing you got out of this podcast is that going back to the basics is not a sign of weakness or failure. It is where the foundation is. I also hope that you got a little glimpse into the idea of how we're going to move up through these aides as we move into the horses mind and the horses body. I'm going to get a lot more into the different aids that I use for shaping and moving the horse around and the mental side effects is going to have. But right now, I want to plant the seed in your mind that going back to the basics is never a sign of weakness or failure. It's the foundation.

And I would argue it's a sign of self-control of the rider and of understanding in the rider. Understanding the basics is not less than the advanced. Thank you for joining me today, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.

If you enjoy listening to Stacie's podcasts, please visit Stacy Westfall dot com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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