Equistride International

A double Pan-American gold medalist discusses the progression of straightness, explaining how daily training of it leads to greater self-carriage and collection.

By Carole Grant with Beth Baumert

A rider attentive to his horse's suppleness from the beginning will find that his horse can achieve the straightness needed for better gaits, a higher level of self-carriage and a greater degree of collection. This is true for all horses, regardless of skill, conformation or breeding. Training your horse to this level of straightness may sound easy, but it can be confusing because there are three stages: the horse's natural crookedness at birth; lower level straightness and finally relative straightness the goal for upper-level horse. All horses are born crooked. Riders may change them through training, but their natural tendencies are to travel with their footprints as illustrated in diagram 1, the implications of these footprints are far reaching: The horse's right hind leg carries weight, but it has trouble pushing and coming under. Consequently, that is one of the reasons the horse doesn't want to draw properly on the right rein, giving an empty, hollow feeling. On the other hand, the horse's left hind leg pushes but it has trouble carrying weight. It leaves the ground quickly, making the horse stiff or heavy on that rein.

The horse would always travel crooked if we didn't address the issue of straightness every day with suppling exercises. Through correct training, we first can teach the horse to become supple enough for "lower-level straightness," shown in diagram 2. This occurs when the horse goes forward, allowing his hips to follow his shoulders like the cars of a train follow its engine. After a horse learns this, we can train him to become relatively straight. That is, we want to position his shoulders to the inside and narrow his hind legs so that they step forword into the space between his front legs. (See diagrams 3a and 3b, at right.)

The thinking is the same as what is needed when you try to push a thread through the eye of a needle. You push the thread straight through. Similarly, there is no sideways activity in threading your horse's hind legs. Ultimately, you want to be able to narrow or "thread" either hind leg without the other leg falling out. Over time, this strengthens the horse so he can push and carry equally with each hind leg and he is taking equal contact in each rein.

As a result, his withers come up and his shoulders become even more mobile. This is the degree of lateral suppleness that produces relative straightness. That's why you will hear that you have to bend a horse to make him straight. Riders who truly understand this situation when the horse is young avoid having aged horses that are unaccepting of the right rein and stiff on the left.