From: Lori
Dear Jessica, I hope you have a wonderful 1998 because I love you and horse sense. You are so wonderful to do this for us just because you love horses so much and want people to understand them better. I think you must love people too because you are so patient with us! Thank you sooooooo much!
I need some advice to help me with my new horse "Farley". He is a seven year old Arab gelding and he is too sensitive to the leg, I didn't think he was so well trained when we got him but he must be incredibly well trained because he reacts so strong to my leg aids! If I even touch him with my leg, he takes off, and if I accidentally touch him when I don't mean to he runs faster and then if I try to pull on him to slow him down, he bucks. I don't think he is mean or anything like that, but is there some way I can make him less trained, or at least not so sensitive to the leg? I ride hunt seat.
thank you again Jessica!
Lori and "Farley" the ex-show horse
Hi Lori! Thank you, that's a nice thing to say. ;-)
From your description, I suspect that Farley is not, in fact, very highly trained, and is not at all trained to the leg. His reaction to your leg aids sounds like the reaction of a barely-trained and very nervous animal that expects something unpleasant to follow the leg signal.
I'm going to make a guess here -- was Farley perhaps shown in Park classes? That might explain his reaction. If he's been trained to expect NO lower-leg contact from his rider, and you have been trained to keep your lower leg on the horse at all times, you have a great formula for mutual misunderstanding.
You are going to need to treat Farley as if he were completely green and completely ignorant -- which, in hunt-seat terms, he probably IS. You don't have to deal with any of the inconvenient green-horse issues: he already accepts a rider, knows how to steer, does all three gaits, stops, starts, and turns. What he does NOT know how to do is (a) accept leg contact without getting agitated or upset, and (b) how to interpret leg signals and respond correctly within your style of riding.
My suggestions are these: first, go back to square one. Begin with work on the longe line, and teach Farley verbal commands for the gaits and for moving out at each gait. You'll be doing this, NOT because he doesn't know the gaits, but so that he will learn to listen to your voice and obey it, so that you can use the voice as a bridge for your under-saddle work. It's a simple progression: You'll use voice while he is on the longe, then voice when he is under saddle, coupled with very light leg aids, then eventually make the voice softer and finally disappear altogether. By that time he'll have learned the leg aids.
If you have a good instructor, get some help with this -- and get a longe lesson or two if you can. That would be an excellent way to teach Farley to relax when your legs are touching him.
Be aware of what you are doing with your legs -- this is where an instructor would be very helpful to you and your horse! Remember that your legs should just rest gently against the horse, not gripping, just "breathing" with him, and that when you use a leg aid, it's just a matter of increasing pressure for a moment, then relaxing the leg again.
If you try to grip, you will be tense, and your tension will make Farley tense. If you kick, or use too hard a pressure, or hold the pressure for too long, this too will make your horse tense and nervous. That's what's bothering him right now -- he thinks that you want SOMETHING from him, but he doesn't understand what you want, and he thinks that your legs just touching him means that you want him to do something in particular. Since he can't figure out what it is, he's confused and frightened, and everything escalates from there. He's not super-sensitive to the leg, he's just not EDUCATED to these leg aids, but he does know that he's supposed to do something. This is a good attitude, and you can work with it. Get some help if you possibly can -- a good instructor will be able to help you stay relaxed and use your leg aids only when you intend to.
While you're making yourself aware of what you're doing with your legs, learn to be aware of your breathing too. If you hold your breath, your legs will grip. If you can keep breathing slowly and deeply, your legs will stay relaxed on Farley's sides, and he'll be able to learn the lesson much more quickly.
Be patient -- remember, he already knows his job, it's just that you want him to do an entirely different job. He's quite capable of learning it and enjoying it, but you must be very clear, very consistent, very kind, and give him -- and yourself -- time.
Jessica
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