Quite Hands

by Danica Yates
(reprinted with Permission)

My partner is tree guy, not a horse person. But he is interested in dressage and asked me one morning at breakfast, “So when you are riding, doing like a half pass or something, are you telling the horse every minute what to do, squeezing or pulling or whatever?”

I told him that is an interesting question. (A) because many riders are not quite sure about this themselves and (B) because the answer is in part yes and in large part no. As dressage riders, the end goal is to do as little as possible. When the horse and rider are well connected and communicating effectively, very little physical pressure is needed on the rider’s part to maintain the connection and flow of the partnership. When we do our homework and create pure connection, it’s fair to say that dressage is effortless. Naturally, there is a lot of homework to do to get to this point, whatever level you are at. And during that work, you are in the constant process of applying the aids, softening and applying again.

One of the main aids that dressage riders have a hard time doing less with, is the hands. You will often see riders see-sawing with the reins or in other less obvious ways pulling the horse together. Let’s think back to the age old adage, ‘ride leg to hand.’ What does this mean? It means that we create the energy in the hind end using our legs and allow a place for the energy to go with our hands: when needed we soften, half halt, support with or play the reins.

With these components we create a supportive but very dynamic feel to manage the flow of energy. The main habits we want to steer away from are bracing or restricting back on the reins- even if it does momentarily round the horse’s neck. More likely though, the horse will respond to the pressure by bracing back. He might invert his back and ‘come off the bit,’ or he might just loose forward impulsion and engagement. We want to avoid pulling our hands down and out, instead carry them light in front of us. The first good habit we want to create is: ‘when he softens, you soften.’ We want to encourage the horse to stretch forwards toward the bit, to allow him a comfortable, engaged place to carry himself. We want to allow that energy we create in the hind end to circulate forward rather than blocking it with a bracing hand.

Often when I see riders bracing, I simply tell them to soften the reins at any point, and their horses sigh with relief and stretch forward. A good exercise to start with to create soft hands is to learn to follow the movement of the horse. A rider that appears quiet in the saddle is still inside themselves, but their bodies are actually moving comprehensively with the horse. They are taking his movement and letting it translate into their seat, pelvis and arms while maintaining a still core strength with their upper body. As your horse walks, pay attention to how each rein feels in your hands. Remember that the reins are connected to the bit lying on your horse’s tough and lips. Feel how his head naturally moves as he walks, and follow this motion. Check to see if your arms are dynamic and encourage your elbow joints to open and close smoothly. Same thing in the canter. At first the following might feel exaggerated and that is fine. As training advances, the rider’s core strength will increase and the horse’s thoroughness and ability to carry himself will increase. Consequently, as the horse uses his back more, he moves his head less and the rider can sit very still.

The second action our hands must do is half halt when the energy gets away. When we add our leg to increase impulsion, we do not want our horse running down on his forehand. Here we half halt decisively to stop the running then immediately soften, add our leg and ask for impulsion again. Whenever we add our leg or tap to increase impulsion from the hind end, we first stretch up and soften to allow a place for that energy to go. You can see the pattern here with the half halt: we apply the aid, soften and apply again. We never hang on the reins or even use the rein without listening to the horse’s response and backing it up with the legs.

The third thing that quiet hands do is support and balance. This is not to say that we ‘hold our horses up.’ Rather, the reins stay steady with an elastic feel and do not break the flow of energy. They create a space of support that the horse will move up into. When horses run free out in the field, most will not be moving in a frame. Our reins do play a role of support. Our hands harnesses the energy flowing up the spine and cycle it back around to create a through dressage horse. The outside rein in particular must be steady with the contact. Maintaining consistent contact allows the horse’s movement and frame to be consistent. Just like we want to avoid bracing on the horse’s mouth, we want to avoid dropping the contact all together. With quite supportive hands it does not matter if we are doing transitions, lengthening, turning, there is always consistency in the rein.

A great exercise to see the effect of quite supportive hands is to take your whip sideways, parallel to the ground. Place the whip across the top of your hands, holding it secure under your thumbs. On a 20 meter circle, point the tip of that whip towards the very center of the circle. Image that the whip is the radius of the circle. You do not want it to point too far back towards your horse’s haunches, nor to far forward towards his nose. Also, you do not want the whip to tip up or down, but stay level, parallel to the ground in your hands. You should find that your hands steady when using this technique. Your hands must work in unity and are not loose to push or pull on one side. If you follow the movement with your arms, and soften when he softens giving him a place to go, does he stay quiet and stretch forward?

The final technique for quite hands is ‘playing the reins.’ What this entails is softly squeezing, almost kneading the rein between your fingers and palm of your hand. It is so subtle that as a trainer, I see it enacted more from the horse’s reaction than from visually seeing any movement in the rider’s hand. What playing the rein does is talk to the horse’s mouth. Remind yourself of how your rein is connected to a metal bar in the soft tissue in your horse’s mouth. Playing the rein stimulates and engages that tissue like a message. Most often this technique is employed on the inside rein while the outside rein continues to support. Playing the rein does not pull the horse’s mouth with static pressure or grab and throw away; rather it feels that tissue and talks to the horse as you add your leg. And key word here: leg. Playing the rein helps softens the back when the leg is added to create energy from the hind end.

When we have done our homework and schooled our horses and ourselves well, we can then reap the benefits and simply allow the horse to move. Sometimes doing less is the hardest thing. But as riders we want to create freedom in the front end and a comfortable place for the horse to carry himself. We want be engaged with our minds and feel every step but be quiet with our aids when we can. Dressage is not static. It is incredibly dynamic. Dynamic = energetic, vibrant, self-motivated, full of life. Allow for this liveliness by flowing with the horse in the freedom of synchronous movement.

Danica Yates is a sport horse trainer in the Portland, Oregon area. FEI and European experience, four years private training with Olympian Debbie McDonald. Training, lessons and board are available. Call (503)278-1112 or visit www.danicayates.com for more information.