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Improving Your Horse's Walk
Olympic dressage rider Carl Hester gives his top tips on turning those poor dressage marks into higher figures. Here Carl looks at turning your horse’s walk into a winner!
In training, walk is by far the most difficult pace to improve and the easiest to ruin, so it’s important to look at your horse’s natural walk and examine how he moves without intervention – for example is he hurried or does he have an unequal rhythm to his walk? Often, tense or nervous horses do not move with looseness, which can affect the quality of walk. Once you have had a good look at your horse’s walk, you can start to look at ways of improving it.
I tend to ride in walk for at least 10 minutes before I start my schooling work, although if I am riding a tense or excitable horse I would rather go up a gear into trot if I thought he was not going to settle in the walk and then come back down into walk, once he has calmed down. I also hack my horses out regularly, so again this gives the horses the opportunity to really show off their walks – it’s amazing what a difference walk hacks can make in improving your horses gait! I take full advantage of hills as well, as they also encourage the horse to walk out and really stretch over his back.
If your horse has irregular footfalls then shoulder-in has to be your best chance of helping improve the walk. Riding your horse in a correct shoulder-in will encourage him to really use the inside leg and step under, which will help strengthen weaknesses and improve the gait. I also use shoulder-in for sharp horses that tend to run away from the riders legs as it teaches him to accept the leg. This is so important, because even if he has a good walk, you still need to direct him with your leg and keep him straight!
For medium walk, you should be looking at your horse freely marching forward with nice big energetic strides (like he does maybe when he’s coming in from the field when it’s dinner time!). The hind feet should touch the ground in front of the prints of the fore-feet (this is known as over-tracking) and the rider must maintain a steady contact, without restricting the horses head and neck. Some horses can be a little lazy, so it’s important to teach him to go forward without constant encouragement with your legs – so that when you do need that extra power in the gait, you are more likely to get a response. Rather than constantly nudging the horse with your leg, a short sharp kick and reward when he goes forward is far more effective. Just remember to keep your hands forward, so that when your horse does react to your leg, you don’t inadvertently sock him in the mouth.
For a free walk on a long rein, you should be aiming for a relaxed stretch down with a long not loose rein contact. A lot of riders create problems for themselves, by suddenly chucking the entire rein at their horse, who isn’t truly stretching down and who then decides to stick his head in their face and have a good look around at the scenery, whilst the rider scrambles around shortening the reins ready for the next movement in the test. The key to this movement is practice and to gently allow the horse to take the contact and rein down and then take up the rein contact again, quietly and confidently, so that your horse trusts you when you take up the reins. Some horses get quite crafty after this movement and start to jog or get busy in anticipation of a trot or canter so at home I ride a 10 meter circle after the diagonal of free walk, just to remind him to wait for me!
Free walk on a loose rein is not a test movement, but one I use at the end of a schooling session as it lets the horse cool down and really stretch his neck and head thoroughly relaxed. However, if you are having problems with your horse stretching down, especially at the end of a session, it could be that just as we suffer stiff necks so can some horses. I gently ask for flex and bend on circles, playing with flexion to the inside of the circle and counter-flexion to the outside. I also use shoulder-in as well. Once the horse has warmed up and he is offering a stretch down, reward him with a small scratch at the wither and what ever you do DO NOT saw his mouth with the bit to get his head back down there! If a horse is not used to stretching work, he can sometimes find this difficult, so ask for a little at a time and never force him.
For extended walk, which is expected at elementary level and above, you are looking for the horse to cover more ground without quickening the rhythm or losing the regular rhythm. The rider should allow the horse to stretch his neck and head whilst keeping a soft contact on the horse’s mouth. Remember with all walk work – forget about fiddling with the front end –it’s the back end (the hindlegs) that you need to focus on. The hind legs are the engine that drives the horse forward and as the walk has no suspension and none of the impulsion seen in the other paces, you need to remember this with your aids and make sure that you don’t block with your hands and seat.
Collected walk is introduced at Medium level and should show a clear four beat forward rhythm. Because of the horse’s level, he has now developed self-carriage and engagement, so he should be able to show higher more contained steps with cadence, but as the old saying goes ‘don’t run before you can walk’ and in this case time spent getting the basic walk free, relaxed and forward will reap the rewards as you move up the levels.
So next time you think a walk is just a walk, remember it’s idle talk!
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