13
FOR THE FIRST FEW WEEKS of a young horse’s training, don’t worry about collection, which is the horse’s balance and animation. Your main focus should be on teaching the horse to move out, stop, turn, and respond to rein and leg signals, so he is always under control. At this point, he travels in an extended manner; that is, his hind feet are not well under him, his head and neck are fairly low, and he travels more heavily on his front end.
Most horses collect themselves naturally when running free, to balance themselves for various maneuvers. But when you add the weight of a rider, the green horse becomes clumsy and must learn his balance all over again. He travels heavily on his front legs until you teach him to collect himself and carry the weight properly.
Teaching a horse to move more lightly in front is one of the most important aspects of training. He can’t perform with proper balance and agility until he is collected with his weight farther back, thus freeing his front end for whatever new movement you request.
Training your horse to be light in front is not something that can be accomplished quickly. It is a gradual, progressive learning process. Begin at the walk and trot, and don’t proceed beyond that until he’s learned to collect himself at those gaits. After your horse is more fully trained, you can let him travel in an extended manner occasionally, but when there is work to be done or if a precise action is wanted, he must be collected or he won’t be able to perform it well. He will also be clumsier and more likely to stumble.
What Is Collection?
When a horse is collected, his head is above the level of his withers, his neck is slightly arched and flexed at the poll so his nose is down (his face is more vertical), his chin is tucked in, and his face and forehead are almost perpendicular to the ground. His lower jaw is relaxed and responsive to the light hands of the rider. His hind feet are well under his body, and he is balanced and ready for movement in any direction — and like a coiled spring, he can do it very quickly.
The horse’s back is slightly arched rather than swayed and hollow; thus, he is better able to carry the weight of saddle and rider. Because the horse’s weight is shifted more toward the hindquarters, not only does he become more maneuverable, but stress and concussion on his front legs are reduced as well.
The collected horse looks shorter in length. Collection requires action of the back and hindquarters. When he takes more weight on his hindquarters, he crouches down slightly behind, which pulls somewhat on his back muscles, stretching them and making them more elastic. As he stretches his back muscles, he takes more weight off his front end. He also stretches and lengthens his neck, bending at the poll and bringing his lower jaw closer to his chest, decreasing the distance from the bit to your hand. The collected horse is on a rein shorter than that of the extended horse.
Collection horse — animated
COLLECTION AIDS IN LOAD CARRYING
The lowered haunches and stretched back muscles make the back somewhat convex, allowing the horse to move his back more freely and carry a rider with greater ease. An arched structure can carry a load more easily than one that is straight or concave.
The opposite of collection is extension. The extended horse is traveling with head and neck low and heavy in front. The collected horse’s weight is more on his hind legs. As you teach your horse collection, his hindquarters become stronger and develop the ability to carry more of the weight; his action becomes more elastic, elevated, and animated. The collected horse gives his rider a more comfortable and less tiring ride. He is more responsive to the rider and is ready to move quickly and easily in any direction.
How the Horse Balances Himself
A horse keeps his balance by raising and lowering his head and changing the position of his hind feet. The lower his head, the harder it is for him to move freely because the heavier he is on his front end. He is not prepared for sudden movement in another direction. He must be able to get the weight off his front feet in order to free them for action. And to be light on his feet and prepared for a sudden change of direction, he must have his head up and put more weight on his hindquarters.
Extended horse — unanimated
A Green Horse versus a Collected Horse
A green horse with a rider moves in a manner much different from that of a well-trained horse. The trained horse is ready for action at any time. The stock horse, for instance, can leap into action in any direction you indicate. But the green horse is slow to respond if you ask him to head a cow. He is also awkward and clumsy.
He may understand the signal to turn and try to move as you indicate, but he’s not collected. His legs aren’t under him; he’s not in the right position with balance for a well-controlled turn, a fast start, or a quick stop. He must learn collection before he can become well coordinated with you on his back. Do not ask your horse to perform fast maneuvers until he is far enough along in his training to do them successfully. If you try to make a horse do things beyond his ability, you may be tempted to kick him or to jerk him here and there and to a stop. None of these actions is instructive. Be patient. Proceed carefully and slowly, and don’t blame your horse if he doesn’t understand your requests.
Creating More Animation
The key to collection is to develop more controlled energy so the horse is moving with more up-and-down action. True collection begins from the ground up. You must enable the horse to engage his hindquarters more. Your goal is to create drive and energy from the horse’s haunches.
Head Set
Proper head set alone — getting your horse to raise his head, for example, and to bend at the poll and tuck his chin — is not collection. Simply working on the horse’s head, with your hands or with an artificial aid such as a martingale to bring his nose toward his chest, will not produce collection. Your horse will be artificially flexed at the poll, and his face may be up and down, but his head and neck will be stiff; he won’t have the balance and agility of a truly collected horse. Proper head set is a result of collection, not the cause. You want to enhance the horse’s agility by encouraging him to bear more weight on his hindquarters.
DON’T NEGLECT COLLECTION
Some horses naturally travel with more balance and collection than others do, largely due to conformation and athletic ability. All horses, however, need some training when you start riding them so that they learn to be collected under saddle. It’s easier to teach a horse who has natural agility and balance than one who doesn’t, of course, but every horse can be taught better collection while carrying a rider.
First Lessons in Collection
Everything you teach a horse after his first basic lessons is aimed at making him more pleasant to ride and better able to perform the actions you want him to. You want him light in your hands, agile, and able to adjust his stride to any situation.
When playing out in the pasture, the green horse may handle himself with good balance, but his center of balance changes with the added weight of a rider. When you first start riding him, he travels heavy in front. If he raises his head, he still travels awkwardly because he hasn’t learned how to tuck his chin, shift his weight, and arch his back. The uncollected green horse tends to hollow his back when he raises his head, which makes for more clumsiness. He needs some help from his rider to learn how to collect himself while carrying the extra weight.
Setting His Head
Setting his head when teaching your horse collection is done by proper use of the bit with very light hands. If you often fingered the reins lightly during his early training, your horse will now tend to lift his head due to the action of the snaffle. When he is farther along, he should perform well in any bit that fits him, but because a green horse moves with his head low, all early training should be done with a snaffle. You will be working on collection for quite a while; it takes time and patience to develop a well-collected horse.
Teaching the Horse to Give to the Bit
Your horse cannot progress in his training until he develops a soft, responsive mouth that gives readily to the bit. It may take several weeks of riding before he is ready to start collecting; first he must be responsive to the bit. If you try to push him into the bit with your legs (as you must do to get him to collect) and he has not yet learned to give to the bit, he won’t understand what you want; he’ll fight the bit or throw his head in the air. Be patient. It will take many lessons to get your horse accustomed and responsive to the bit.
It helps if you accomplish some ground work before riding, such as sessions in the bitting harness (see page 202), so he already knows about giving to the bit and not rooting with his nose when he feels a little restraint. Then when you start riding him, you merely have to keep working on fine-tuning his responsiveness.
Your first lessons at collection will be at the walk. Gently finger the reins, working ever so gradually at teaching him to give, to raise his head a little more, and to bring back his nose to the more vertical position rather than keeping it stuck out in front. You can’t do as much tucking of his chin or lower-jaw relaxing with a snaffle as you can with a curb (that will come later; see page 183), but you can get a good start; you can get him to raise his head and shift some weight off his front.
Using Your Legs
Once your horse has learned to give to the bit, so that when you finger the reins he responds by giving his mouth rather than bracing against you, it’s time to work with your legs. Begin by using a little more leg pressure. Using your legs — your horse already knows this cue to go forward or faster — makes him push his hind legs farther underneath himself, as he does when moving more quickly. But instead of allowing him to walk faster or break into a trot, keep fingering the reins lightly to keep him at the slower gait. This makes him put more energy (impulsion), and hence more animation and collection, into the slower gait.
THE JAW
When your horse becomes collected, he will travel with his nose down and his chin tucked in; but more significant, his lower jaw will be relaxed, not tense against the bit. If he is merely traveling with his chin tucked and his mouth behind the bit, not engaging it, you have not succeeded in collecting him. You have probably been too forceful with the bit, and your horse has found a way to avoid it. When a horse is collected, his jaw is soft and pliable to the bit. He is actively “on the bit” and ready to respond to any movement of your hands.
It takes good judgment, practice, and lots of patience to know how much bit pressure and how much leg pressure to use, but as you proceed with these lessons, your horse will gradually raise his head and start to flex his neck as he puts more energy into his walk. Slow, careful work in the snaffle, aided by judicious leg pressure, will have your horse traveling lighter in front.
Breaking at the Poll
Once he travels with his head up and starts bending his neck at the poll, just behind the ears, you’ll really make some progress, especially if you can now start easing him into a curb rein. A Pelham is ideal for much of this training, as you can use four reins and keep the action of the snaffle to raise the head while adding the action of the curb to help set the head (see page 188 for more about using a Pelham). With judicious use of the curb rein, you can get the horse to flex better at the poll and to relax his lower jaw.
Using the Reins
Constant, gentle bit cues are the key to keeping the horse totally responsive; this way, you’ll be able to collect and extend him at will. Although you use your legs to push him into the bit and keep him on the bit, it is your constant contact with the mouth, through gentle give-and-take actions with the reins, that directs his energy, letting your horse extend his gait or keeping him collected.
Practice at the Walk
First lessons in collection should be done at the walk, progressing to the trot only after the walk has been mastered. Practice collecting and extending the walk until your horse knows how to respond to your cues.
A collected walk is not necessarily a slow walk. You can have the horse collected at any walking speed. On long rides, you will often let him do an extended fast walk or a moderately collected fast walk to enable him to travel without tiring. There is a difference between speed and impulsion. A horse can walk fast in an extended manner with little impulsion or animation. He is more apt to trip and stumble, however, because he is so extended and heavy in front. Even when going miles and miles at the walk, the rider generally prefers to have the horse on the bit and somewhat collected, just because he picks up his feet better and is more alert and maneuverable.
Some horses are naturally fast and eager walkers and thus may be relatively easy to collect; you merely have to channel their drive into collection. It doesn’t take as much effort to put these horses on the bit. A little leg pressure encourages an enthusiastic walker to keep up his drive and impulsion. Active and gentle use of the reins directs his energy into a little more animation — balancing weight back farther, tucking the chin, softening the jaw.
BOTTLING UP ENERGY
When you urge with your legs and gently restrain with the bit, your horse’s energy in response to your legs is curbed somewhat by the bit and must come forth as a faster, more animated walk, rather than a trot. His energy is released in a higher, springier action, not as just forward motion.
By fine-tuning how much bit and how much leg pressure to use, you can encourage him to do a slow collected walk, a medium collected walk, or a fast collected walk and can slow or speed it up at will, without your horse’s breaking gait into a trot. It helps to use your legs alternately, stimulating each hind leg in proper sequence, to speed his walk and get more thrust (see pages 320–21 for more on leg cues).
Other horses are lazy walkers; they don’t learn to walk fast under saddle until they learn collection. If yours is a reluctant walker, collect him at the same time you are teaching him to speed up the walk. To get a collected walk, you will be urging the horse with your legs but fingering the bit enough to keep him from breaking into a trot. Once he learns how to collect, you can do a slow or a fast collected walk.
Teaching a Collected Trot
Many horses can do a good trot naturally; others prefer to jog or gallop. They extend or collect only when prancing or playing. If you’ve pushed your horse into a good fast trot now and then during training sessions, it will be easy to encourage him to do a collected trot. Gently slow him from a fast trot with your reins, but keep using your legs sufficiently to keep him from slowing down to a walk. Soon he will learn to collect, slowing his speed but keeping the same impulsion, with his bottled-up, contained energy creating more springiness in his gait.
There is a big difference between a slow trot and a collected trot. Most horses, when allowed to trot slowly, merely plod along at a jog, barely picking up their feet and looking as if they might fall down. Their heads are low, and they travel heavy in front. On uneven ground they are apt to stumble. A collected trot is much more animated, and the horse’s weight is balanced farther back. His head is above the level, and he picks up his feet much better.
To get a more collected trot, keep fingering the reins to keep the horse slow but continue to use your legs to keep him lightly on the bit and well gathered. With the horse “between the bit and your legs,” you have much more control over all his actions.
Teaching Several Trot Speeds
Teaching the horse to slow down or speed up his trot makes him much more agile and develops his ability to lengthen and shorten his stride. The slowing down also teaches him to respond to the increased feel of the bit (see pages 319–20 for more information).
Many horses carry too much weight on their front legs when ridden, which hinders their agility. Lessons in slowing down, especially to slow abruptly, as you’ll do in later stages of training, will lighten the forehand, encouraging your horse to carry more weight on his hind legs. When he slows abruptly, his weight comes off his front legs and shifts back toward his hindquarters. He must know how to do this to perform a good stop and to transfer weight from his front legs for a fast turn or a pivot on his hind legs.
Collected trot
Perfect Balance, Greater Agility
Once the horse starts collecting, he has much better balance and is not so awkward when performing the things you ask him to do. Whether you want him to be a jumper or a cow horse, to run the barrels, or to perform dressage, all later training will hinge on how well the horse can be collected. In timed speed events, he must be able to collect immediately to do a smooth turn around poles and barrels, for example, to maintain his footing and balance for the precision work required between bursts of speed. He’ll handle himself with more precision and agility when his actions are perfectly controlled and he is able to switch from collection to extension and back again.
Shifting from Walk to Trot
The best way to perfect a horse’s ability to collect and extend is to develop several speeds at both the walk and the trot, thereby working on his ability to shift fluidly from one gait to the other. When changing from a walk to a trot, shorten your reins a little to maintain contact with the horse’s mouth (since his head is steady at the trot and does not make balancing movements) and close your legs on the horse, squeezing slightly, to signal him to move into a trot.
A horse must be able to collect in order to balance himself and turn quickly around the obstacles in a barrel race.
If you are posting, strive to keep your hands steady, even though your body is moving up and down in rhythm with the beat of the trot. The more you practice, the better able your horse will be to make swift, calm, smooth transitions in gait and from collection to extension and back.
Later, after he has learned collection at the canter (see below), you can add transitions from trot to canter and back to trot and eventually from walk to canter and back to walk. This will broaden his abilities and responsiveness to your cues, so that eventually you’ll have perfect control over your horse’s movements.
Refining Your Cues
Your hands control your horse’s forehand — in slowing him, for example; in collecting him; and in indicating direction. Your legs control his hindquarters. They give cues for turning and for pushing his hind legs farther underneath himself and also urge him to move faster. Legs, body weight, and seat help develop more impulsion, or pushing power—and this is essential before the horse can become collected; you use your legs and lower back in your efforts to push the horse to get his hind legs more fully engaged.
Collection at the Canter
The same principles of teaching collection at the walk and trot apply to lessons in collection at the canter, but it’s easier for the horse to learn collection at the canter if he’s already learned collection at the walk and trot. You will also have greater control of his actions; he’ll be more responsive to leg and rein cues. With a young horse, the canter and gallop are the last gaits to work on because you want him to stay controlled. If you’ve built a foundation of control at the slower gaits, you’ve already trained his mind; he will be less apt to act foolishly at the faster gaits.
After you have done some cantering and galloping, and your horse knows when you want him to break into the faster gait rather than merely extend his trot, you can work on collection at the canter. If he already knows about leg pressure as a cue to continue moving more energetically and about bit cues for slowing, it’s just a matter of practice and timing with leg and hand cues to gradually slow his canter and encourage him to keep the impulsion. His canter will be animated and springy but slow and controlled.
Once he understands the principle of a collected canter, you can vary the speed and still keep the collection. (The canter and gallop are discussed more fully in chapter 14.)
Don’t Overdo It
Sometimes a horse will become “sour” from the rider’s constant use of legs and bit. He will resist your cues or become grumpy about doing what you ask — protesting by putting his ears back, swishing his tail, or performing stiffly and awkwardly instead of willingly and smoothly. To avoid this, intersperse the lessons with time spent doing less concentrated things. Occasionally give your horse some days just to extend himself and forget collection. If you have access to open country, take him out for long rides.
Traveling Miles and Lessons
The ranch horse has an advantage: his regular work in large pastures and on the range checking cattle gives him miles to travel. This takes up a greater percentage of his riding time than concentration on any one aspect of schooling. He is learning on the job and doesn’t get bored or sour. He is introduced to a new maneuver after he’s gone several miles and is warmed up and settled into his work, ready to pay attention to what is asked of him.
As he becomes more agile and balanced when carrying a rider, he begins to take part in more of the chores of moving and sorting cattle, and in so doing learns how to handle himself in all sorts of situations. After a summer of ranch work, the horse is well along in schooling and has become a useful cowhorse. Except for more strenuous aspects of training and working cattle, which should wait until he is older and more physically mature, this horse has mastered most of the basic maneuvers that every well-trained horse should be able to do.
Well-trained and collected, this cowhorse is able to move in any direction instantly and with agility.
If you don’t have this type of work for your horse, you can simulate it by varying his routine and doing more of his training and riding in open spaces. This keeps him fresh for precision work, even if what you want him to do is dressage or reining. If you do all of your training in a confined area, your horse will become bored and will probably resent the lessons. He will find ways to avoid doing what you ask. To keep him willing, make time for some miles between lessons. How much concentrated work and how much cross-country work you do will depend on what your horse needs to keep his body in shape and his mind fresh. You may enjoy a change of pace, as well.
Cue Appropriately
Your horse will tell you if you are overusing the bit; he will fight it or find ways to avoid it. You walk a fine line when developing a good mouth; back off if you start to see signs of trouble. A horse who starts an evasive tactic or fights the bit is telling you that you have been too forceful. Your horse’s good mouth is a sign of your good hands; his evasive mouth indicates that you need to improve.
The same is true of leg signals. Your horse should respond energetically and calmly to your legs, and you shouldn’t have to use them hard to get his response. Whether you are teaching him to walk fast, collect, or turn properly, he should respond to a mere squeeze.
If your horse responds sluggishly when you use your legs softly, don’t use them more and more forcefully. You’re nagging when you do this, and it won’t do much good. Instead, give a sharp rap with a switch or whip right behind your leg. This calls attention to the soft signal you gave with your legs. Soon your horse will learn that if he doesn’t respond to the leg squeeze, he’ll feel the switch. He’ll prefer to obey the soft signal instead.
When training a horse, exercise good judgment in everything you ask; don’t command him to do something too difficult for his stage of training. But after giving a signal for something your horse knows how to do, be emphatic and demand obedience. He’ll progress further and faster if he respects your commands and if you are always consistent. Be reasonable in what you ask of your horse. Be patient and remain in control. This way, you will create a beneficial partnership.