In the February issue of Horse Sport, Simon covered lungeing and leg yielding, two simple in-hand exercises that are incredibly useful for both horses and their handlers to give the horse confidence and make it more supple. Here he explains training the shoulder-in from the ground. Make sure that you wear gloves and a hard hat, and that your horse is not afraid of the whip. Always work in an enclosed, quiet environment when introducing new exercises.
Begin with a simple leg yield by walking the horse around a circle approximately six to eight metres in diameter. Once established on the circle, the handler encourages the horse to bend the neck and head slightly towards them and invites the quarters to step to a slightly bigger circle by touching the whip to the inside hind leg between the hock and the fetlock.
The result of this is that the horse’s shoulders stay on the original circle path and the inside hind leg steps diagonally towards the outside foreleg with a result that as it touches to the floor it is underneath the centre of gravity and carries more weight. The horse will find this initially difficult and will want to either quicken to go forwards, overly bend the neck and move straight, try to push out through the outside shoulder (hence negating the lateral step of the inside hind leg), swing the quarters too far out and stop to look at you, or simply show a reluctance to move the hind leg by acting as if he is going through molasses.
When done correctly, it puts the horse into the outside contact, loosens up the shoulders and starts the process of weight transference to the hind legs. Once you can do this exercise (preceded by the lungeing and leg yielding described in the first article) with ease in both directions, you can begin the shoulder-in.
Start off walking and as you progress onto the long side of the arena, position the horse as if you were going to start a ten-meter circle. As the shoulders come off the track, take a gentle check on the lunge line and touch the inside hind leg as it steps off the floor.
Make sure you are aware of what is required for a shoulder-in, as a lot can go wrong with this exercise. Look for correct alignment through the throatlatch area (no head-tilting or overbend), equal bend through the neck and body, correct three-track alignment, and a soft ease of motion through the horse’s body. (Having a helper observing at the end of the long side can be useful.)
From here, the work in hand can grow in many directions. Transitions can be improved, especially the trot-to-halt. Further lateral work can also be commenced, including the travers, pirouette, and half-pass work, and eventually the piaffe and the passage.
