RIDING A CORRECT BEND
BY: KARl.F.N HAVEN
There's basically 2 types of bending,
lateral and longitudinal. A lateral bend is when
the horse's spine is curved to the right or left
around the rider's leg. Some examples of
lateral bends are a circle, a corner, a figure-8
or a serpentine. Longitudinal bending is a bit
more difficult. It involves bending the spine
from head to tail, lengthwise. It rounds the
horse's back, puts him on the bit, develops
flexibility and suppleness of the back bone,
spring to the stride, thrust from behind and
improves extension and collection.
Let's start today with lateral bending.
Let's first try to understand a correct bend.
The horse's spine should be shaped to the
exact size of the circle and his right legs should
be on the right side of the circle and his left
legs on the left side of the circle. The
following diagrams may be helpful.
Correct Bend
Spine is bent to the shape of the circle. Legs
are on either side of the imaginary line. Hind
foot tracking in path of the front foot in the
shape of the circle.
Variations of Incorrect Bends
Where the spine is not curved to the shape of
the circle.
1. Dropping shoulder in - cutting corner.
Front legs both on inside of circle. Horse
steps to left with inside shoulder.
2. Shoulder popped to outside of circle Horse
drifting to outside & not turning. Bending
neck to left & drifting to right. Both front
iegs on outside of circle.
3. Spine straight, haunches swing to outside.
No bend in body. Both hind legs are to
outside of circle.
4. Haunches carried to inside of track. No
even bend from head to tail. Both hind legs on
inside of circle.
Mark a circle on the ground (by raking
the sand, mowing the grass or drawing a line
with lime) so you can see if you can ride the
circle correctly. About a 60 - 75' circle is
good for starters.
Now let's discuss the aids for asking a
horse for lateral bend. Let's review the basics
again: 1. a horse moves underneath of your
weight, 2. forward from both legs, 3. away
g \-t i-orrcct licnd
from 1 leg. If the leg is piaced at the girth, the
middle of the horse's body moves away from
it. If the leg is placed behind the girth, the
horse's haunches move away.
Basically you ask the horse to bend by:
1. applying your inside leg pn the girth which
bends the middle of his body to the outside
and creates the curve.
2. dropping your outside leg behind the girth
to support the horses' haunches to the inside to
help maintain the bend.
3. weighting the inside seatbone because the
horse moves underneath of your weight. Be
careftil to keep your shoulders square with
your horse's shoulders and not allow your
outside shoulder to get ahead of your inside
shoulder because your weight will be on
whatever side your shoulder is ahead on.
(Check that out by standing on the ground an
moving 1 shoulder forward and feel your
weight shift in that direction.) Be careftil not
to lean to the inside to weight that seatbone just stretch tall on the inside.
4. keeping an even, sympathetic fee! on your
horse's mouth, allowing him to look into the
directions he's traveling. Technically the inside
rein should be a touch lighter than the outside.
You ride the turn by PUSHING the
horse from the inside leg to the outside rein,
not by pulling the horse into the turn with the
inside rein. The key words are to push the
horse through the turn rather than pull him
into the turn.
Now ride forward into the turn with
both legs.
2. rider never slides the outside leg a hand's
breadth behind the girth, so haunches are not
supported to the inside
3. rider does not have a good feel on the
outside rein, so the horse is left in a Vacuum'.
He needs guidance from the inside leg to the
outside rein, so the outside rein must be there
for him. The outside rein allows or limits the
bend in the horse's body, therefore determining
the size of the circle.
4. rider leads with his outside shoulder,
therefore his weight gets transferred to his
outside seatbone and the horse drifts to the
outside of the circle.
5. rider overbends the horse's neck to the
inside, throwing the horse's weight on the
outside shoulder causing him to drift to the
outside of the circle.
6. horse does not bend well to the inside leg
and instead leans into it and cuts the corner.
Re-educate the horse to the inside leg.
When turning, think of turning the
mass of the horse's body rather than his head.
Gabor Foltenyi worked us on rolling the
outside thigh down and in toward the pommel
and stretch the inside leg long, which
automatically places your weight on the inside
seatbone and feels like your could slip a piece
of paper under your outside seatbone. It does
help you concentrate on turning the horse's
body, not just the head and neck
We've covered:
1. the description of the correct bend
2. various incorrect bends
3. the correct aids and how they affect the
horse's turn
4. common rider errors
Now let's discuss some rider errors:
1. rider turns toe out to apply leg and instead
of leg being applied on the girth, the rider ends
REMEMBER: Resist pulling the
up squeezing the horse with the back leg
horse into the turn. PUSH him into the turn.
muscle behind the girth, and of course the
horse ends up swinging his hind end out
Be an alert rider. Decide how the bend
instead of bending in the middle. _ _______is incorrect and check out your aids. The
majority of the time we as riders are asking
incorrectly and the horse is usually doing
exactly what we are asking. So be sure not to
punish the animal, but to analyze the
correctness of your aids and adjust them
accordingly. Remember, our horses are OUT
best teachers.