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Horse Behavior and Training

leg yield

By:

sharonforde

Date:

2014-Jul-21 at 07:06PM

Im training my horse to do leg yield..he responds when im on the ground if i say over and push gently behind the girth area. when in trot however and ridden i cant get any sideways movement..he seems to just push againts my leg when i push. I can do a sidepass on the long side but but when it comes to legyield which i need to ride forwards and sideways at the same time nothing happens. Any ideas...i try to use my leg in the correct rhythm but still my horse feels tense and pushes back when i try to move him over..Any ideas?

beryl 2014-Jul-22 at 08:42AM

Try putting more weight into your inside seat bone, see what happens.
Riding is far more than the use of a leg, your weight & position of your pelvis are the most important aids.
For instance, when riding a circle, your inside hip should be further forward than the outside hip - this is where the instructions inside "leg" on the girth & outside leg behind the girth come from, it isn't just the leg, but the position of your pelvis that puts your legs in the position.
Play around with your weight / seat aids & see what you get, it's often the opposite of what you expect, so listen to what the horse is telling you that aid means to him!

Kicki -- Sweden 2014-Jul-22 at 10:46AM

If he gets tense and push back, that suggests to me that he isn't quite comfortable with moving away from pressure, BUT it could also be that - as Beryl suggests - that your body position is askew and unbalances him. Where are your hands, your eyes, your weight? Did you prepeare the horse before the change of direction by re-balancing it with a halfhalt?
.
Providing your body position and aids are OK, here are some following suggestions:
Firstly; never correct in the leg yield. If it fails, ride straight forward, asking for a good energetic step.
Figure out which basic aid that isn't working - (you are using at least four of them during the legyield).
Practice that particular aid until the horse responds willingly, then come back to the legyield to test it again.
.
Does the leg yield work ridden in a walk? If so, start from there, do the legyield from the 1/4-line towards the wall of the longside and when you get to the last step before you reach the track, ask for trot. When that works, ask for trot when there are two steps left, and so on.
This exercise demands that the forward going aids works well, so be sure to practice the transitions walk/trot before you move on to this.
Hope this is of some help. :)

Becky C 2014-Aug-24 at 03:28PM

If you want further guidance in correct aids my absolute muse is Mary Wanless who in her book 'right brain riding' makes it very clear how we should be sitting to make it easy for the horse to leg yield. I never knew how wrong I was getting it on occasions until I read this book and now it's my bible. The JJ Tate lessons on here also give a bit more of an overall but still a helpful description of how we should be positioned. Reading her book really pulled everything together for me when schooling horses. Hope this helps?

JoHewittVINTA 2014-Aug-25 at 01:43PM

Hi. Do you have contact with someone, with a nice quiet horse who would be prepared to give you a little help. I've always been a great believer in the 'anything you can do, I can do better' training method. If your horse is ridden along side a horse that does leg yield then he will have to go diagonally forward, showing him exactly what it is you are asking of him. Cheers, Jo