Horse Articles: Hip-Shoulder-Shoulder Part 1: Solve Every Horse Problem

Train Your Horse to Travel Straight

A proviso: It must be stipulated that your success with the following has everything to do with whether you and your horse are ready for the material. This is rather simple green horse stuff, sure – but like everything learned, there are prerequisites: You need a horse that will move his hips when you ask and a horse that's soft from chin to withers. More importantly, you need to have a fundamental understanding of how to get these things if your horse is a bit rusty or "not in the mood." If you need a brush up course on these things, refer to Horsemanship101.com/Articles. For the softening, look specifically for two articles called "Steer the Tail" and "Three-Step Stop." Also look for articles addressing the use of your reins (eg: "Reins, 5 Tips to Improve Your Use" and "How to Pick Up the Reins Like a Pro"). Regarding the hips, look for "Hip Shoulder Shoulder."

In the world of horse training, there are a few tricks we humans can quickly and easily teach our horses: How to bang on the stall door at feeding time; how to run away at the sight of an advancing halter; how to dance when they see a saddle, and so on. But then, there's the simple stuff like, y'know, just walking in a darned straight line that they never seem to "get." I mean, horse, are you trying to make me nuts? How simple can this be? And why can't you carry the same speed for even ten minutes? You go two miles per hour walking away from the barn, point two mph up the hill, nine down the hill and ninety-seven pointed toward the barn. And is it really so hard to figure out that when I pick up the left rein it means go left?

How many of us have taken this a step further and trained our equine friends to think "out of the box"? Horses are hip to Einstein's description of acting crazy: Repeating the same thing that doesn't work, hoping for a different outcome. Most humans ignore this principle and blindly repeat their horse-training ways day after day, approaching things the same old way, wondering why they see no improvement. We do that while our horses are constantly adapting, constantly changing their routines, changing their reactions to our actions. If pinning ears doesn't get you to back off from saddling today, perhaps a grouchy look will do the trick tomorrow. Or dancing around or laying down or swishing a tail or screeching to a pal or kicking. Whether the horses have figured this out for themselves or whether we've actually taught the poor habits may be a matter of debate – but one fact is certainly true: The smartest horses in the world all live at riding schools, riding schools who specialize in beginners. If you need proof, try to saddle, pick the hooves of, or blanket a twenty-year veteran of novice riders. Those suckers will out-maneuver you faster than Jackie Chan on a caffeine high. They know every trick in the book, trust me.

And that's what really drives us crazy, isn't it? How they seem to use their brains not for good but for evil. The fact that my horses know that a bucket in my hand at 6pm means "run to me, I've got food," while that same bucket at 2pm means "Run for the hills, girls, it's time for your bath"–? They're smart enough to learn "the hard stuff," but standing still for mounting or backing up evenly is like advanced calculus.

This daily grind of taking two training steps backward for every three steps forward taught will go on forever and happens even to the best of us. Steel yourself to it. Me, for instance, the guy with the eighty-trillion people on his mailing list, the big certified trainer who you turn to for advice must admit that, yes, my horses are not perfect. Indeed, there are days when I feel they are truly the devil's spawn. Case in point, every one of them was taught to come to me – yet after being turned out to broodmare pasture with buddies to veg and gestate, they seem to have gotten rusty on a few of the house rules. "Stand and let me halter you" is occasionally replaced with "Stand until I lift the halter, then run to the other side of this thirty acre field." It's just a fact that successful horse training calls for us to accept these slips as normal, and act accordingly. Me, I have a zero tolerance policy and found myself round penning a mare that "should know better" by moonlight just last night. She won't run away at the sight of the halter again (for awhile) but I'm willing to bet she's discussing alternative pranks with her buddies even as I type this.

They slip in their training – and seem to ignore our seemingly obvious requests – because we are trainers of animals that would really rather not carry our fat butts and fifty-pound saddles around. They want to be standing with buddies, munching grass. That's it. That's the gameplan for an entire life. Take them from that comfort zone "out for a ride," or compound the issue by asking them to lope a perfect circle or walk a straight line – things that certainly don't make sense to any sensible horse – and they balk. And if they can't dissuade you today, they will, in their own passive aggressive way, resist you every step of the way tomorrow. Need proof? Think back to John Lyons and his "driving analogy." Basically it's this: Did you speed today as you drove, even by one mile over the limit? Why? You know the rules, you can read the signs. The horse is the same way; if the cop isn't writing you a ticket, you're pushing the boundaries. You and the horse are both, as they say, free spirits.

With all this being said then, why would our horses ever go the extra mile to work with us and figure out some bizarre thing we'd like to do like travel at exactly four miles per hour, turn now and not later or jump a fence and then come right back again? Duh, it's like digging a hole then filling it back in again, for goodness sake. Now, I know why they eventually do it – we "apply pressure with our reins, release when we get the step we want and kick 'em if they don't move" for instance – but why would they ever say to themselves "Backing up? We were just there, but sure, that makes sense"? Neighing to their buddies makes sense because that's where they'd rather be, over there with the herd. But walking a straight line? Why? There's no feed bucket over there and I'm fine right here, thanks.

I point these things out because we owners need to realize the importance of understanding a horse's perspective. What might be perfectly clear to us doesn't make sense to the horse – even after he's done the exercise twenty-nine times it still seems dumb. The way we want to spend our days off (trail riding, jumping fences, running barrels) is the last choice our horse's would make. (Does everybody in your family agree on what to watch on TV? I rest my case.) The horse was perfectly content out in that field ten minutes ago. His entire day was laid out: 1) sleep, 2) eat, 3) poop, 4) repeat. Now you're riding him away from all that and he's anxious. I'll bottom line it for you: Accept the way God has wired your horse because empathy with his nature will cause you to frame your requests in a more positive manner. Instead of fostering an attitude of "stupid stubborn horse," you'll begin thinking "out of the box."

Walking in a straight line, keeping one speed as we jog, loping a round circle, reining spins, holding a collected frame... these are all examples of the abstract shapes we place our horse into or expect him to follow. Problem is, they make no sense to the horse. They're all things that can be taught, sure – but how to convey our desire simply and without it taking a million years? And how do we motivate the horse to "stay where we put him"? Case in point, we want our horse to "travel collected." We gather him up, "get him collected," release our reins and... and he falls back to traveling "spread out." We can repeat this process several thousand times and eventually he'll get it. Or, we can combine our collection request with something else that helps him remember. One thing we can do to help teach collection, for instance, is to never "collect up" the horse without simultaneously making a change in the horse's legs – be it his speed or direction.

We can teach reining horses to "hunt the spin," for instance, by making them trot tight circles (that's an oversimplification, but illustrates my point) and allowing them to "relax" only within their spins. The spin becomes something the horse looks for because he learns that life is easier (for some odd reason he thinks) when he moves in a tight spin.

In the same respect, teaching a horse to move (forward or backward) in a straight line is a matter of teaching the horse to ably turn right and left. You don't "teach straight" so much as you concentrate on really nailing your right and left turns. Think about it: Moving forward is really just your ability to make many small "course corrections." He veers right, you steer left. Of course, you don't want to spend future rides constantly making these corrections, however slight, any more than you want to constantly badger your horse to jog. It's "pick up a jog and stay jogging till I ask for something else" and "Walk straight, keep going straight." To that end, motivating the horse to travel straight on its own involves teaching him that "straight" is easier than "not going straight." We do that by convincing the horse that he becomes invisible to us when he moves in a particular fashion. He moves straight and life is a picnic; he falls off our radar, so to speak. He turns incorrectly and suddenly he's "exposed" to more work. It doesn't take long before he starts trying to "hide from us" by assuming a certain (correct) stance or direction, sort of like the elephant Horton hiding behind the daisy.

Regarding teaching our horses to move on a straight line, we can "turn the head" of a finished, well-trained horse and he'll follow his nose. His front and back feet travel the same path as his nose. We walk straight lines, our circles are a geometric dream, we go where we wanna go. Sweet. But that covers about 4% of the horses out there. "Following his nose" is a learned trait, it's far from something they "just do." The average horse in the typical barn isn't finished; he's somewhere in the "still being trained" part of his life. Turn his head to the right, look to the right and... your horse keeps moving left.

I will show you how to cause and motivate your horse to travel straight, but before we tackle the physical business, a couple of analogies: First, stand up and walk around. As you walk, simply look off in radically differing directions. It seems obvious, but you really need to feel this for yourself for it to really hit home: This is what your horse is doing, looking one way, drifting "out"/"in" the other. I could post a mouse on your head with a set of reins connected to your mouth. He could pull you right, but if there's a Philly cheesesteak on the table to the left – guess where you and the mouse are drifting?

Next, picture in your mind a kid's toy boat. It's motorized, battery-powered and being propelled by the little spinning prop in the back. Your daughter, Jane, and your son, Bob, are in a pool, sending the boat back and forth to each other. To make it travel to Bob, Jane points the boat toward him – by picking up the rear and bringing it toward herself. She moves the back of the boat away from where it's headed. Think about this for a sec and make sure you've got this concept: "Turn the rear one hundred eighty degrees away from where you want to go." It's the back of the boat chiefly determining the overall direction of the whole boat. Get the simple concept of turning the toy now so that later, when I ask you to turn the horse's butt the opposite direction from where you want to go it'll sound simple, not complicated.

The following exercise then, is some of the coolest stuff I've learned from John Lyons. How so? Because as I've said, you can turn the horse's head thousands of times before he gets the (to us) simple concept of following his nose with this feet. Using the tail to correct our course will, as we will see, cause the learning to happen much, much quicker. Your horse learns now, rather than later.

And how is that possible? Two reasons. First: It sends a clearer signal. When a horse turns his head he doesn't also think "turn," as demonstrated above. But... turning his rear end literally forces a turn (think of the boat) and solidifies to the horse "He picked up the rein and I'm turning." Second, it supplies greater motivation. It's extra work for the horse to move his rear; he'll soon realize it's far easier to just turn as you initially request. Horse's hate being "put out" and quickly learn to follow the cue you first send of picking up the rein asking for a turn, rather than waiting for you to force the issue by moving the hip.

The training: What you'll do is to hop aboard your horse, pick an object directly in front of yourself and begin walking toward it. Crane your head to spot something directly behind you and that first object. Recall the pool/boat analogy: Your horse is now the boat and you're the captain; the object in front is son Bob, the object behind is daughter Jane. In olden days (before you read this article) you would have turned the horse's head each time he moved off his line until he turned back toward "Bob," the object up ahead. From hence forward, however, you'll turn back onto your line by picking up your rein and turn the horse's rear toward "Jane," the object directly behind you. (Steer the rear, not the head.)

I would suggest the following before you get cocky: Quite often, riders think they're going straight – only to find later (when their knee hits a tree) that their straight lines more closely resemble Otis the Drunk's staggering walk. Lay a lasso or lunge line down on the ground and walk it. But wait, cheater – I don't mean for you to guide the horse with your reins. I mean for you to drop those reins and use minimal guidance to trace said line. Remember, we're trying to train a horse to walk a direct, crow-flies path on his own, just like the horse that holds his speed or stays on the perfect circle. Use the amount of guidance you'd like to use when your horse is ultimately trained; allow him the freedom to make mistakes. He'll never get lighter than the lightest cue/pressure you use here today. You apply extra poundage/guidance when necessary, not from the "get go."

The lunge line offers instant, objective and obvious proof: Are you walking your line or not? Are both sets of (front and back) legs walking in the same track, yes or no?

Now, don't over think this. That's always a danger with adults (though never with kid riders, for some odd reason). This is a fix so simple a cave man could do it, as they say. Regardless of whether the front or the back of the horse drifts off the line, your fix is the same. Look directly ahead, to the end of the line, and use the rein necessary to point the horse back in the correct direction, as you would the boat. Don't be concerned with "I gotta fix the shoulders." "Ohmygosh, the hip is here, the ribs are there." "Oh garbage, he's looking here, he's drifting there." Don't do that. Know that if you get the horse's engine (his hips) pointed correctly, the rest of the horse will line up. Okay? The cab of the truck is connected to the trailer and they'll take care of lining themselves up. Any drift, front or back, gets the same response: Use the rein necessary to point the hip away from where you'd like to go.

When you first begin, concentrate on one thing: Getting the hip turned. Ignore completely the head carriage or possible neck stiffness. As you progress, as you get the hang of things and as the horse starts to understand, begin asking for softness before fully releasing your rein.

What will naturally happen when you first make a correction is that your horse will over turn and you'll find yourself walking a wild zigzag pattern. You may want a turn of twelve degrees but your horse will turn a sharp forty-five. That's fine. Keep asking the hip to move, left then right, right then left, until the hip lands squarely behind you. Then release your rein and walk on until your next "veering." It's all the mistakes the horse makes that show him "Oh, that's all you wanted, just step there. That's easy." What you'll find is that if you keep your mind clear and concentrate solely on turning the hip, your horse will get your message quicker; he'll begin traveling correctly on his own sooner. Depending on your horse's current level of training, it may take minutes, it may take months – but in the end, you'll find this "correction with the tail" method to be much quicker than the alternative of "pointing the head." Advance this maneuver by asking for softness and correct head elevation, then increase your speed to a trot and get your good responses there.

This article is part of the "How to Train a Horse" series. To read more, or to find a clinic or Certified John Lyons horse trainer near you, visit horsemanship101.com.

About the author:

Keith Hosman: If your horse won't speed up, slow down, stop or turn, you missed the latest training methods from Josh and John Lyons. Have you lost your confidence? Want a horse to brag about? Invest one weekend to make big changes with John Lyons Certified Trainer Keith Hosman. Keith is based near San Antonio, TX and is available for clinics, private sessions and training. He frequently conducts clinics and demonstrations — with an event coming soon to a town near you. For more horse training articles, or to attend a clinic or find a John Lyons trainer living in your area, visit horsemanship101.com now.

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