Horse dead to the leg/behind the leg

[emma]

A lady at my yard who has an advanced dressage horse and is herself trained to Grand Prix level had a sit on my 16 year old horse for me as I was having a few problems.

She basically concluded that he is a lovely horse and is capable of working very well but his 2 main problems are that he is behind the leg and dead to the leg aids (well not completely dead but not nearly as responsive as she would like) and also that she thinks that he has, in the past, been ridden by people trying to pull his head into an outline rather than riding from the seat and leg and letting his outline come naturally from there, and therefore he does not relly understand the bit and feels as if he is going along with the handbrake on all the time. Sometimes he is on the bit, sometimes above the bit, and sometimes leaning on the bit.

How do I go about correcting these 2 problems?

[Heather]

How experienced are you Emma? Are you trying to use your seat to push your horse forward, as this acts like a brake if you are doing it wrongly.

If you can get a friend to go behind you in the school with a lunge whip, and as you apply the leg aids, get your friend to swish the lunge whip round the horse's back legs above the hocks,(you may have to add a longer length of nylon cord to reach easily, as lunge whips are notoriously too short) often this galvanises the horse into action far quicker. Once the horse learns that you wish him to go forward from a squeeze of the calves each time the whip is swished around his hind end. He should get sharper to the aid. He should go forward the split second that the leg is applied, not ten seconds after it! However, if he is hollow and resistant and above the bit, it will be impossible for him to step immediately forward, as his hindlegs will not be able to engage. In order to be 'in front of the leg' he must be on the bit, softly accepting of it through a relaxed lower jaw.

Heather