turn on the forehand-waste of time?

[Gemani]

Last lesson we were doing turn on the forehand. After the lesson when I was reading up on this move I found one particuar website saying that this move is a waste of time. This is because in dressage the idea is that you get the horse to carry itself on its back rather than front legs so by doing turn on the forehand you are encouraging to carry itself incorrectly. If this is the case then why do so many riding schoold still bother to teach it?

[Mary Poppins]

I find it very handy when trying to undo and walk through a gate!

[horseygal90]

Very handy for gates as MP said, also good for getting your horse to bend (I think ,it does do something other than just gates!)

[galadriel]

It's a pretty basic lateral movement which helps either rider or horse learn to respond to lateral aids. Once you can get a horse to turn on the forehand, you have a basis for getting a horse to turn on the haunches--which IS a use of the horse's hind end.

Sometimes you may go through stages where you encourage the horse to carry himself incorrectly, eiter for training of the horse or for education of the rider. Over time you progress past these stages to working correctly.

[Bay Mare]

Great for doing gates when the OWNER can get their head around it which I never can! People explain it to me, I understand, I nod and then I can't figure it out again ....

It's a good way of getting the rider to get their head around lateral movements and it's also a good way of getting the horse to learn to move away from your leg. It's a bit like leg yield, not really used in the more advanced dressage moves but good for the novice horse and rider :)

[Stella2]

and its a good beginning for introducing working from inside leg into outside hand. Many dressage trainers believe that when it has served the purpose of introducing lateral movement and working between leg and hand, it should be disguarded as a school movement in favour of initially leg yield and then shoulder in etc.

I found it very useful with Flora in the early stages and it worked well as an introduction and grounding for other work.

[Just.Jump]

Quite wrong. In general riding, it's the advanced dressage movements that are a waste of time, not the basics. Being able to turn on the forehand is very useful (Something I've gotten rusty at though) because if the horse decides to swing it's hind end out, you can fix that. And horses LOVE to swing shoulders and hips out, trust me.

You seem to be mistakng how a good horse moves, however. This exersise, when done correctly, actually teaches the horse to engage the hindquarters. This is obvious, because they are whats moving. However, the difference between a good movement and a bad movement is the weight placement. An inexperienced horse/rider combination will have the weight on the forehand, but a good horse/rider combination will have that weight on the hind end, the front end very light like a placement pole thats rotating. A turn on the hindquarters tends to place the weight back there as well because the horse rocks backwards. Almost all dressage movements aim for hind end engagement.

[jUmPingIsLifE]

thats true, if you ride dressage just stay away from it you'll never need it. it puts the weight on the forhand rather then the haunches. however in EQ classes i know you are asked to hault and reverse and this means the judge is looking to see if you know that that means show a turn on the forhand. so if you show eq or are thinking of it its a good thing for your horse to be able to do!

[IrisSilverMoon]

thats true, if you ride dressage just stay away from it you'll never need it.



HAHAHAHAHAHA!

sorry jumpingislife, but that's not true. I've been doing dressage for a good 11 years now and turn on the forehand is and excellent exercise. it ensures the horse is listening to where i am asking him to move. for lower level horses its just getting them to respond to the aids for telling them where to put their haunches.

as the horse progresses i'll combine it with turn on the haunches and play around with the bend to really get them listening to where i want each foot placed. you can hop back and forth from turn on the forehand to turn on the haunches. you really get the horse listening to every single ai you give them and it helps you to be able to make the hrose move int he direction you want without moving yourself. I'll also use it to help introduce piaffe, hopping from forehand to haunches doing one step in one direction on the haunches, one step in the other direction on the forehand, change direction and go back to haunches and then forehand. And its something that goes really fast, the horse has to respond immediately and you can't be taking time to set it up.

in any case...how else are you supposed to fix a halt where the horse swings its hindquarters to the side? turn ont he forehand! get them back in line! :)

[galadriel]

"Engaging the hindquarters" involves getting them under the horse and carrying more of the horse's weight. Turn on the forehand involves putting the weight on the shoulders and forelegs; this is not engaging the hindquarters.

Any dressage movement has an original use in everyday riding; even the high school movements were originally developed for use, not for show. Dressage movements of any level can be terrifically useful in everyday riding.

[entreat]

I second Gal - I don't learn dressage movements so I can compete, but so I know I have absolute communication and control over my horse. I need to know that I can move his shoulders where & when I want, and that if I need him to go or stop at any moment, I can trust that he can. This is important for me on trails incase we ever do get into some bother.

I like TOF as it's the only flashy thing I can do with Casper! LOL! (Can't do it near a gate though!!)

[jUmPingIsLifE]

ism- never thought of it that way, i just ment that you'd never see it in a test because of that very reason. tahoe knows it, i taught him that years ago...but after spending all summer trying to get him off the forhand its been a forbidden movement for us :D we have been doing the turn on the haunches and i believe passad is what its called?

but anyway like i did say it wouldn't hurt to have your horse know it. expecailly if your asked to do it in class.

edited: i just shouldn't post on NR after my bedtime. i think the reason i posted what i did was that it was fresh in my mind as something we had gone over in a recent lesson (about why turn on the forhands wern't in dressage tests). but when thinking about it it was also the steping stones to teaching leg yielding (which someone else did say). and it was the reason we started working on them with tahoe a couple years ago

[andreaB]

its also quite common to do turn on the forhand at the end of your ridden show in a rc horse class , plenty of judges like to see a bit of something at the end like this or rein back , obviously executed correctly!

[cvb]

watching the clinic in July, one of the riders was having problems getting her leg yields "straight". They were diagonal instead ...

Mark stopped her, taught her turn on forehand (I was a bit shocked she didn't know it !) and then got her to start the leg yield with one step over with the hind quarters.

Yes I know the hind quarters shouldn't "lead", but this was a correction to shoulders leading - and it worked :D

So - surely having a horse tuned that leg there means move quarters over is a good thing for just about any discipline I can think of ???

[sidesaddlelady1]

Along with half-halts and transitions, turns on the f.h. are very good for getting the horse to pay attention to you and preparing him or her to do the more involved parts of the schooling session. They also teach you to get it together with hand and leg aids.

(Funny story - the WH couldn't do them when I first bought him and it took ages before he cottoned on but the day he finally grasped it the lights went on. At the end of the lesson I was sitting on him in the manege talking to a friend on the ground. The WH was being a nuisance and wouldn't stand still. I was beginning to get a bit exasperated but one of the instructors suddenly said "Don't tell him off - he's practising!" and he was - he was doing perfect turns on the forehand all on his own!)

[Mossy]

Moss will not do turns, or anything else unless he sees the point. A gate to be negotiated - off course Mum. Turn otf for the sake of it in the school, no chance! Conn whizzes round if you clench your bum accidentally! Mind you she has taught herself to be handy with herself doing gates ride and lead when she is the lead one. I can well relate to a horse practising, Conn does carrot stretches in the field.

[Gemani]

I never thought this would be such a big discussion point! ;) Do most poeple learn leg yeilding or turn on the f.h first?

[cvb]

with the rider I would normally teach t.o.f. first as its simpler, and at halt ;)

[Gemani]

can u do turn on the forehand at anything other than halt?

[xXSundanceBayXx]

i think its good for opening gates and turning my pony round when there is a limited amount of space. :)

[cvb]

can u do turn on the forehand at anything other than halt?

strictly speaking - no - cos the definition of t.o.f. is that the forehand is the pivot point and doesn't move, just marches on the spot. So if you did ask for forehand yield with some direction of movement, it wouldn't be t.o.f.

in practice, when you know what you are doing you can walk in and out of it, but you have to be very clear with the cue. Most people need the halt to prevent the forehand moving...