(“Finally I surrender, turn my back on him, and walk into the house,  leaving the door wide open.”)

In all the USEF Training Level and First Level dressage tests, a movement appears where, on a 20-meter circle the horse is asked to stretch his neck long and low towards the ground. Some of the lower level USEA eventing tests include this requirement also.

In earlier blogs I’ve written that the horse should be taught to descend gradually; that the tempo and elastic connection must be maintained; and that even when the horse is not stretching down, his ability to do so must be alive in your relationship with him.

All of that should be, but what if it isn’t? First of all, while training it is better to have the horse stretch down correctly partway than to have him dive down, disconnect and pop back up. As he reaches down, he should stay as much between the leg and the hand as he is in a normal Working frame. Think of him as being “on the bit” with the bit just residing in a different place.

Generating this connected stretch implies that the affinity for the bit which you want to create comes from his hind legs and implicitly from your driving aids. If your horse is correctly in the bridle, when you soften your hand, he should follow the bit forward and down without a loop developing in the rein.

If when you give with the outside hand, the rein goes slack here is a solution: While on the 20-meter circle, counter position your horse to the outside and assertively leg yield him from what had been the outside leg (now the inside as defined by his new bend) into the opposite rein. When you have a solid contact, re-bend him to the old inside while reversing your leg position and gently ceding the outside hand forward. If he has taken the bait correctly, his head will follow your hand.

Even then, sometimes it just doesn’t work. Then, contrary to the way I want ultimately to ride him, I break a rule and use an approach that one of our bulldogs taught me. Frenchies are notoriously stubborn and self possessed, often to the exclusion of obedient behavior.

So Pan(demonium) is in the garage. “Come on, Pan, time to come in,” I say. Three feet distant, he stares at me implacably. “Good boy!”I coo. He remains unimpressed. If I stoop to pick him up, I know he’ll retreat. “Please, Pan?” (imploringly). No dice. When finally I surrender, turn my back on him, and walk into the house, I leave the door wide open. Seconds later, He is underneath the kitchen table beside my chair.

When your horse will not stretch down on contact, sometimes the only recourse is to leave the door open for him. By abandoning the outside rein contact, you give him space to feel free to reach down. It’s not a show ring solution, but you can break the mental log jam and make him realize what you want. From there he can learn to fill the reins and stretch correctly. Occasionally a similar approach will work when you’re just trying to teach your horse to work in a round outline. With all the best of intentions, sometimes while trying to put a horse firmly into the outside rein, a rider will maintain so much outside rein support that she inadvertently prevents him from being able to lower his head and come round. In these cases when you make your horse an offer—the release—he may accept it or he may not. But the gesture is brief enough that you don’t lose anything—balance, control, or tempo—in the process. “Nothing ventured…” etc.