Keeping the horse in front of the leg

This article is from the October 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

Robbie and David McKinnon represent the youthful and talented face of the future of Australian dressage and have set up their own business, McKinnon Sporthorses, at Bowral in NSW. Over the next two months we will review a training session at Bowral, firstly with David riding Peter and Jane Bartram’s not quite four year old, Hollands Bend Fleur de Lys by Floriscount out of Hirtenqueen (imp) (Sunny Boy/Rubinstein) and next month go on to Robbie riding Corinne Watkins’ Silmarillion E by Smash Hit out of a Florestan mare that is about to start his Small Tour career.

David does not come from a horse background, but was obsessed with horses from an early age. A family friend, Sarah Venamore took David under her wing and saw that he had a talent for riding. After school David worked, initially with an interest in horticulture for Mark Dowling at Centennial Vineyards in Bowral. That interest was somewhat overtaken by dressage with help from Mark followed by a trip to Europe and an offer to work for Brett Parbery at Penrose that he did for two years. At the moment McKinnon Sport Horses is based at Centennial Vineyards where they rent a stable block and an apartment. “We have really nice horses and we are always busy which is good,” says David.

As observers and students, we often hear the phrase, “get him in front of your leg”, so when we had the opportunity to drop in on the McKinnons, they explained the topic.

Our visit coincided with David’s fourth ride on the mare since she came back from a nine month spell after being broken in and only the mare’s tenth ever ride. To make life easy for both horse and rider, Robbie and Silmarillion acted as lead horse. That way there was no need for any aggressive riding and the mare was introduced to her surrounds following a leader. Doing this they rode some school circles and loops walking and trotting then Robbie peeled off and David and Fleur went solo. Having a companion at this stage is a real help.

“Getting the horse in front of the leg is the number one lesson for them to learn; not just dressage horses but any horse for any discipline. I have a 1, 2, 3 method for getting the horse in front of and to respect the leg aids” says David.

The Method

1. Hold a light calf aid on for a second or two and if the horse does not respond and move forward, go to...

2. More calf pressure and a little touch of the spur and if nothing happens go to...

3. A forceful and quick use of the legs and a meaningful tap with a whip if you have one behind your leg or a strong use of the spur. The horse MUST go forward. As soon as the horse travels forward you must go straight back to ‘zero’, with your legs off the horse. I will use a whip for the first few times, but I do not ride all the time with a whip, because it can just become like constant kicking and in the higher tests you are not permitted to carry a whip. Also, we are teaching them to respond to leg pressure and go forward. With the more forceful aid to go forward, you must be sufficiently balanced that you in no way impede the horse’s forward movement. What you don’t want to do is seriously urge it forward and catch it in the mouth.

"Once you have established a response from the leg, go back to walk with your leg off and then go back to number one and ask for a response and then if necessary go to number two and number three. The horse learns and responds to the light aid, because it knows what will come if it doesn’t.

“Really the only horses that respond the first time to the light aid are hot horses, but the thing is they can also become lazy. It is as important to teach hot horses to accept and respond to the leg as it is to teach lazy horses to go with the legs off. We teach our hot horses like this, because even though it may be going forward, it may not be in front of the leg. The hot horse must learn to give the correct reaction, because sometimes in a test, a hot horse is running away and not reacting at the right times.

“To test whether the horse is in front of the leg, stop riding forward, do nothing and sit like you are on the couch at home and if the horse stops going, then it is behind the leg. Is it going on its own, or are you kicking it every stride to keep it going? You must teach your horse to go from a light aid and keep going until you tell it to stop. When the horse stops going, it gets a kick and when it goes forward, it gets left alone. If the horse is left alone when it is doing what you want it to do, then it will keep doing it. That is how release of pressure educates.

“However, if you are persistent in kicking it every stride, it can cause a horse to jack up, because, if they go forward and the pressure doesn’t go away, it will start to look for another way out, like stopping, rearing or kicking out at your leg. When the horse does this, especially with an inexperienced rider, they take the pressure off and the horse gets the release it desires by rearing etc. Horses want us to leave them alone and you have to teach them to do what is necessary to be left alone.

“If you constantly kick, you deaden the horse to the leg and you will have to put in more effort to get the response you desire. The thing is, you can do that at Prelim level; it is not pretty, but you will get away with it. We train the young horses that when we halt, we take the legs away from their sides. Then as soon as the legs come on, they have to react and go forward. Every time you put an aid on, you have to get a reaction. You must train the horse to respond to the leg, not train it not to respond to the leg, which you do if you get no response and do nothing about it, or constantly kick, kick.

“With Fleur, I keep everything simple. I try and leave my legs off as much as possible, but every time, they come on, she has to react. When she is cantering, the number one thing for me is to sit there and leave her alone even though she is really unbalanced. I keep my body balanced and use my hands a little to help her, but the second she trots without me putting on a trot aid, she gets a kick. If she canters on the wrong leg, I don’t immediately stop. She has to learn right from the start that she has to keep cantering until I say stop. They get more balanced the stronger they get and they will only get stronger from cantering more and more. I am obviously doing a bit to guide her around the arena and encouraging her to be round, but I am not kicking her around the arena.

“Especially with the initial 1, 2, 3 training and it gets to three, don’t worry about what is going on in front of the saddle, concentrate solely about going forward. When you are riding, it is easy to worry about what you see in front of you. But you need to worry more about the part you cannot see, which is behind the saddle. If you concern yourself with getting the hind legs underneath the horse and supporting it, the front end will come. If your horse is going forward and coming through from behind, then you can do something with the reins, bend it and do whatever you need to do to get it supple and round.

“Unless you can get a good reaction from your leg and you can leave your horse alone, it is pointless wrestling it in front, because you are not going to get anywhere.”

Photos: Julie Wilson. Article: Anna Sharpley.

Check out Part 2 of Keeping the horse in front of the leg here

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