Keeping the horse in front of the leg

This article is from the November 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

Despite her youth, Robbie has been on the equestrian radar for many years winning in the show ring as well as the dressage arena.

Under the influence of her mother, the successful rider, breeder and coach, Ali Soster, the principle of Robali Equestrian, Robbie started riding as a four-year-old. She first became noticed in the international dressage arena riding, Robali Irish Cream, a horse that was given in lieu of a debt. With Robali Razzamatazz that she trained to Grand Prix, Robbie was declared Champion Lady Rider at both the Grand Nationals and the EA National titles. But it is dressage that is Robbie’s competitive passion and she has already established herself as one of the pre-eminent stars of Australian dressage, a feat helped along by a few fact find missions to Europe. She and husband, David operate McKinnon Sporthorses at Bowral in NSW.

“Corinne Watkins’ Silmarillion has been State and National Elementary Champion and has been very successful with Robbie at Medium/Advanced level,” explains David. “But whatever the level you need to keep polishing the basic 1, 2, 3 every day, especially with a cold horse. A cold horse will turn up pretty cold every day, but they quickly learn to get on with the job. Silmarillion is normal, neither hot nor lazy and he knows the 1, 2, 3 very well. Sometimes in a pirouette, we will take our legs off and dare him to stop cantering, to check the training. But we will also help him in a pirouette too, but when we help him in any movement, we only help him lightly and use a little touch with the spur and he knows that means business. He will know that beyond that, something will come if he doesn’t react.”

Robbie does not school with a whip, but one is available on the sidelines if she thinks it will help with a training exercise, but as you cannot compete at the higher levels with a whip, the horse must learn to go without one at home.

“Unless the horse is in front of your leg you can’t ask it to keep going, do a pirouette on the centre line, a flying change and another pirouette” continues David. “It is almost impossible to keep it going. The horse has to know that if it stops it gets a kick and if it keeps cantering, it gets left alone. So when we ride a pirouette all we should need to think about is ride travers, turn the shoulders and the horse keeps going.”

“When you go up the levels as you continue to train the horse, you do use a little leg and throughout your training you use leg. But the number one thing is that the horse knows when that little bit of leg comes on, something is coming afterwards and they have to react to that.

“Robbie and Silmarillion are training everything towards Grand Prix, so his daily routine is a matter of looking at every little part of what he does. He does a little passage and piaffe, more and more changes. He is the sort of horse that if you did kick him every stride, he would quickly become a lazy horse. To get him through a Grand Prix test and to make it look easy, he really needs to be in front of the leg.”

Robbie and David work well together and the mutual encouragement and an extra pair of eyes is a great help. Silmarillion looked to be going very well, but David kept getting Robbie to test the horse. Sit really still and use less leg. And if the horse dropped behind the leg, David insisted that it be corrected immediately and taken out of its comfort zone for a few seconds. The consequence of this was a more active and collected horse. The horse did not become stressed at all, but responded well to the timely reminder. “The 1, 2, 3 training method has to be reinforced throughout a horse’s career,” says David.

“People might read the article this month and last month and think it is all very well for Robbie and me because we are sitting on some lovely, purpose-bred horses and the horse they have is so lazy there is no way they can get it in front of the leg. That is so untrue, as you can make the laziest horse go from a light aid as long as you are really clear with the 1, 2, 3 and as soon as it goes forward you have to leave it alone. Leaving it alone is just as much a training aid as applying the leg. You must give the horse a reason to want to go forward.”

Article written by Anna Sharply.

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