Learning to Love Lateral Work with Brett Parbery

This article is from the March 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

Lateral movements are like flying changes — they will at some point present a challenge in one way or another for most riders. I like to approach lateral work in the same way I approach all my training — in a calm and systematic way, with intelligent horsemanship as a top priority.

Let’s break it down. Lateral work is basically moving your horse sideways.In Australian dressage, lateral work is introduced at the novice level with leg-yields; however, at the elementary level a more thorough understanding of lateral work is required by the horse and rider.

The lateral movements include;

- Shoulder-fore (a training exercise),
- Leg-yield,
- Shoulder-in,
- Travers,
- Renvers,
- The half-pass,
- The walk pirouette, and
- The canter pirouette.

In lateral work we refer to tracks. By the term tracks, we are referring to the footfalls of the horse created by the left and right legs.

For example, shoulder-in is a three-track exercise. When viewed from the front, a three-track exercise appears such that the inside front leg makes the first track; the outside front leg and inside hind leg are in-line and make the second track; and the outside hind leg forms the third track.

Lateral work is usually done on straight lines, parallel to the long sides of the arena, or diagonal lines, across the arena. Lateral work can also be done on short sides and circle lines as training exercises.

Let’s look at lateral work as a recipe that requires ingredients.

The three main ingredients

Before you start any putting together the lateral work recipe, you want to make sure you have these three ingredients completely under control:

1. Pace Control: You need to have control of upward and downward transitions and forward and backward transitions within the pace, and let’s not forget the importance of your horse being in front of your leg, meaning that when you stop actively riding, your horse will keep going.

2. Frame Control: Connection refers to the way your horse connects from the hindquarters, through the back, to the neck and on to the poll and jaw. Having influence over your horse’s neck position and being able to keep this position stable, will give you greater consistency and reliability within the connection. The appropriate neck position of your horse depends entirely on its conformation, temperament and natural balance.

3. Feet Control: Control over your horse’s front and hind feet placement.

The extra special ingredient

Lateral work is mostly about control over your horse’s shoulders.

Without good control over your horse’s shoulders, you’ll have trouble with the positioning of your lateral exercises.

You should aim to have control of the horse’s shoulders independent of the rest of their body. That’s how you’ll ultimately end up being able to place the shoulders on one line of travel and the quarters on another, creating the lateral exercise.

The following aids are the ones I use to control my horse’s shoulders. These aids are listed in no specific order of priority and are applied in combination with one another:

1. Pivot at the waist, turning your shoulders to match where you want your horse’s shoulders to be. Another way of describing it is to face your chest in the direction you want your horse’s shoulders to go.
2. Between your hands is where your horse’s shoulders are, so try to keep it that way. If you want your horse’s shoulders to turn, then move both hands to the left or right. Don’t lose control of your horse’s neck position while you turn the shoulders; be aware of how much rein tension you have, and adjust it accordingly as you re-position your hands.

TIP: To experiment with your shoulder-control aids, try riding square or diamond shapes. At each corner turn the horse’s shoulders around the bend with these aids, and start to feel the horse’s shoulders and front legs. Keep trying to find the smallest/lightest aid you can use to get the horse’s shoulders
to turn.

Common challenges

Here are some of the most common questions I’m asked about lateral work.

"It’s hard for me to maintain the line in lateral movements. Sometimes, from shoulder-in on the outside track, I end up in the middle of the arena!"

When riding shoulder- fore/shoulder-in, you must apply a combination of aids:
* your shoulder-control aids to position the horse’s shoulders to the inside track
* your ‘waiting aids’
* your leg aids such that your inside leg is on the girth against the horse’s ribs, giving the horse an occasional nudge up the track
If your horse is leaving the track, be sure that you are getting a response from your waiting aids (your seat and your outside rein). Once they are waiting, give them a nudge with your inside leg to direct them up the track.

"My weight always slips to the outside seat bone."

I know sometimes you read about putting more weight on the inside seat bone, but that’s not the way I ride or train. I think you should always aim to sit in the centre of the horse, square and balanced. If you’re falling to the outside in travers for example, you might be twisting your body just to get your outside leg on, or the horse’s back might be rolling you over. Try for a lesser angle in the lateral movement, and see if the horse copes better. He may be struggling with the difficulty and therefore not bending correctly through the body. Aim to always sit in the middle of the saddle, and try stretching down through your inside stirrup. As you put your outside leg back to position the quarters, feel at what point you then lose your balanced seat. That is the point at which you must either work on your horse’s reaction off your leg or work on your own body, stretching enough so that you can use your aids properly.

"I’m not sure what to prioritise when I’m losing bend, rhythm and my mind!"

I’d suggest prioritising your state of mind first! Seriously, it takes discipline and self-control to know when to quit for the day, and sometimes that is the best option. This is supposed to be enjoyable for you and your horse. Please don’t let it become stressful; that’ll be the moment that everything comes undone! Remember the prerequisite to training lateral work: a well-established forward and backward response from your horse. If you lose impulsion and you can’t re-establish it within the movement, then the movement has been lost, and you need to go back a step and work on the forward and backward button. The impulsion and rhythm should be humming along without any extra effort. When that’s good, go back to slowly working on the lateral exercise positioning, angles and bend.

"My horse is rushing."

Your horse might be confusing the leg aid for a forward aid. Your forward-leg aid should come from the girth. You need to teach your horse to wait with your waiting aids, and then to accept your lateral aids, which are placed in a slightly different position on the girth. You may need to take a step back and train in walk to make sure your horse can learn about the different leg positions and the response you expect from each aid.

"My horse feels ‘stuck,’ and I don’t know how to get that ‘free-flowing’ movement again."

If your horse is slowing down and maybe tightening their back, or not moving nicely to the bit, you might be asking for a bit too much angle in your lateral work, or perhaps you have been letting your horse get behind your leg. It is important to increase the angles of the lateral exercises only as the horse feels secure and confident. When it comes to losing impulsion, either do the lateral exercises in shorter bursts, returning to straight and asking for a reaction forward from your leg, or attempt to make forward reactions within the lateral exercises. As your horse regains impulsion in the lateral movement, you will feel them work better through the back and not feel as stuck. All of us have challenges when training lateral work, so don’t worry if you’ve hit a roadblock. Dressage takes time, so remember to be kind to yourself and your horse, reward tiny improvements, find a friendly coach to help you, and enjoy the journey of dressage.

Special offer for Horse Deals readers If you’d like to receive Brett Parbery’s Guide to Lateral Movements, email support@theparberyprogram.com and we’ll send you a free PDF copy.

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