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X’s and O’s-Training Techniques (Part 1)

By Nealia McCracken

The foundation for working any horse is what I refer to as X’s and O’s. The X’s consist of teaching your horse to work in a straight line, not only along the rail, but also diagonally across the ring, thus making X’s. The O’s are the millions of circles I execute during the day teaching a horse to canter (lope) and bend. One benefit to teaching a horse to execute X’s and O’s is that you will be in the process of obtaining total control for the rider and total obedience from the horse. Remember every new task I teach a horse I do in a snaffle bridle.

Let’s deal with the X’s first. I use straight lines to accomplish many tasks. One of the first tasks I want to talk about is to teach a horse to walk up into the bridle. Remember almost every aspect of training a horse to do anything is a matter of pressure from the handler and the horse responding in a correct manner to get relief. When a horse is pushed into the bridle and feels the pressure of the bits their proper response is to flex down away from the bit to relieve the pressure. When you are teaching a horse to walk into the bridle you first ask them to move forward. Next the rider applies pressure on the mouth by slightly holding the reins. As the horse responds to the pressure of the bit by flexing down the rider should relax their hold on the reins providing the proper relief. Remember you must practice the exercise of pressure in the mouth and flexing down to find relief in a snaffle before you put a curb bit on the horse. The curb bit is designed to apply pressure in the mouth, on the chin and on the top of the head. If a horse does not understand the proper pressure and relief by flexing down I never use a curb bit to force or pull them to pull their nose down. The use of a curb to force a horse’s nose down is a recipe for disaster. This technique of using a curb to drop the nose may cause horses to rear and not go forward. Many of these horses have learned that they get relief by flipping their heads up, not moving forward and rearing. If this situation persists the wrong muscles develop in the horses neck by strengthening the muscles in the lower neck that are muscles that push the nose up and out. It also reduces the top muscle, which can cause in extreme cases a “U” necked effect. After working my horses and teaching them to flex down over a longer period of time not only do the horses work better and are safer, but their necks are more physically attractive.

One way for a horse to avoid the bits is by reducing their body momentum into the bits by swinging their hips to one side or the other, or back and forth like a pendulum. Many times these horse will not flat walk, but will jig while swinging their hips from side to side. I approach these horses as horses that are avoiding the bits, not refusing to flat walk. What I’m saying is that this is a bit problem not a walking problem usually. In order to stop a horse from swinging his body you use your hands and legs pushing your horse in a straight line. Your hands control everything in front of the saddle/girth and your legs control everything behind the saddle/girth.

The next task I want to talk about is keeping a horse’s gaits square and even. A horse that does not track straight along the rail does what I call dog tracking. Dog tracking is where a horse’s hips and shoulders are not on the same line. A horse that dog tracks is more apt to interfere with themselves by knocking knees and ankles or brushing legs. Any time a horse interferes frequently they will be more prone to hopping and skipping to avoid the pain of hitting themselves.

Another problem with dog tracking is that unless you are one of the fortunate few that can have your ring drug frequently during the day there tends to be a slight indentation or dip in the track where your horses travel along the rail. If your horse dog tracks, usually one end or the other of your horse is slightly higher by being on the ridge or they land on the lip causing their foot not to land squarely which will also cause them to not to execute their gaits correctly. This can also cause some soundness issues.

To keep a horse straight along the rail you must remember that the horse’s head is narrower than the shoulders and the shoulders are narrower than the hips. For lack of a better term they are wedge shaped. A common fault for a lot of riders is putting the horses head the same distance from the rail as their shoulder and their hips, i.e. head, shoulders and hips all 8 inches off the rail. This is a rider causing a horse to move down the rail crooked. Besides dog tracking down the rail and causing interference it also reduces the momentum of the horses body moving up into the bits, as we discussed earlier. The correct way to ride a horse straight along the rail would be shoulders directly in front of the hips and in the middle with the head directly in front of and in the middle of the shoulders i.e. hips 8 inches off the rail, shoulders 10” off the rail and the head 12” off the rail. Remember you have to work horses both directions of the ring. Horses usually have one direction of the ring where they execute this straight-line exercise easier than the other. Because of this you have to focus on the weak points and areas and don’t over emphasize the strong points.

The last point I want to make why straight-line work is important is to get your horses body alignment straight. This sounds just like what we were talking about, but this is a similar problem. In the above most likely the horse’s body alignment was straight, but was traveling crooked to the rail. Here the head and hips may be in alignment, but the horse is pushing their shoulder out in one direction or the other making the horse look like its traveling down the rail in a slightly curved shape to the rail. This is a shoulder alignment issue. These are the horses that will rub you on the rail one direction and when you reverse they will drift to the middle of the ring. If your horse’s body is in total alignment, shoulder follows head, hips follow shoulders, you will be less likely to be rubbed on the rail in one direction and on the reverse finding yourself visiting the judge in the middle of the ring during your next class.

One reason why this is so hard to fix is that many people miss label what is actually happening. I hear comments like he is dead on the left side of the mouth, is hard on one side or the other and he runs to the middle of the ring as he knows we are going to line up. . When observing these horses I noticed that the horse’s shoulder is pushed a little to one side or the other from a properly aligned body. If a horses shoulder is out of the line on the right side you can almost bet that they will hug the rail the first way of the ring and drift to the middle to second way of the ring. Most horses are crooked with the shoulder out to the right. (Maybe this is because of the way we lead and handle them from the left that from a young age they tend to bend that way) Another way to tell if your horse is crooked or not is to circle them to the left and then back to the right. In about 90% of the time a horse that is crooked will turn easier and make a large circle in one direction and on the reverse circle they will tend to make smaller less fluid circles. Occasionally they will even increase speed and/or they will feel resentful in the bridle. When you label a problem as a mouth issue you tend to only focus on just that and not what’s going on with your horses body. A good portion of fixing this problem is through the mouth, but it also requires some leg or whip aid to the shoulder area to re-align the horses body.

Now that you know why you need to do straight lines as a training tool, I will tell you how to do them. To accomplish pushing your horse into the bridle you separate your hands fairly wide keeping contact with the horse’s mouth. It’s important that you must be careful not to bump your horse up excessively or allow him to dive down in the bridle. Use the calves of both legs to push the horse forward. Use the calf of the right leg to stop the hip from swinging to the right and return it back to the middle on the straight line. Likewise, the calf of the left leg will stop the hip from swinging to the left and return it back to the middle on the straight line. (No one said that this is an easy task to perform.)

The second method to push your horse forward is using your voice. I use my voice by clucking to the horse and allowing them to move forward and by relaxing my hold on the reins. Do not pitch the reins away totally. When clucking I usually use a quiet subtle sound thus avoiding making a horse move faster than a walk.

There are two ways to work on straight lines, either along the rail or diagonal or a straight line across the ring. When you do a diagonal or straight line across the arena pick a point on the far side of the ring and look at it the entire time you are walking to the point. At the same time you are watching your point keep your horse’s head aimed at this point. As you are walking forward towards the point feel the horse’s body under you and always keep it straight. Remember to use your hands to keep everything in front of you straight and your legs to keep everything behind you straight. Also use both you voice and legs to move the horse forward. Don’t forget to relax in your hands and do not stand on the brakes. (Hang on the mouth) When you have reached your destination be sure and reward your horse by letting him know he has done what you have asked. If your horse did not execute a straight line properly or easily do not punish him, allow him to relax a few seconds and repeat the exercise again. Also a note of caution. Too much repetition turns from training to drudgery. Don’t try to fix all of your problems in one ride.

In the next article we will talk about the O’s and what training benefits you can get from working your horse in circles.