Swing the Outside Ear

The hallmark of advanced horsemanship is lightness and collection. Most people would agree with that statement but many have different ideas of what those things mean. Here is how I define them: collection means building and containing energy in a horse in a usable fashion; lightness means that the horse responds immediately, energetically and willingly to my hands or legs with absolutely no resistance. For a horse to be collected and light he has to be active, energized, balanced, and straight. He also must have a willing attitude and understand the task. Now, that certainly doesn’t happen all of the time but it is the goal and it is definitely possible with any horse.

So, why doesn’t it happen more often? One reason is that it is in the nature of a human to want to control the horse. We do this because if we don’t we might end up scared, hurt or dead. The nature of control makes us want to tighten up, to contain, to restrain, etc. However in reality most things are actually quite beyond our control, especially with an animal ten times our size.

If we restrain our horse, say by pulling him to stop or turn, he has to tense physically to do it. For example, if I pull my horse to the left, he shortens his left side by tensing the muscles there and goes left (if he’s willing). It is a common method of getting your horse to turn that works effectively. However we can compliment the whole process by being able to communicate the opposite. If we teach the horse to reach on the right when we want to turn left, the horse learns to turn by relaxing the right side of the body. Instead of tensing on the left and having a shorter stride with his left front leg, he will relax on the right and reach farther with his right front leg.

Now this may seem irrelevant or needlessly complex, but it is both simple and very, very important. The importance lies in that when a horse responds with relaxation and extended reach we begin to achieve completely effortless lightness. When horses are resistant or dull it is because when a muscle is completely tensed it is completely resistant; that’s what it is supposed to do! Alternatively, when it is completely relaxed it is completely compliant. This is why relaxation leads to lightness.

So, how do you begin to teach this? Most of us teach our horses this when we are teaching them to yield in their poll or neck. We hold a certain amount of tension until the horse yields then we release. In this way, we are teaching the horse to respond to us by relaxing and reaching. However, the most effective method I have found to accomplish this is to teach the horse to yield it’s hindquarter to a bump from my leg. After I have accomplished this very basic of task I begin to use my leg in a rhythmic gentle pressing fashion until the horse responds by swinging its outside ear forward. Of course I’m not really concerned with what the ear is doing, but what is actually happening is that as the horse is swinging its hindquarters away from my leg, the diagonal front reaches forward at the same time (horses diagonal legs respond together.) As the horse is reaching forward, it is also relaxing and bending to my suggestio n (leg bump) and looking in the new direction. As his eye looks in the new direction, the ear turns with it. Because the whole response is subtle and hard to feel, it is useful to use the ear as a clue as to when the horse has responded correctly. Give it a try. You’ll find many positive changes in your horse that will surprise you.