Professional Background:
CHA President, CHA Master Clinic Instructor, AQHA Professional Horsewoman. Alberta born and raised, internationally recognized horsewoman Tara Gamble offers horsemanship instruction for riders of all ages and skill levels. Her background is varied in both western and english riding and she is fortunate to combine her passion of both horses and people through teaching.
The phrase “lateral work” involves different exercises that have a degree of sideways (lateral) motion, with the objectives being; increased suppleness, flexibility, fitness, co-ordination, development and control of the muscles from your horse. Lateral exercises help improve the horse’s responses and overall movement. They also help you to gain independent control over the horse’s fore and back ends, allowing you to set your horse up properly for execution of more advanced and demanding maneuvers quietly, lightly and easily.
Communication between the horse and rider are often strengthened through lateral work, as the horse becomes increasingly responsive to the rider’s seat, leg and hand aids. Lateral exercises are often a bridge to accomplishing long-term goals, but remarkably are some of the least understood concepts in riding. These maneuvers help to polish your riding skills and provide a strong foundation for you review when problems arise. No matter the discipline, all of these exercises can be applied to achieve your riding goals. The exercises typically included are: turn/pivot on the forehand, shoulder-in, haunches-in, leg yield, half pass and side pass.
Lateral work starts when you teach the horse to move away from pressure. That means it usually begins on the ground - working around your horse and teaching them to move over. For the following exercises it is advantageous to be able to turn/pivot on the forehand in order to ensure that you can achieve independent responses from the horse’s fore and hind ends. Also, ensure your horse is physically ready for these exercises as the goal of training is to improve your horse, not damage or hurt them. Your timing and feel through the co-coordinated use of your aids is essential. Combined goal is to elicit lighter, quicker responses from your horse.
The goal of this article is to differentiate between the leg yield, half pass and side pass. In short, it will give you a foundation to work from. The descriptions below are intended for riders using two hands and a snaffle bit. (Please be aware that there are many more technicalities than can be mentioned here, and often are discipline specific). However, the principles remain the same. Terminology may also differ, eg. in dressage, “travers” means quarters-in, where western is “haunches-in”.
Part 1 - The Leg Yield: Involves the horse moving forward and sideways simultaneously. There should be more forward than sideways motion driving the horse, with the forehand moving slightly ahead of the hindquarters. The horse is yielding to the rider’s leg (i.e. giving in to) and is best preformed after turn/pivot on the forehand, but before the half pass. The leg yield may be preformed at all gaits, and helps to supple the shoulder and stifle joints, as well as helps to gain better control of the hindquarters (when preformed at the trot) and is very useful to in preparing your horse for collection (when done at the trot, or lope/canter).
In a leg-yield to the right, the horse is slightly counter-flexed (to the left) through the horse’s head and slightly into the neck. The objective is to have the horse move forward and sideways simultaneously with the forehand leading slightly ahead of the hindquarters and the left legs crossing over the right legs. To achieve this, the rider uses the seat aid to push the horse sideways in conjunction with the inside (left) leg behind the cinch/girth, while the outside (right) leg drives the horse forward and is prepared to assist in controlling the amount of sideways motion. The inside (left) rein will serve the purpose to maintain a soft flex through the horse’s poll and jaw and lets you tip the horse’s nose slightly – we only want to see the outside corner of the horse’s left eye, while the outside (right) rein has a dual purpose in controlling the amount of bend that is exhibited by the horse’s neck as well as helping to rate the pace and control the frame of the horse.
Common problems and solutions are:
- The hindquarters drifting too far too fast, corrected by placing your outside (right) leg behind the cinch/girth.
- The forehand moving too quickly and gets “ahead” of the hindquarters in which case, apply outside (right) leg in front of the cinch/girth, and use a bit of outside (right) rein to cue the horse to slow its shoulders down.
- Over bending, which leads to the outside (right) shoulder bulging and rubber necking. This is easily controlled by watching your inside (left) rein to make sure you do not cross the mane line (causing the head to bend too much to the inside – and the right shoulder has no where to go but to “bulge” to the right). Use your outside rein slightly to “catch” the sideways movement of the shoulder and control the amount of bend the in the neck.
Sometimes leg yielding is called two-tracking by western riders, with the name arising from the fore and hind ends traveling on two separate tracks. It is differentiated by having slightly more lateral bend (through the spine of the horse from the head to the tail) than the leg yield. The horse is a little more counter-flexed (through the poll) and counter-bent than the leg yield. However, most of the time these two terms are used interchangeably, referring to the horse moving forward at an angle, with the horse being counter-bent to the direction of travel and the front and hind legs moving on two different tracks.
Part 2 - The Half Pass: A more advanced maneuver than the leg yield, by requiring the horse to be moving forward and sideways with the body bent towards the direction of travel, traveling on two-tracks. The horse still maintains a slight lead in the forehand to the hindquarters, and still crosses his legs in front of the supporting legs. It is extremely beneficial to have a solid grasp of the leg yield and haunches-in before attempting a half pass. Your horse must be both physically and mentally ready. The horse has to be listening to the rider so that he stays with you and you can work together in achieving success. It requires a lot of balance and strength on your horse’s behalf. Collection, flexibility and light responsiveness is crucial to achieving the half pass. The horse must be good at bending his neck and body, be light on the front end, and very capable of driving (engaging) from the back end. It is advantageous to have preformed shoulder-in, haunches-in and leg yield prior to beginning a half pass. In order to achieve the half pass, impulsion must be maintained.
In a half pass to the right, the inside (right) (referring to the direction of the bend) leg is used at the cinch/girth to control the amount of bend and keep up the impulsion. The outside (left) leg is used slightly behind the girth and pushes the haunches towards the half pass itself. The inside rein controls the amount of bend, and you want the horse to be flexed at the poll, soft in the jaw and collected. The outside rein aids in controlling the degree of bend of the horse and helps in the outside shoulder position. The horse travels to the right, with the left legs crossing in front of his right legs and his body flexed and bent to the right. The degree of difficulty for the horse stems from his body being bent in the direction of travel while he must still cross over with his left legs in front of his right (supporting) legs.
Some potential problems and solutions are:
- A loss of impulsion. This should be corrected immediately by using the inside leg. However, make sure you allow the hindquarters to “wait” until you can drive the horse forward again, otherwise they will get too far ahead of the front end and you will end up with too much lateral movement, similar to a side pass.
- The haunches/hindquarters are too far behind the motion of the half pass. Correct this by performing some more haunches-in and leg yield to have the horse become more sensitive to the leg aids and increase your control over the back end of the horse.
- The haunches/hindquarters lead the shoulders in the half-pass. Correct this by performing more shoulder-in to increase your control of the horse’s shoulders. Using circle exercises will also help to supple and soften your horse if bending through the body is a problem contributing to stiff shoulders.
- Over-bending can be a problem too. Similar to the leg yield exercise, watch the amount of inside rein you are using and just see the outside corner of the horse’s inside (right) eye. A bit of help from the outside rein will help to keep the shoulder in position and maintain a reasonable amount of bend in the neck.
Part 3 - The Side Pass: A strictly lateral (sideways) maneuver involving almost negligible forward motion. Since there is not much forward motion, it is not a beneficial exercise for collection, but is useful in helping the rider to really gain independent control over the front and back ends of the horse, and improve the horse’s response to the leg aids. It helps to supple your horse, which is beneficial to preparing your horse for flying lead changes. The side pass is sometimes part of a dressage pattern or trail course, and is helpful when opening gates (along with turn/pivot on the forehand).
In a side pass to the right, the horse’s outside (left) legs should cross over the supporting (right) legs. During the crossover there is a very small amount of forward movement created; however, it should be stressed that you do not want the horse to step forward with his legs. To achieve a side pass, you may want the horse to stand in front of a wall or a fence to help build a physical barrier to the horse so he does not step forward. Next you will prepare your seat, leg and rein aids so you can co-ordinate them to have the horse move with as much fluidity as possible. Begin by using your left seat bone to push the horse to the right, together with left leg behind the cinch/girth, while applying a slight bit of pressure to the outside (left) side of the neck with your left rein. This will tell the horse to move his hind legs sideways to the right, followed by the horse’s front legs. The inside (right) rein opens up slightly to allow the horse to move over to the right.
The most common trouble areas and solutions are as follows:
- The horse gets “ahead” with either the hindquarters or the forehand. Most commonly is the forehand leading, and can be attributed usually to one of two reasons. Firstly, the rider does not apply enough seat and leg aid, and uses too much rein aid causing the horse to move laterally with the front end only. Or secondly, the horse is not responsive enough to the rider’s leg and seat aids and should go back and work on lateral exercises to improve this such as turn on the forehand, haunches-in and leg yield. If the horse gets ahead with the hindquarters, the same reasons apply but due to a lack of correct use of (on the rider’s behalf) or responsiveness (on the horse’s behalf) to the rein aids. For this it is beneficial to go back and work on turn on the haunches, shoulder-in and leg yield. This lack of responsiveness will be much more apparent in the side pass due to the fact there is a much greater degree of sideways motion than in the previous exercises.
Through practice, all lateral exercises will become smooth and polished. They help to advance the horse physically and mentally to a higher level of riding. They help the horse to improve their responsiveness to the aids, and benefit the rider by improving co-ordination of the aids and can assist in improving the rider’s “feel”. Done correctly, the benefits obtained from lateral work will insure success in building a fantastic partnership with your horse!
Happy riding!
Tara
