In this video series on EQUESTRIAN+, top dressage rider and trainer Olivia Lagoy-Weltz helps an amateur rider teach her Spanish horse to respond more positively to the leg aids instead of pushing back against her leg. They also work on encouraging “Senior” to take deeper and more through steps with his hind legs and not allowing him to just step faster.
If you struggle to keep your horse in front of your leg or he could use a leg-aid tune-up, Lagoy-Weltz’s tips will help improve his contact, connection and overall responsiveness.
Bigger Step—Not Faster
“You need to teach your horse that when you put your leg on he needs to take a bigger step through. Some horses stiffen in their rib cages and push back a bit when you squeeze or bump with your leg. But ultimately, you want your horse to respond by softening through his ribcage and then taking a deeper, more sweeping step from behind into the reins.
“If your horse pushes his hip into your inside leg when when you ask him to go forward, bend him to the inside. He has to learn that he can’t live by just pushing on your inside leg in either direction. If you take some of the Western principles, think about moving his hips over to find the spot where he’ll yield, release and drive off his hind feet.”
“Think about asking your horse for a deeper step, not faster. Visualize where you want each foot to go. You want him to step all the way through his back and into your hands. You don’t want to run him off his feet, but he needs to learn how to accept your leg, so that it becomes a compromise. And then you don’t have to pressure him with your leg all the time.
“Close your fingers on his front end and then ask his hind end to catch up. You want him to step through the reins to try and find that font-end connection. He has to change how he relates to you on his inside.”
Find the Connection and Meet Your Horse There
“If your horse ducks behind you, just stick with the contact and work through it. Don’t let him change the subject, but it doesn’t need to escalate to an argument. Continue to bend him and push him a little sideways when he dips out behind so he can’t use that as an out.
“You horse needs to learn that if he rolls up on, you will find the connection wherever it is and ride him there. Otherwise, it becomes a cycle to where the horse is up but not really touching the contact. Then he drops down and rolls up and when you try to put him back up, he’s still blocked in his back.
“You have to connect with your horse to where he is in his training. Sometimes you need to go back to the basic aids and start from that simple place before trying to make anything fancy.
“Maintain the connection even if your horse starts to curl up a bit. You should feel like you’re trying to hold a piece of dental floss in his mouth.”
Consistency in the Contact
“In the end, it doesn’t matter why your horse is behind the leg or at what stage of his training he learned it was OK. He just needs to go to reform school to learn that when you apply leg he should promptly respond with forwardness.”
“It’s not about riding backwards, but if your horse can’t reach your hand, he can’t reach the connection. You can work on building that forward power by thinking about asking him to canter through the reins.
“When your horse steps through and into the contact, he’ll become very elastic. He should feel like the same horse in front and back, as if he’s made of one substance—not something stiff in back and floppy in front.
“Over time he’ll learn that if he’s immediately more responsive to the contact and your legs aids, his work sessions won’t be as long because it’s always about achieving quality over quantity.”
For More:
- You can watch the full series on getting your dressage horse in front of your leg with Olivia LaGoy-Weltz here.
- For more training tips from LaGoy-Weltz, click here.
About Olivia LaGoy-Weltz
Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Olivia LaGoy-Weltz began riding at age 5. She traveled to Holland and Germany after high school to work in several top dressage barns. In 2011, she won the U.S. Equestrian Federation National Championships FEI Young Rider Grand Prix and was named the Brentina Cup Reserve Champion. Her many accomplishments since then have included winning the small tour at the Palm Beach Derby CDI twice and serving as an alternate for the 2015 U.S. Pan American Games dressage team. In 2021, she was short-listed for the Tokyo Olympics with Rassing’s Lonoir and won the Fourth Level Open Championship at the U.S. Dressage Federation Dressage Finals with Ici Bria VCG. Olivia is now based at Mountain Crest Farm, in Haymarket, Virginia, and winters in Wellington, Florida.
