Horse Training Terminology: Understanding The Lingo
Many of the phrases used in a beginners riding course can appear daunting. This page will help to define these words and their relevance for horse training. Four beats in a quick pace whereby all four hooves leave the ground at once. The fastest a horse can run at.
The Lingo
The Aids
The physical gestures the rider makes to interact with their horse constitute her aids. The timing, strength, and length of the riders' assistance should ideally exactly match the mental and physical reactions of their horses.
Positive reinforcement is what this is; in theory, the horse should respond to every rider's aid by moving onwards. Actually, this doesn't always occur, and the explanation usually stems from the riders' aids becoming useless to their horse.
a kind of canter in which the outside leg leads rather than the inner. Also called a galop fake, false canter or counter canter. It aids in the horse's muscle and suppleness building process.
The Bit
When a horse is on the bit it is obeying the riders aids voluntarily and swinging its back through an elastic contact with the bit. Throughness helps the horse to build a balanced cadence for all gaits and apply its power via the hindquarters.
The bit rests between the front teeth that crop grass and the back teeth grinding it into meal. Bits differ in the placement, force, kind of pressure they apply on the horse.
The flexibility of the bosal or noseband, the ring size and form, and the mouthpiece itself define snaffles, hackamores and curb bits. Some feature raised sections, known as ports, which press along the lower jaw, sides of the mouth, tongue or roof of the mouth.
The Head
The head of a horse is where its eyes, ears, nose, and mouth find place. Often an indication of a horse being "above the bit," a head high indicates that its outline has failed to remain round due to inadequate acceptance of the riders aids appropriately through its back and torso. Quick remedies won't assist with this; good training requires time and effort to resolve this problem.
Since lowering a horses head requires significant postural changes, the action can be challenging for the back muscles. Many people therefore hold the horses head in place with a draw rein or tie down.
The Gaits
A horse can walk in several gaits. There are particular rhythms and footfall sequences that define these several types of movement known as strides.
Each foot of the four-beat lateral motion that is the walk strikes the ground independently. The canter, or lope, is a three-beat gait; the trot is a two-beat diagonal stride in which the right hind and left front move together.
Often employed in dressage patterns on the flat, a hand gallop is a controlled variation on the canter. The rider's capacity to maintain her hands—which are directly tied to a bit inside the horse's mouth—soft, forgiving, and regularly delivering a reasonable amount of pressure is known as suppleness.
The Contact
a soft, steady contact in a horse's mouth across the reins. When the horse is in self-carriage and well balanced, this is an always shifting sensation that should feel like a thread tying your hand to their mouth.
a dressage phrase used to characterise a horses trot's trot's rhythm. The rider rising up and down in their seat in sync with the horse's footfall creates it.
a four-year or older uncastrated male horse. Called a gelding or a colt as well. a horse combining two distinct breeds in a cross-fashion. Called a hybrid or a mongrel as well.
