I came across a video discussion regarding the importance of a rider’s aids to obtain correctness. Specifically, the video discussed the problem of training a horse to perform a flying change. During the flying change the horse changed leads in the front end, but not in the back legs resulting in a disunited or crossfire canter. The trainer concluded it was a problem with the timing of the request for a lead change being after the moment of suspension, which they said was too late and causing the screw-up. 

I have given this idea of the aids a lot of thought and tried to put myself in the horse’s shoes. In a nutshell, I believe too much importance is given to just how essential each element of a rider’s aids are to the perfect outcome. The significance of the timing of the aids is a little dependent on what a rider is trying to achieve. However, for a lot of what a rider is intending, the individual parts are not as vital as many people think.

Let me explain as best I can.

I believe too much of what a rider’s aids are intended to influence is micro-managing beyond what a horse is either comfortable or capable of yielding to. Riders give too little credit to a horse’s propensity to cling to a pattern and too much credit to a horse’s ability or interest in breaking down a rider’s aids into incremental importance.

I’ll try to clarify what I mean by talking about the example from above with the horse that was having problems performing flying changes correctly.

When teaching a horse to canter at a rider’s request most horses learn to transition when a rider uses crude aids. Horses do not innately know that the canter aids mean canter let alone which lead to take. There is nothing magical about canter aids - or any aids. We could just as easily teach a horse to canter correctly using very different signals.

In the beginning, most riders I know ask for canter with something like tension through their seat and application of both legs. The aids or signal a rider applies are intended to help a horse think forward into a canter. The object of these signals is to evoke a forward response strong enough to result in a canter. In time, a pattern is set up so that every time a horse feels a rider prepare to tighten their seat and put a little feel in their legs the horse gets ready to canter.

Now it comes time to be fussy about which lead we want our horse to canter on. It is pretty universally accepted that a should rider apply their inside leg on the girth and their outside leg behind the girth and establish a little inside flexion. The theory behind the uneven leg pressure is that the outside leg being behind the girth should encourage activation of the outside hind leg of the horse as the first step in the canter and that this causes a horse to canter on the inside lead. 

But a horse does not automatically understand this concept. It does not know that the rider’s outside leg is telling the outside hind of the horse to be the first step into the canter. It has to learn this pattern. Since birth, it has known how to canter starting with the outside hind leg, but it has to learn that the rider’s outside leg is telling it which canter lead to choose. As far as the horse is concerned at this stage any active leg from the rider means more forward. Its thought is to go forward, not to think about which leg to move first. 

It is only by applying the correct canter aids to encourage a transition forward into the canter, and blocking when the horse takes the wrong lead, that a horse learns to associate the uneven leg pressure with a particular canter lead. 

Now the horse has learned a new pattern when a rider does ABC, it canters on a certain lead. But what the horse has not figured out is that when a rider their outside leg it should do X and when the rider applies a feel on the inside rein it is supposed to do Y and when the rider uses inside leg the horse should do Z. All the horse understands is that the pattern of aids to canter we use means the horse should canter on either the left or the right leads.

So now we come to teaching flying changes. By this stage, the horse has learned the pattern that when the rider applies the canter aids one way it is to canter on the left lead and when applied another way it is to canter on the right lead. But it has not figured out that when a rider changes his aids in the middle of a canter it should swap from one canter lead to the other. That new pattern is not established. The reason it does not work without breaking it down by first doing simple changes and changes in the direction of the turn or circle is that a horse has not learned that when the rider applies the aids to canter to the left and applies the aids to canter to the right, it is supposed to swap leads in mid-stride. It is a foreign pattern.

Now this is the crux of the issue. Horses learn a pattern and they don’t learn to give meaning to each element of the pattern. They understand the entire pattern, not the elements. So in the case of teaching the flying change, the reason we have to first introduce simple changes is that a horse has not learned that a rider’s outside leg activates its outside hind and that the inside seat means to turn to the inside and inside leg means don’t fall to the inside while at the same time pushing forward.

This concept can be quite difficult to get your head around because we can all think of examples where a signal from a rider can induce a desired response. But the thing to remember is that the response of a horse to a single signal has to be taught first and then add another single signal and another and another. What a horse can’t learn is to break down the meaning when a rider applies a signal from their seat, a different signal from each leg, and a different signal or signals from each rein and understand what each is telling it how to do something specific to that signal. A horse learns how to respond to the overall pattern, not the individual elements that make up the pattern. That takes years of pedantic, slow work that would frustrate the hell out of most people.

I think this is a subject worth considering because just about every book on riding and training is jam-packed with instructions on which aid a rider should apply for which movement, with very little explanation about how these aids become established in a horse’s mental database. But please don’t make your comments about teaching the canter aids or flying changes. I simply used those movements as an illustration of the principles I’m thinking about. The subject is much bigger than those movements.

There is very little about riding and training that comes naturally to a horse, but fortunately, they have a strong and natural propensity to recognize and give meaning to patterns. We exploit that part of their nature every day with very little recognition of its importance.