Leg Yielding

LEG YIELDING

"The Training Scale is the most important guideline for trainers, riders and judges."

Leg yielding is the most basic of all the lateral movements and should be included in the training of the horse before he is ready for collected work. It supples the horse, making him loose and unconstrained, and it teaches him to obey the sideways (and forward) driving aids. It is also an excellent means of teaching the novice rider to coordinate his aids. For this reason I always teach leg yielding to the rider firstly in walk to give the rider time to get used to the aids, as in all the other lateral movements. When the rider and horse understand the aids then it is possible to proceed in trot. In leg yielding, the horse should be quite straight in his body, with a slight flexion or positioning at the poll (just enough for the rider to observe the inner eyebrow and nostril) away from the direction in which he is moving. The horse moves forward and sideways on two tracks. The inside legs pass and cross in front of the outside legs.

Video of leg yielding

The rider should sit centered on the horse with his inside leg near the girth and the outside leg behind. The movement is started with the inside seat and leg influencing the whole of the horse's body, not just the quarters, to move sideways as well as forwards. I always remind my students that all lateral movements must remain forward movements even though the horse is required to move sideways and/or be positioned on three (Shoulder-In) or four (Travers) tracks. It is the rider's seat bones which ultimately keep the horse moving forwards together with the outside leg. The rider's outside hand keeps the horse's neck position from having too much bend and together with the outside leg prevents any falling out over the horse's outside shoulder.

With younger horses it is usually necessary to use the aid every stride and reinforce the leg aids, but after practice the horse should start to react just from the rider's seat and weight aids. With advanced horses the weight aid is often enough to sustain this exercise.

The most common faults of leg yielding are:

The rider hanging onto the inside rein producing a stiff jaw and overbent neck, therefore causing the horse’s outside shoulder to escape.
Loss of rhythm or energy.
Lack of self-carriage, also stiffening against the hand.
Quarters leading.

Leg yielding may be carried out either along the wall, to the wall, away from the wall, or from a smaller circle spiraling out to a big circle. Along the wall is usually carried out with the horse's nose to the wall on an angle of about 35 degrees relative to the wall. I like to teach young horses in walk how to accept moving away from the leg in this way. To the wall is done by first of all turning quite close to the wall and asking the horse to do a few good steps of leg yielding in the direction of the wall. Always be careful to keep the horse's body parallel to the long side to avoid any of the faults such as quarters leading or escape of the outside shoulder. Later when the horse is performing a few steps well, the turn can be made much earlier such as to centre line and more steps be added. It is always important to remember that when teaching the horse any movement it is better to do a minimum number of steps which are performed well rather than many steps with a deterioration in the quality of the movement. Quality rather than quantity! Similarly the leg yielding exercise is away from the wall towards the centre. Remember as in the start of all exercises, leg yielding is started with a half halt. The half halts are used to call the horse to attention and give him a signal that you are going to ask something from him, and to also help rebalance him before the start of the exercise or during the exercise. In the nose to the wall leg yielding the fact that the horse is angled into the wall will help the half halt to have its backward rebalancing effect. For the novice rider this way of riding leg yielding helps to make a half halt and to feel its effect.

Leg yielding on a circle is a very beneficial exercise. This leg yielding is done with keeping bend also through the horse's body. It improves the horse's bending at the girth and helps the rider to feel correct riding of inside leg to outside hand. First I teach the horse this exercise on a circle in walk, and later trot and canter. It is especially good for improving the horse's "jump" in the canter stride, and making the canter overall stronger and with more cadence. In walk a small circle is ridden concentrating on a clear bend through the body of the horse from head to tail. As with the other exercises it is better for the rider and horse to learn the correct aids firstly in walk. The rider should then emphasise his pushing aid of the inside seat bone and his inside leg at the girth, thinking of pushing the whole body of the horse out to a bigger circle. It is important to keep bending the horse but keep the correct alignment of shoulders and quarters on a circle line. The rider should be careful to use two reins to keep turning the shoulders on the circle line, not too much bend in the neck, and keep a good supporting outside leg to encourage forwards movement - as always remembering that any sideways exercise should also be moving forwards! Leg yielding from a small circle to a larger circle should be like a spiral movement outwards, not exaggerating the sideways movement.