RideAbility
Sally Amsterdamer
SHOULDER IN AND TRAVERS
SHOULDER IN AND TRAVERS
"The Training Scale is the most important guideline for trainers, riders and judges."
Shoulder-in and travers increase your horse's suppleness and ability to bend. They encourage him to bring more weight onto the hindquarters, which helps him to progress to required collection. Both exercises concentrate on improving the horse's ability to go straight; when done in both directions, they increase the facility and ease of stepping with each hind leg toward the centre of his body. The shoulder-in is similar to the first step of a 10-metre circle and the travers to the last stride of the circle. Therefore it is helpful to ride a 10-metre circle before going into the shoulder-in or travers, especially when the horse or rider is learning the exercises. The circle helps the rider achieve the correct position.
The travers emphasises the importance of the outside hind leg because the bend is in the direction of the movement as the horse goes forwards and sideways. This is also true in the renvers and the half pass. During all these lateral exercises the rider should ask himself - Do I maintain the same quality and balance in the trot as I do on a straight line? Am I consistently riding the appropriate degree of bend and angle?
I am not going to go into a detailed explanation of how to ride the lateral movements here. There are many excellent books (including the ones I have mentioned in Recommended Reading on the Links page) which explain this.
It is vitally important to have a good trainer on the ground to explain how to correctly execute these movements, first of all in walk so the rider and horse can understand the exact requirements.