Reader: I was told that my horse’s hips were stuck -- would not move. I have been trying to do a turn on the forehand but can’t seem to get it, can you help? Also, why is it so important? She does everything else ok.

Charles: Being able to move the hips not only enhances your horse’s lightness and responsiveness, but the act of moving the hips over for a one-rein emergency halt is perhaps the single greatest technique you can employ to stop a horse that is bolting or bucking. It can, and has, saved many people from terrible accidents.
As always, I remind you that you must have a solid go forward cue established with your horse before beginning these exercises. And prior to these particular lessons, you should have schooled your horse to bend laterally both right and left, and to display vertical flexion (breaking at the pole at the first vertebrae). If you have a green horse, I would recommend starting these in a round pen or small corral. I also suggest the use of a snaffle bit for schooling these exercises – for any horse.
What these lessons teach any horse is to be very focused on pre-cues (lightness), and to engage the hips (turn on the forehand). While these exercises are critical to gaining important control over your horse, especially when it’s in flight mode or very emotional, they also can make a huge difference in your horse’s level of responsiveness.
I had a client that had a sweet mare that was just beginning to show. This horse had a very good mind. She was extremely willing; she just was not particularly responsive. While she was doing adequately well in the show ring, her stops were not there, her head was too low and in general she was too on the forehand. The mare simply was not performing to her potential. She needed to learn to truly give to the bit, yield at the hip and to respond to nice, soft cues.
To start with moving her hips over, I asked her to go forward at the walk. Then working with one rein (it makes no difference which side you start with) I put my left leg on the horse where I wanted to teach her the cue would always be. Then I picked up one rein to ask for the give.
Now instead of releasing (either the leg or the rein) when she started to yield, I continued picking up the rein, bringing the nose diagonally across her shoulder, maintaining the pressure until her hips began to move over – or even if she leaned her hips. I released the second she game me the tiniest yield of her hips. Then I moved her out and forward once more, and repeated the exercise all over again.
I repeated this exercise perhaps a dozen times before I started looking for a more notable movement of the hips. As we continued with the repetitions, I looked for greater movement of the hips before releasing the pressure.
Your goal in this exercise is that you will eventually not even have to make contact on the rein. When you pick up the rein, your horse will move its hips over. Your leg on the correct area will become a pre-cue, so that, in fact, your horse will begin to respond to just the pre-cue. The horse learns to anticipate what is next, and then acts and responds accordingly to avoid the pressure. Conditioned response is a wonderful thing!
As I mentioned earlier, this same basic technique can become a lifesaver when your horse is very excited or out of control. Picking up on two reins when a horse is out of control does not help. All you are doing is capturing the energy and actually fueling it. By picking up on one rein to have the horse move its hips over, you are actually depleting the energy and giving it someplace to go. It becomes a constructive exercise. To prepare for situations where you may lose control of your horse, I recommend practicing this at a walk, trot and finally a canter in preparation for one day when it could give you the needed edge to be safe.
This exercise is also very helpful to be able to pick up the correct leads, lead changes, to side pass, do leg yields and for haunches-in.
If you have any questions, please visit me online at www.charleswilhelm.com.

God Bless,

Charles Wilhelm
It’s Never Ever the Horse’s Fault