The origin of the term ‘on the bit’ is the French term ‘dans la main’. There is not one word in that term that means ‘bit’! ‘. Dans la main’ means ‘in the hand’! In the hand gives for a much softer image if you ask me! In the hand, for me means holding something, not fighting or anything, but like holding a baby bird that is laying in the hand. Holding this bird as you should hold the horses’ mouth! Tighten your grip and the bird dies.

A horse that is literally ‘on the bit’ can be ‘on the bit’ when totally tight. A horse that is (laying) ‘in the hand’, to me sounds more like it can only be relaxed in a soft hand. At least a lot more relaxed than ‘on the bit’. Also, ‘in the hand’ tells me that the activity lays in the hand. It is the hand that does the work, not the bit.

Ok, we are talking semantics here, but it is an important one. Since the ‘on the bit’ phrase leads to so much misunderstanding, and not innocent ones either!

Another thing is, some of you know this too; there are people who are perfectly capable of collecting their horse WHITHOUT bit or sometimes even without bridle in total! Some of these people have tried to enter Dressage competitions but were rejected because others told them that it is not possible to have your horse ‘on the bit’ without bit…!? Excuse me my ‘French’, how shortsighted can you be if you think that?

This is why I think ‘they’/ we should seriously consider rewriting some of the rules, especially the English translation (the Dutch translation is not a lot better btw).

I suggest using either ‘in the hand’ or better maybe (for the bridle less people) ‘on the aid’. ‘On the aid’ gives me an image of a horse that is totally focused on the rider and communicating with him or her. A horse that is in anticipation of the next aid. Sounds a lot better if you ask me… What do you think??

Though conformation does not determine a horses’ suitability on the long run (this is mostly dependable on the horses’ attitude as well). The training regime when starting a horse does depend on its conformation.

Like you might know (if you have read my ‘about’ page) I have a Spanish horse. I have started him and I have trained him towards ‘being ridden’.  He has a short back and his neck is set high. For him it is fairly easy to collect and fairly easy to go on the circle. With him I could start training on the longe pretty much straight away. The one time he was a bit sore, he was sore in the knees. His back however was fine.

When a horse is sore, it is important you give a few days rest, especially in this stage of training. Muscles that are sore have been worked harder and the soreness means tiny little rips in the muscles (from the acid). This is not bad but the muscles do need a bit of proper rest. Walking the horse is very good when he is sore, because that will keep the blood flow and heal faster, but not to much work for a day or two.

Also, with a young horse, I think it is a lot better to train every other day and give the muscles and the young horses mind a day to recuperate. Sometimes I even give two days rest in between, after a week every other day longework often. (But I do have to say, my horses are not confined in a stall. I think it is very unhealthy for a horse to be in a stall without the ability to walk whenever they want. My horses are in a large paddock all day, have 24/7 hay and 3 hours of grass field every morning. This is another story though.)

Anyway, when I started my Spanish horse I started with some work without the longe, but soon enough I started on the longe in wide circles. On the contrary of what I said about the ‘every other day’, because my Spanish horse was already a bit older (4.5) and because he was a young stallion that needed to get out more, I worked him every day for 5 days and two days a week I would just let him run without the longeline or I would take him on a walk. Like I said he only was a bit sore in the knees ones.

Now with my Thoroughbred mare however it is different. Here you really see the difference in conformation and how this can lead to problems if you don’t take it in consideration. TB’s often have a longer back; it is a bit to long for their body. As with my mare; her back is just a tad bit on the long side, not extreme, but still. When I just got her (hadn’t done anything with her yet) she had serious pain/ soreness in her back. Since I started trimming her (she has been trimmed the regular way before I got her, I trim according to the ‘natural’ way now, I trim professional as well), her back has gotten a lot better. But I still have to take in consideration her conformation with training in order for it to stay painless, ones she will get more trained this will get even better, as long as I start her correct for her conformation in this period of her life.

Because I am only human, half April, I started her as I was used to with my Spanish horse, longeing circles. But soon enough she got pretty sore in her back, even though I did not longe her every day, only every other day. That is when I realized I had to put her on a different training ‘program’.

Like I said, I already trained her only every other day, but now I changed another very important thing… Because her sensitive back, I found out it is very important she gets a good warm up without any collection whatsoever. This means not on the longe (and long reins if you would be riding).

I start out working her in hand for a few steps (let her go shoulder in, I will write more about this in another article) then I start her loose in the pen and just let her gallop both ways.

In my case I use a square pen. I like the square pen better than the round one because when you work with longe they are more inclined to bend in the corners and go straight on the walls, this gives more working stretch for the horse.

Because I do want her to use her back I let her gallop in the pen. I let her stretch out this way, give her a good gallop. She likes that as well, since she is a horse with a bit more nerves (TB’s are bred to run) this is also good for her psyche. Depending on how active she is I do this 5 to 10 min. If she wants to buck or really take off, good, that is her way to let go of tension. Slowly she will come closer to me. When she is warm I work her in hand again for a few steps (don’t ask to much when you just start doing shoulders in, this will go better every time)

After this little routine she is warm for work on the longe.  I now put on one siderein on the inside (read about sidereins and why I use just one on the inside) obviously I did not use sidereins when I just started her; I started using it after a good month of training.

I start longeing with a wider circle both side and I do a lot of transitions from walk to trot and to walk again. Goal of longeing obviously is relaxation, bringing the hind leg under the belly and good usage of the back, the head is on the low side when the horse is relaxed (read more about longeing).

After I let her go both ways, I do a cool down in walk on a shorter circle just for a few circles per side. This last part I do for stretching and to practice for future more intense longe work and collection.

I have been training her like this for 2 months and now after each training session I will climb on her (I have worked her in the saddle since the last month or so, just to let her get used to a girth) and I go around the pen for a bit, steering, stopping etc until she lets me know she is tired. For now this is only 5 minutes but this will eventually build up.

She is not sore anymore and she does very well with this regime. Of course, like I said being a bit sore for a horse is not a bad thing, but when a horse is very sore the next day, you might want to think about taking it a step back like I did with this new regime. Like I said, it all depends on the conformation of your horse. Look at your horse and listen to what he or she tells you, though this is very important at every stage of training!

(If you have never longed before I advice taking lessons, especially when you want to use sidereins!)

What we see a lot in ‘modern’ dressage is the legs, always the legs… “The horse needs to be forward, so give leg”… “On the circle the horse needs to bend, so give leg”… And of course, the spur, because if the horse does not listen to the leg, he needs that extra little help… Ever asked yourself WHY the horse does not listen to the leg anymore??

When you give a lot of leg, after a while it does not mean anything anymore to the horse. A horse knows how to walk; you don’t have to push him. Better yet: if you keep pushing him, you let him know, you are not so convinced he will walk without you constant pushing… And as I explained in my other articles about ‘doubt’, as soon as you doubt, they horse is less inclined to see you as a good leader and in turn will not listen very well anymore.

Classical Dressage is a dance, you move together with the horse as one. Dominique Barbier says this very well: “When you dance with a partner (human) you don’t keep poking him in the ribs to make him dance”. You ask your partner if he wants to dance, and then you lead him.

What does this mean for the legs? For now just keep this in mind: NO LEGS!

Ok ok, it does not mean that Classical Dressage doesn’t use legs at all, they do, but NOT in the way you might think, and certainly not like the think with ‘modern’ dressage. If you start with Classical Dressage, better just leave the legs alone. When you get better and better, you will find out yourself when to use the legs, because it comes natural. As long as you still ask yourself “when do I use legs?” leave them alone!

I can lift a tip of the veil if you want, but promise me that you will immediately forget it after you finish this article..! The legs are basically only used as reinforcement and ‘support’ (support is meant VERY light here). But this should all happen in unity with your body, it ALL comes from the hips and torso. The whole body moves as one, and with the horse. So do not use a leg on its own.

The reason we don’t do this is because as soon as you use a leg on its own, this will tense up your hip and the rest of your body, and the whole unity of your body, and so also that of you and the horse AND of the horses’ body, is lost… So the whole intention of the Classical Dressage is lost.

Also read part 1 of “Descente de main et descente de jambe”: relaxing of the hands and relaxing of the legs: turning.

This book is not a ‘How To’ book… This book is actually a history and a bit of a ‘What is’ in the broader sense of word since it tells about practically all the ‘styles’ and era’s of Classical Dressage in chronological order.

Sylvia starts the book with a definition of Classical Dressage, which goes a bit deeper into the semantics of the term. Since the term ‘Classical’ can mean so much as; ‘from the Classical era’ as more in the sense of ‘Classic’. The term ‘Classical Dressage’ is used more in the sense of being ‘Classic’ because the art goes further back than just the Classical Era.

After the definition of the term, the books start telling about the history of Classical Dressage, starting at the earliest documented time: 430BC, with well known Roman trainer Xenophon. It tells about how he worked and about his vision and the reason why he felt the need to develop what we now see as Classical Dressage.

From there on the books tells how Classical Dressage developed further into time; from the early Romanic schools of Napels, Portugal and Spain, to the age of Baroque in Austria and Germany to the school of Versaille in France.

From here on she talks about great masters like Sieur de la Gueriniere, Baucher, Caprilli and a bunch in between to Natural Dressage in the US. Sylvia mentions Wynmalen, Decarpentry and Podhajsky and continues to the day of today where she talks about trainers of modern Germany, the Spanish riding school, Nuno Oliveira. And one of the last chapters she talks about the modern quest for Olympic gold and other influences.

What I love so much about this book is not just the indebt explanation of the history of the art but the fact that the book is beautifully illustrated to give a so much better impression of Classical Dressage throughout history.

Really; if you have any interest in Dressage (especially Classical dressage) this book is a must have!

Foedista is a half Lusitano, half Thoroughbred and he has been at Barbier farm pretty much all his life. I saw a video of Dominique where Foedista was only 4 years old! Still grey in the video… Foedista is a very very kind horse, with the kindest eyes, but he can be stubborn too, when he wants to teach you something

Foedista has been trained very well, back in the days. So he knows exactly what the aids are, and he is stubborn enough to let you know when you don’t use them correctly! There are many ways in which he can show it, one of them being, just refusing to do what you have in mind. The best example is when you want to turn left (on right is even more stubborn then left). If you have read my article about turning, then you understand how we turn our horse with French Classical Dressage. (Turning left; the right side of the hip a bit backwards). If you think you can secretly snoop in a slight rein tug on the left side or a balance shift of your body to the left, just to make him go a bit better or faster, think again! As soon as you so much as touch your left rein, Foedista stops every slight turning that you might had established and he goes straight again! Bummer… The same with your body position; if you think you can help him turn by turning your shoulders and basically disturb the balance, bummer, Foedista goes straight again!

All the aids you might have learned before in your life (steering with the reins or by turning your body), just better not even think about those on Foedista, or he will ‘teach’ you! He WON’T do it! And this can be very frustrating (after all, we are only human). Down side of getting frustrated; you will definitely not succeed on Foedista! As soon as you get frustrated, he ‘wins’, because you are definitely not acting like a ‘leader’ anymore…

Because here we have come to a second point on which Foedista is an excellent teacher; you have to be absolutely certain of what you want from him. If you doubt or get frustrated, he will certainly NOT do it… On the contrary, if you start to doubt or get frustrated, Foedista will push your painful buttons a bit more, and he will keep pushing them until you let go of them. As soon as you get very calm, pretend he is not testing you and just think: “This is what I want, I want to go left (for instance)and we are doing it now”, and of course ask it with the right aids, that is the moment he will do it. And if you are very calm and very sure of everything, and don’t let yourself go with doubt and frustration, he will even let you get away with making small mistakes when using the right aids, as long as you don’t touch that left rein though!

The turning is just one example, he has more tricks Foedista has taught many students this way and I think many are very thankful for this great white cloud! He taught me wise lessons that span beyond ‘just’ horse riding, lesson about life and how I deal with ‘problems’… for that he has a special place in my heart forever!

Normally there are two or three working students on Barbier farm, we are with three right now. The day starts at 7.30 AM, that is breakfast time for the horses, both main barn and little barn.. The morning is dedicated to morning chores. Nowadays often the stall cleaner (they have somebody else do the stalls on Barbier farm) comes in the morning to clean in the stalls, if the guy comes at night; some of the stalls are cleaned by us in the morning, for the horses that have thrush. That way they don’t have dirty stalls. Other chores are things like: scrubbing waterers, sweeping barn aisle, de-webbing (spiderwebs) when necessary, cleaning and watering the (sometimes a bit dusty) arena, and other normal barn stuff.

When chores are done, the grooming of the horses starts. We groom all the horses that Debra and Shanna (Assistant trainer) will longe. This way they can focus on the longeing and go lunge horse after horse. We all have assigned a few horses to groom. We will brush them, and if they have poopy stains (especially the white horses) we will wash them (unless it is very cold), pick their hoofs and remove the wood flakes out of their manes and tails. We don’t touch their manes and tails without putting show shine or cowboy magic in them every ones in a while. This detangles and gives a shine Before I never cared for that kind of stuff but now I see what it does, I will definitely use it on my horses! Especially when you have horses with beautiful long manes, you don’t want to do without! It makes sure they don’t get tangled into dreadlocks and you won’t have to sacrifice precious manes to get the knots out :-/

When all the horses are groomed, depending on if there is enough space in the arena and there are no customers having lessons, we (the students) will start longeing our assigned horses. I have 6 horses assigned to longe. Most of the time I won’t have to longe them all, often one or two are used for lessons by us or customers.

The horses I longe are: La Rapio (the gentle white Lusitano breeding stallion), Foedista (the wonderful student teacher, a white Lusitano Thoroughbred cross), Fandango (the goofy (he thinks he is great Lusitano stallion) and also good teacher, a Morgan gelding), Pracz (owned by a customer, Arabian gelding with an attitude), Orgulo (sweet flea bitten Lusitano stallion, I call him freckles) and Nabucco (soft, beautiful dreamy eyed, grey Lusitano Thoroughbred cross). Horses that don’t get longed that day will be turned out for 20 minutes in the arena.

Around noon it is feeding time, all the horses get fed three times a day. The horses in the little barn will get turned out in paddocks if it doesn’t rain to much.

If there are customers who have lessons, the students can watch the lessons. This is a learning opportunity as well. Obviously we will have to make sure everything is ok in the barn and we will have to tack up lessons horses for the customers, but in between those chores we will watch lessons.

After or in between longeing and customer lessons the working students will get their mounted lesson. I will ride Foedista, Fandango or Pracz. Of course this is the highlight of the day! This is why I am here… Every horse is a great teacher in his own way. I have to say Foedista is the most ‘difficult’. He is relentless and stubborn ) when you do something slightly wrong, he will refuse to do what you are trying to ask… But of course, this makes him an excellent teacher… though it is sometimes frustrating

After the longeing, depending on how smoothly everything went, we might have an hour or so off. At the end of the day we will have to clean all the bridles that have been used. Then it is about time to feed dinner. We worked out a schedule for feeding breakfast and dinner, so the person who feeds breakfast won’t have to feed dinner etc. That way we get a bit more time off. I often feed dinner every other day; normally I won’t have to feed breakfast. And last, depending on temperatures we will have to blanket most of the horses. If it is still to warm we might have to come back later in the evening to do that.

Like I mentioned, because I normally don’t feed breakfast, I will start at 8.30AM. I get up at 7AM to start my day gently Often my day ends at 7PM, sometimes later. Often I do have a break in between of an hour, sometimes two, but sometimes I won’t have a break at all. This all depends on how the day will go. This obviously is not a 9 to 5 job; it hardly ever is when you work with animals… But that is the charm about this job; I love horses, and now I get the opportunity to work with what I love…

The second one is with Gerd Heuschmann as well:

Interviews Dominique Barbier and Gerd Heuschmann

A horse being ‘forward’ does not necessarily have something to do with speed, actually, it might be better to say it does not have anything to do with speed, other than that a horse that is not forward is sluggish and not fast. But a horse that is fast is not necessarily ‘forward’ in the good sense.

First of all, every horse is different so every horse has his own speed in where he (or she) can get to optimum connection and relaxation. So what is ‘forward’ for one horse means sluggish for the other or raging for yet another… But like I said, being ‘forward’ is not so much about speed, the horse just needs to alert, active and focused on you and his work and his body has to be working together. It certainly does not mean he is charging like there is no tomorrow because than it is hard to communicate with him either!

Forward is more about being ‘forward’ in the horses’ mind… A better word for it may be ‘attentive’ or ‘active’. Sometimes being ‘forward’ is even very slow, but still ‘forward’ in the mind; think about passage or even piaffe. When a horse is ‘active’ and attentive he will have an even pace and rhythm without ‘falling apart’.

Sure, sometimes when you are longeing it is good to make the horse go a lot faster at first(especially with a horse that is not ‘forward’ in his mind) just to get his hindquarters engaged, to then slow him down a bit to the rhythm in which he will find balance and relaxation. But this does not go for every horse! Some horses will get tense and won’t find relaxation this way. They will get into a really fast rhythm and their back gets tense, obviously this is not what you want! In this case you want a slower rhythm but you might want the same activity though, just with bigger steps. You will have to pay good attention to the horse, always keep thinking about the rhythm you want from him (read the article about ‘Telepathy’ and the one about longeing) look at him to see what his ideal rhythm is and keep him in this rhythm.

Most important to look for when you want the horse to get to relaxation in his work: Is the horse focused on you, can he find his balance, and is his rhythm even. Are his hindquarters as active as the front; do the back feet go into the footprints of the front feet and does he have long strides (this also has to be balanced). When all this is answered with a yes, after a little bit of work like that, the horse will find his relaxation and starts to lower his nose, chew and sometimes even sneeze… When this happens, let him go on for a little bit in relaxation and then go to the other side. If this does not happen, maybe you are pushing to hard and let off a little. Or maybe this is not such a good day, just ask for what he is able to offer and then try again tomorrow.

Very important with any work: don’t go over the horse his limit, don’t think that by pushing him he will get there faster or easier, on the contrary, you will only damage the horse by tensing him and making him sore… Go to the horses limit without going over it and let him find relaxation. This will make him stronger in a healthy way

Turning (or steering) your horse. How we DON’T do it:

If we want to go to the left, we do not pull the left rein! We do not put the left rein outside either. We don’t move it up… We don’t move both hands to the left either… We leave the reins alone (both)!

Anytime we do something with our rein, we interfere with the horse and he will get tense and/ or out of balance.

When we want to go to the left we do not turn our body to the left. We do not move our shoulders or turn them. We do not tilt our body either. We do not move our body anywhere; we stay straight over the horse!

Anytime we move our body so that it is not straight on the horse anymore we put the horse out of balance. When we turn our shoulder to one side, the horse gets out of balance and we will have to put one leg forward, another backwards, all to keep the horse in balance… So we do not turn our body! Our shoulders stay parallel to the horses’ shoulders.

So how DO we steer and turn our horse to the left?

Riding in French Classical Dressage, in perfection, is being one with your horse… Like a centaur…  The horses’ legs are your legs. Your mind is his mind….

The feeling you want to achieve is that you are connected with your spine to the horses’ spine. Your seat bones are connected, you are sitting IN the horse rather than on him.

In order to achieve this it is important that you sit on both seat bones and have a straight line from the tip of the head, down to the shoulders hip and heels. Both seat bones are always equally weighted and the shoulders on same height of each other, like I mentioned; both parallel to the horses’ shoulders (so straight).

When you go straight, nothing changes, when you want to go left the only thing we do is look left (watch out, the body stays straight! Remember, shoulders parallel to your horses’,  you keep them straight since the horses’ shoulders don’t tilt either) think about where you want to go to let the horse know. You move the lower part of your  spine basically by turning the right(!) part of your hip a litlle bit backwards to go left. By that your right leg will automatically move a bit backwards. But watch out here: you don’t want to PUT your right leg backwards, this has to happen automatically! As soon as you would do that on purpose, this will tense up your leg and this will interfere with your horses’ balance and relaxation! And (to make it even more confusing) if anything; you tickle the horse on the right(! Not the left!) rein a little to keep the horse together.

For me this movement was very hard in the beginning. I had learned several ways to turn my horses (first paragraphs) in the past but this is all classically incorrect. I had to work really hard to not touch my rein and to not turn my shoulders… To feel really connected with my horse I try to visualize a connection between my tailbone and the horses’ spine. I have to turn my horse from there, this takes practice and a good teacher (both human teacher as furry four legged teacher that refuses to turn any other way )

Also read part 2 of “Descente de main et descente de jambe”: relaxing of the hands and relaxing of the legs.

At Barbier farm I longe some of the horses every day for twenty minutes (or so) and every time before I ride. When we longe we follow three aids in asking the horse to do something (if the first step does not work, we use the second and so on):

1. With thought; we visualize what we want from the horse (see my article about telepathy)

If that does not work:

2. We use a small reinforcement like clicking with the tongue

If that does not work:

3. We use the whip

The more you train your horse this way the less reinforcement he will need and eventually you will be able to just use aid no 1.

When we longe we longe with a sur-single or a saddle, and sidereins. We start trotting the horse without sidereins for warm-up. Mostly 5 minutes on both sides. It is important that the horse is very much forward. This will bring the hind leg under. When the horse is forward we will ask him to relax, when the horse relaxes you will often see him lower his head.

When you have a young horse it is good to do a lot of transitions from walk to trot, with more advanced horses though we keep them trotting, we try to let him find relaxation in trot.

When the horse is warm we will attach one (!) siderein. (Young horses will be longed without sidereins) When you just start the horse on sidereins (or one in our case) you start the siderein low and long, the more advanced the horse gets, the higher and shorter the siderein gets. It is very important though that the siderein is never to short (whatever height) but also not to long for the horse will lock up some of its muscles and of course he won’t be able to find relaxation and on the long run you can damage the horse. We want the horse trotting long and relaxed strides and lowering his head. Of course if the horse does not have a good day, pushing him will be useless, you will go for the best you can get, there is always tomorrow.

The reason we mostly use one siderein is because the Barbiers have found the horses are better able to find relaxation with one rein as opposed to being ‘locked’ in two sidereins.

With Classical Dressage we will never use artificial methods to train the horse. In other words, we are looking for relaxation and with that the horse will collect and carry his head ‘on the bit’. We will never force the horse ‘on the bit’ by putting its head in a certain position and then hope the horse will be collected. Unfortunately this is often seen in ‘modern Dressage’, even on high level competition.

If you are new to longeing, please longe under supervision of a more advanced longer as you can damage your horse whit improper longeing, both physically and/or mentally!

(The term ‘on the bit’ is actually an incorrect translated term from the French term ‘on the aid’. Because of that term a lot of people actually think that ‘being on the bit’ has something to do with the bit and using the bit to put the head in a certain position… maybe an interesting topic to write something about in a later article…)