Developing Connection and Contact with the Imperfect Dressage Horse

Finally, a minute to catch up! 
I am playing the game of keep up at the moment- I work remotely and it is our "Busy" season in addition to continuing all the riding and coaching. Its been so nice having extra flexibility that remote work affords me so that I can keep up with my own horses and also make sure I am regularly getting up to see my students in Indianapolis/surrounding. 
I had someone drop me an email and inquire about horses with difficult toplines(like some of the DHH) and development of the connection. This is a long process I feel with horses with more difficult conformation-- many of the dressage bred horses have a certain conformation and breeding that makes it much easier to naturally find the contact and in time become more through. Additionally, I do feel many riders who have had the luck of developing mainly those types of horses often are a bit bewildered by breeds like the DHH, fresian, arab, etc. Fret not there is a "system" for this. 
Typically, in an ideal world you will be starting with a horse who is young and largely not messed with. If the horse has been driven by the amish, or ridden by less experienced riders, you will have to "back track" and then move forward, but it is still very much do-able. My 3 year olds spend the year being started, I stay out of their way and do not mess with the contact until I feel this horse has a clear reaction to the forward driving aids. I keep enough rein that if the horse does something naughty or spooks that i can usually get it under control, but long enough that I am not apply constant pressure to the bit. 
Once I have the forward driving aids, and a solid w/t/c, i start typically teaching a turn on the fore to start the horses basic understanding to move laterally to leg pressure. I usually do this initially from a halt and once the horse has a clear understanding then I ask for it from a small walk circle(this is where you have to have the clear forward driving aids), I want the horse to bend its body quite a bit and then yield the haunch outwards. This is kind of where I begin teaching the leg yield. For most "less than idea" topline's it is really very important to teach the horse to be supple through lateral work as often times you can push them as forward as you'd like but they still will have their heads in the air and back hollow. 
I also love to use small circles, serpentines, and loops to teach the horse to yield its body better and begin bending. I really like to focus on one rein in these situations, the horse yields to that rein and softens. One great exercise is what I call "turning like a barrel horse": i have the horse to turn a small circle with the inside rein (rider is opening this rein towards the middle of the circle not pulling the rein backwards), the rider should sit into their inside stirrup/seat bone and should feel/even see the inside foreleg of the horse step inward on the circle. The rider can also sit over the outside seat-bone, keeping the inside rein, applying pressure with the inside calf and the horse should yield outwards(with its whole body in a C like position-- not just the shoulder). 
Lastly, and honestly most importantly, if you ride a breed of horse that has a very high set neck then it is absolutely necessary to teach this horse how to lower and round in the neck WHENEVER you ask. Because once you start training collection that neck WILL get higher and it WILL get tighter and then you will run into issues if you have not done this step as then the horses back will stiffen and then hindleg will no longer push through. One of the great exercises for training this is a Shoulder fore positioning(or even shoulder in) with extra neck flexion(but maintaining the angle) and feel you can hold the outside rein for a moment while applying inside leg to push the horses inside hindleg more to the midline. The horses neck should lower. This is something that can be done at the W/T/C. Control over the height of the horses neck for the imperfect dressage horse is often a pivotal piece most riders find lacking once they hit about 2nd/3rd level and will also bite you when teaching the flying changes. 
So how do these exercises translate to improving connection on the imperfect dressage horse? Well, you have to TEACH these horses to move THROUGH their bodies, which cannot be done simply by pushing them forward. You build suppleness to make the connection. I have seen consistently in my coaching too much of the straight handed riding where the ride is prying the horse around like its a fence board, which also causes it to make the rider struggle to get the horse to move forward, or in some cases, slow down. This requires building blocks and better development of suppleness past what the prescribed dressage movements require, which is usually why people toss these types of horses out as FEI horses as if you don't do the work, which isn't always going to be pretty, at the beginning then by the time you get 3/4 years in you will hit significant roadblocks. You are working to the same goals as you would with a dressage bred horse, just having to come at them differently and be accepting that the horse is not going to have perfect "contact" and "connection" all the time within the first 1-3 years. You have to play the long game and give the horse the necessary time to build muscle and develop the understanding of what the rider is asking. And most importantly when developing the horses topline, CHANGE IT UP! Go hacking, ride on hills, use cavalettis, even jump sometimes. Whatever you can do to improve the horses body awareness and keep them from being sour in the work will help you in the end. 

Drop me an email, comment, or message if you want me to do a video showing any of these exercises or if you have a topic you want to have discussed! 

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