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Lateral work is an essential part of horse training. No matter the discipline you practice, you want your horse to lean their weight to the hindquarters. Horses’ ability to collect, engage their hindquarters, and collect is called “engagement”. Engagement also relates to horses’ capacity to move their hind feet under their bodies. In this article, you will see some lateral work tips to help you improve your horse’s suppleness, strength, and balance in all gaits.
Warming up
You can gradually do some light lateral work while warming up. It’s a good idea to include some lateral work in your warming-ups to help stretch your horses. If you missed our article about stretching and warming up your horses, you can find it here.
Remember to always think of your horse as an equestrian athlete. Warming up is essential to prevent injuries and make the best of training sessions.
Lateral work 101
Lateral work, as the name suggests, is the name of a series of exercises that include forward and lateral movements. Depending on the exercise, the horse’s body slightly bends in the opposite or same direction of travel. Most of these movements are part of dressage tests, but they are certainly beneficial for all horses in every disciplines.
Lateral movements go from the most elemental to the complicated ones. Just like horses are trained.
Turning on the forehand
One of the foundational movements of lateral work is the “turn on the forehand”. It’s best to start this exercise once you have reached a good stop. The exercise is very simple, and helpful to know.
It consists of applying the leg aids in the opposite direction of movement. For example, if you want to turn left, you must use your right leg and vice versa. As you apply pressure, the horse will move their hindquarters away from the leg. The hind legs will move around the front legs, like rotating around them. As simple as it may sound, this exercise is a good start for initiating young horses into lateral exercises. It’s also a good preparation for experienced horses before practicing more advanced exercises.
Leg yield
Leg yield is the first two-track exercise in the training books. When horses move forward, their hind legs follow their front legs, so you have a track for the left legs and another for the right legs. In two-track exercises, the front legs leave a track while the rear legs leave another. You can practice this in a straight line or while doing a circle.
Let’s start with yielding in a straight line. You can start practicing it at the walk, but it’s much easier at the sitting trot. It’s better to start after a turn to start with some natural flexion. For example, starting it on the left rein is better if you want to yield to the right. As you finish the turn to the left, your horse will be bent in that direction. The neck will be slightly bent to the left without overbending it. Overbending can not only be harmful to your horse, but it also disengages the hindquarters, rendering the exercise useless. Your right leg will be about an inch behind, containing the hindquarters. As you are about to enter the straight line, use the aid of your left leg and press it against your horse. Also, gently tug your right rein and look to the right. Looking to the right will make your weight redistribute and help your horse understand you want to go right.
As your horse moves forward, his left limbs will cross in front of their right limbs. The flexion should be very smooth; you shouldn’t be able to see more than the horse’s left eyebrow and a part of the nostril. This exercise should be taught to young horses in the early stages of their training, way before to attempt to seek engagement. For more experienced horses, this exercise is key to keeping and increasing suppleness and preparing them for more advanced stages.
Leg yielding is one of the most basic exercises to improve your horses’ strength.
Shoulder-in
Shoulder-in is a three-track exercise. It’s similar to the leg yield but a little more complicated to execute and requires a more balanced horse. You can think of shoulder-in as a leg-yield where the horse wraps around the rider’s leg that is yielding. When you start practicing shoulder-in, it’s easier to do it near the border of the arena. If you ride in a rectangular arena, practice it in the longer sections. In a proper shoulder-in, the horse will have the inner foreleg on one track, the outer foreleg and inner hindleg on another, and the outside hind on a third one. The horse moves almost in a straight line, but the front shoulders move towards the inside of the arena. The horse will flex in the opposite direction to the yield or travel. The flexion doesn’t have to be excessive. Like a fellow teacher says, “Exaggerated neck flexion is not a shoulder-in but a neck-in!”. Seriously, exaggerating neck flexion restricts the horse’s motion and movement flow.
Haunches-in or travers
In this exercise, the horse bends in the same direction of travel. It’s a three or four-track exercise. This time, the haunches shift to the inside of the arena. The horse slightly bends, following the direction of travel. Transverse enhances engagement and strengthens the inside hind leg. It also increases suppleness and develops lateral flexibility. Besides, it also helps improve balance and collection, promoting straightness and lightness in the forehand.
This article is just an introduction to lateral work and its benefits. I always encourage inexperienced riders to learn these exercises with a trusted, certified instructor, as they can be prejudicial when wrongly executed. They may seem challenging, but with practice and without skipping steps in your horse training, they look more complex than they really are. Lateral work is an excellent way of putting horses on the bit. When properly executed, the horses seek contact themselves, achieving roundness and suppleness. Lateral exercises also enhance horses’ focus and self-carriage, which all riders love seeing in their horses.
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