Revelation Farm

When a Dressage Horse Is Behind the Leg — Especially With an Adult Amateur (AA) Rider

One of the most frustrating situations in dressage is a horse who is wonderfully forward and willing for the professional, but becomes behind the leg, pins his ears, bucks, or doesn't want to move forward for his AA rider.

The important thing to understand is that this isn't necessarily a “lazy horse.”

Often, the horse has learned that there are two different systems:

**Trainer:**
Leg → immediate response → release.

**AA:**
Leg → no response → stronger leg → more pressure → horse braces → resistance.

The horse learns that the AA's leg is negotiable.
But what is actually happening in the horse's body?

When the rider is asking the horse to go forward while simultaneously restricting him through the hand, seat, or body, the horse can develop an energy conflict.

The rider says:

“Go forward.”

But the horse simultaneously feels:

“Don't actually go anywhere.”

Instead of energy traveling:

**Hindquarters → back → neck → contact**

the horse can become:

**Restricted → braced → shortened stride → more leg → more resistance.**

The hind legs become less effective at stepping underneath the body and contributing to propulsion. The back can become tense rather than swinging. More weight stays on the forehand, and the horse can become heavy in the rider's hand.

This is why a horse can look “round” while still being completely behind the leg.

Round is not necessarily connected.
A short neck is not necessarily collection.
More leg is not necessarily more impulsion.

If the horse is constantly being squeezed, he can also become desensitized to the leg.

Instead of:

leg → response

the horse learns:

leg → background noise.

The rider then uses more leg, which can create even more tension.

Eventually the horse may anticipate the interaction. Ear pinning, tail swishing, bracing, rushing, kicking, or bucking can become part of the cycle.

That doesn't mean every buck is training-related—pain and discomfort should always be ruled out—but the physical and mental pattern is important to recognize.

So what's the answer?

It isn't to kick harder.

The goal is to make the aid clearer and more meaningful.

The rider should be able to say:

Light leg = GO.

If there is no response, reinforce promptly.

The instant the horse goes forward:

RELEASE.

The horse learns that responding to the first aid is the easiest option.

For these horses, I often like to temporarily take the emphasis away from the perfect dressage picture and go back to:

Forward → Straight → Rhythm → Connection → Engagement → Collection

A horse cannot truly be collected if he isn't genuinely forward.

Let the AA ride the horse in a more open, forward frame. Work on transitions, changes of direction, bigger and smaller steps, and simple forward exercises without constantly worrying about where the horse's head is.

One of my favorite exercises:

GO → COME BACK → GO

At the trot, ask for a few strides of a bigger, more powerful trot. Return to working trot. Then ask again.

The goal isn't to make the horse run.

QUICK TRANSITIONS

TROT → 4 STEPS WALK → TROT
TROT → CANTER → TROT

The goal is to teach:

My rider's leg means bigger steps.

And equally important:

When my rider stops asking, I maintain the gait.

The rider's position matters, too.

When the AA asks the horse to go, are they accidentally:

• Leaning backward?
• Gripping with the knee?
• Bracing through the stirrups?
• Tightening the reins?
• Locking the hip?
• Driving continuously?
• Holding the horse in the front while asking him to move forward?

That creates the classic:

“Go, but don't actually go” feeling.

The horse needs to feel that the rider's leg opens the door rather than pushes him into a closed front end.

The ultimate goal isn't to make the horse “behave” for the amateur.

It's to teach the horse that the AA's aids mean exactly the same thing as the trainer's aids.

When that communication becomes clear, consistent, and predictable, the horse no longer has to spend his energy figuring out how to respond to conflicting signals.

Instead, the energy can go where we actually want it:

Hind legs → swinging back → forward movement → elastic contact → connection.

That's when First Level starts to feel completely different.

Forward isn't created by more leg.
Forward is created by a leg that actually means something.

Inconvenient Reality Avoidance Disorder🥹

I'd like to introduce a condition I have invented that I suspect every horse owner, including me, suffers from occasionally.

*Inconvenient Reality Avoidance Disorder.*

IRAD.😎

The principal symptom is simple:

➡️You desperately want an outcome, but would really rather not participate in the process required to produce it.

You want the horse to be sound, safe, confident, load easily, hack out and generally become the delightful creature currently residing in your imagination.

Excellent.

Unfortunately, reality occasionally sends through some paperwork.

"This probably needs a veterinary investigation."

Oh.😕

"You might need to stop riding for a while."

Bugger.😣

"I think you need to take the training right back and rebuild this slowly."

Steady on.😫

And thus begins an acute episode of IRAD.

But before we start pointing fingers, IRAD is incredibly human.

Sometimes inconvenient reality arrives when we're already carrying quite enough reality, thank you very much.

Money is tight. Work is dreadful. Relationships fall apart. We're exhausted. We've already spent thousands on the horse.💔

And the horse was supposed to be the *nice bit* of life.🥹

Then someone (e.g. me 😕) announces that you probably need another veterinary investigation.

At which point the human brain quite reasonably enquires:

➡️"Do we definitely need reality? Have we considered magnesium?"🤔

So we become extraordinarily productive.

Change the feed.

Buy the supplement.

Book some bodywork.

Give the horse six weeks off.

Try another exercise.

Wait.

Hope.

Perhaps buy another supplement because the first one may have been insufficiently supplementy.🙄

None of these things are inherently silly. Any might be exactly what the horse needs.

The problem begins when *easy action becomes a substitute for necessary action*.😕

Because eventually we encounter the great cognitive collision:

➡️*Wanting the outcome versus accepting the process required to produce the outcome.*🫣

And sometimes that process hurts.😫

The vet might find something. The training might need rebuilding. We might lose months of riding. We might discover the horse isn't suitable for what we'd planned.

Or we might simply feel that we don't have the money, time or emotional bandwidth for one more bloody problem.😔

I think that deserves compassion.❤

Most of us aren't avoiding difficult realities because we're terrible people.

Sometimes we're frightened, exhausted or overwhelmed.

Sometimes we just desperately want one thing to be easy.🥺

*But compassion doesn't make reality disappear.*

We can understand *why* we're avoiding something while still recognising that it needs to be dealt with.

So when you feel an episode of IRAD coming on, ask:

"What does this problem actually require?"

"Am I doing that, or am I doing something easier because it feels like I'm addressing it?"

And most importantly:

"What happens to my horse if I'm wrong?"

Because waiting can be a perfectly sensible strategy.

But waiting can also be avoidance wearing sensible shoes.😒

We will probably all suffer from IRAD occasionally.

The goal isn't to become some perfectly rational horse owner who greets every expensive, inconvenient problem with serene enthusiasm.🫠

That person doesn't exist.❤

The goal is to notice when *what we desperately want to be true is getting in the way of finding out what actually is true.*

Have compassion for yourself.

Then do the next necessary thing.

Because your horse has to live with what happens next and avoiding the issue has a good chance of just making things worse and higher chance of risk.

Collectable Advice 272/365.

🙏Please SHARE to spread this message, IRAD sits behind many people's frustrations, disappointments, money waste, accidents, training and performance failure.