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The number of side steps which we succeed in obtaining is of little consequence. The essential thing is to see that the horse is well placed — the shoulders being always more advanced than the croup — which is the only position that facilitates the side movement. Position is everything.
At the beginning of the work I try to give cadence to the horse, but only at the moment I am going to get him to do side steps. By the expression " to give cadence to the horse," I mean the school walk. At this pace a horse has great mobility, and the side movement is made more easy, because the fore legs and hind legs can move more readily, without touching each other, which is impossible at the ordinary walk.[1]
Up to this, I have purposely used the expression " side
We are never completely master of a horse which we have allowed to contract the habit of always keeping close to the wall, which is a bad preparation for riding in the open, and also for high school work, the first condition of which is that the horse should be always between the legs of the rider, or, to speak more precisely, should be solely guarded by the " aids. " It is therefore well to work the horse at a distance of one or two yards from the wall.
When the horse has got into the habit of pressing his shoulder into the wall, how are we to put him straight ? And if we wish to take him away from the wall, to go down the centre, to do a demi-volte, or to set off on " two tracks," what " aids " should we use ?
Let us suppose that the rider is on the right hand. He will then instinctively feel the off snaffle rein to bring the left shoulder away from the wall, which is a mistake, because in pulling the off rein he will bring the head and neck to the right, but the more he draws them to the right, the more will the lateral flexion of the neck push the left shoulder to the left. The proper way to bring the left shoulder away from the wall is to draw the near snaffle rein rather high and forward on the neck, then carry it to the right, while lightly feeling the off rein, and we will then bring the whole neck along with the shoulders to the right.
To make side steps from left to right, the horse should pass his near fore and the near hind, one after the other, over their respective off legs, in order to gain ground to the right. When the horse is at the ordinary walk, the pace is too slow and two low for the legs to pass over their fellows without touching them. In the side step, at the school walk, each of the near legs passes successively its corresponding off leg, and (this is the important point and results solely from the cadence) is put on the ground only at the moment when the off leg is just raised. They therefore cannot hit each other. ↩︎