Q: How can I teach my horse to be more careful with his feet? He just doesn’t seem to pick them up properly.
Asked by Angelique
A: First rule out any pain or physical causes for the problem. Once this is done you can move on to a variety of schooling exercises to try and fix the issue.
Picking the feet up comes from an engaged, forward and uphill motion of the horse. If you feel like your horse is slow, dragging his feet or lazy in general, transitions are the best exercise you can do to get him more uphill and engaged. Practice lots of walk-to-halt, halt-to-walk, walk-to-trot, walk-to-canter – all sorts of transitions that will make him use his hindlegs to propel himself forwards.
Pole work is an additional tool that can be fantastic for getting horses to be more careful with their feet. Don’t be afraid to use plenty of poles but start with just one or two to build your horse’s confidence. Ultimately you can lay out 10 trotting poles up the long side (approximately 1m apart) and really get him going forwards over them. He might stumble a couple of times but he’ll soon get the idea. Once he has mastered this, try raising some of the poles to make the task more tricky.
From here you can move on to jumping gymnastics that incorporate bounces and ground poles – these are great for teaching horses to be careful with their leg and foot placement.
Collected work also helps to get your horse to ‘sit’ on his hindquarters and carry himself uphill, which helps with lifting the front legs. However, this requires your horse to have the strength to collect properly. Collection is not simply the result of shortening the reins and hoping for the best! If you are not sure about collected work, ask a trainer to help you. Incorrect work in the pursuit of ‘collection’ can be damaging to a horse’s body.
Answered by Charlotte Bastiaanse