leg yield

the leg yield is only important to teach the horse to respect the rider's leg and to yield to pressure. in dressage tests we often see horses yielding to the leg at the trot from one long side of the arena to the other, most often in approximately a second or first level test. this is good but not the only method of teaching the exercise to a young horse. in classical Spanish riding we use the leg... yield mostly at the walk, along the wall, from the wall to the wall, from the center to the wall, moving in and out of circles and in turns on the forehand. we start the exercise only from a very large circle where the bend is minimal, at the rising trot and by use of inside leg and outside hip we influence the horse to take the first step or two in shifting his body weight beneath our center of gravity. the horse tries to balance himself under our shifting of the body and taking advantage of the moment of suspension at the trot he happily yields, or we give the aids in the exact moment when the inside hind leg comes off the ground at the walk, for this the rider must know exactly how to feel his horse or he must have an expert on the ground to assist him. its that easy, if we build on this day by day in no time at all our horse learns to yield happily and readily without the use of the spur. la lazy horse might need a little encouragement with the spur, but we need to be careful not to over do it, while more exited horses should not be tickled with the spur to not over stimulate and over aid. we practice this exercise mostly at the walk because if it is done too much at the trot, when we reach the time to teach the half pass the horse may recent the bend and try to avoid the aids. again we must be careful not to stop the natural rhythm and motion of the walk so that we don't ruin it and turn a good walk into an amble which has no place in good riding.