Introduction
I found an interesting description in Otto De La Croix’s book “Natürliche Reitkunst” (1910) of how to improve the horse’s straightness in the shoulder-in by using the counter movements renvers and counter shoulder-in. It’s a great example of the usefulness of counter movements in the training of the horse and especially in the correction of the crookedness. I will give the excerpt from his book and then explain a little bit more what he is suggesting.
Otto De La Croix, 1910, 125-128:
The driving aid into the left hand (shoulder-in right with a horse that is hollow left, TR) increases more and more, the fuller the rein becomes and the more the rein can receive the impulsion from the left hind leg. Finally, the left hind leg will step as energetically as the right one in the shoulder-in position. In a way, the horse is performing a well collected leg-yield. Both hind legs push off energetically, both reins have a solid contact.
If we continue the increased driving aid of the left calf and the flexible resistance of the left hand beyond this point, the left hind leg will eventually step under more than the right one. As a result, the entire left side and thus also the neck will bend to the left, and after a little while a kind of renvers will develop.
However, we will notice with regret that the innate drifting of the left hind leg to the outside will re-occur occasionally. If the left calf is not especially attentive, the left hind leg will escape here and there.
Punishing our willing horse for these little relapses into the old mistake would be harsh and unfair, however. We must therefore find a way to deal with it quietly and with composure.
Our horse is now, after some practice, well flexed to the left in the renvers – should he now refuse to turn c. 1/16 of a volte to the left to come into a counter-shoulder-in position? Hardly! It is merely the direction of the movement that changes, while the bend remains exactly the same.
The horse has involuntarily fallen into our trap, because this so seemingly harmless change of the direction of the movement from left to right is very important. The left hind leg can no longer drift back. It can only either resist the calf aid (and then the spur comes softly but unwaveringly), or it must now step towards the center of the horse’s body, i.e. underneath the mass of horse and rider.
This wholesome exercise will make the left hind leg more and more pliable, until a minimal left calf aid suffices to maintain the shoulder-in left position.
We increase the exercise more and more, but our horse is not only willing. He is also smart. He will soon feel that he can protect his left hind leg in this position as well. He only needs to let his right hind leg drift a little away from his body and to approach it with his left hind leg, instead of crossing it, in order to avoid the unwanted flexion.
However, we are not asleep either. We are used to seeing the purpose of a movement not merely in the movement itself, but in the manner of its execution.
Maintaining the shoulder-in left position, we now bring the right hind leg closer with the right calf, prevent its drifting and thus force the left hind leg to cross over the right hind leg and to flex strongly. Since the weight now swings from the left to the right, and the right calf drives more, the right rein will become fuller: “Eventually, we will have to resist with it.”
As always, the horse’s swinging into the steady hand that gently reflects the pressure, will soon result in a yielding to the hand. Then the right hind leg, that we keep asking to reach forward, will step under more lightly, more comfortably, and more underneath the horse. Finally, it will step under to such a degree that it will bend the entire right side, and before we know it, the horse has seated us to the right and performs – travers right.
Discussion
De La Croix uses as an example a horse that is hollow left and stiff right. When you try to ride a shoulder-in right with a horse that is hollow left, the forehand will typically come (too) easily to the inside, but the haunches will drift to the outside of the arena, which results in the outside hind leg not stepping under the body, but away from it, and the horse will tend to lean onto the inside rein, while not approaching the outside rein, but bending the neck to the outside instead.
As a correction, De La Croix recommends driving the outside (left) hind leg with the outside lower leg forward and under the body so that it can no longer scrape along the arena wall. This will create a stretch of the muscles on the left side of the horse’s body so that he starts making contact with the outside rein.
De La Croix then says that the horse ends up performing a “well-collected leg yield”. This is interesting because in our modern definition of a leg yield not really a collecting exercise and the outside hind leg tends to step away from the body, rather than forward and underneath it.
However, German 19th century authors seemed to define the term leg yield differently than we do. They sometimes refer to the shoulder-in as a leg yield because the horse’s inside hind leg yields to the rider’s inside leg and the inside hind leg steps in front of the outside hind leg in the shoulder-in. I suspect that this is what De La Croix is referring to.
As long as the outside hind leg steps sideways towards the arena wall in the shoulder-in, the inside hind leg can’t really step in front of it because it’s out of reach. As soon as the rider “catches” the outside hind leg and drives it forward and underneath the body, the inside hind leg can yield properly to the inside calf aid and step in front of the outside hind leg.
The next phase of the correction is interesting. De La Croix recommends driving the outside hind leg even more forward and underneath the body mass so that the horse is starting to counterbend, which leads to a renvers position. However, since the right hind leg is still the crossing one in a renvers on the right rein with the bend to the left, the left hind leg will still try to escape towards the outside of the arena if the rider isn’t very attentive. So the problem isn’t eliminated yet.
That’s why De La Croix then rotates the horse by riding a 1/16 of a volte to the left, which brings the horse into a counter shoulder-in position. The counter shoulder-in feels easier to the horse than the renvers because he is bent against the direction of travel, and the inside hind leg (in terms of the bend, the outside one in terms of the arena) is now the crossing one. That’s why the horse will be happy to comply with the rider’s wishes. The counter shoulder-in position is a highly effective tool to bring the hind leg that is facing the outside of the arena underneath the body mass so that you can connect it better to the ground and the weight afterwards by sitting on it and flexing it.
When I try to ride a shoulder-in and I feel that the outside hind leg is escaping and the horse is assuming a fake renvers position, I often do exactly what De La Croix suggests. I rotate the horse into a counter shoulder-in position, bring the hind leg underneath me that has the outside track, and from there I may change the bend briefly to a travers position, before returning to the shoulder-in. The travers is more work than the shoulder-in, so that the horse will feel relieved when he can transition from the travers into the shoulder-in. This usually needs to be repeated several times, as crookedness is a habit, and the outside hind leg will tend to slip away again in the shoulder-in sooner or later.
De La Croix then says that the horse will soon discover that he can escape the counter shoulder-in position (which is a shoulder-in left on the right rein, with the arena wall on the “wrong” side of the horse) by either lagging behind with his right hind leg or swinging his entire croup to the right. When the outside hind leg doesn’t step underneath the body in the shoulder-in, the inside hind leg can only step next to it, but not in front of it, because the outside hind leg is out of reach.
The correction is essentially the same as in the shoulder-in: the rider’s outside leg (in terms of the bend, it’s the inside one in terms of the arena) drives the outside hind leg more forward and underneath the body, until the horse starts to offer a travers right position. From the travers right, the rider can rotate the horse again by riding a 1/16 volte to end up in the shoulder-in right, exactly where he started.
The exercise comes full circle: shoulder-in > evasion into a faulty renvers position > counter shoulder-in as a remedy > renvers > counter shoulder-in > travers > shoulder-in.
These sequences of lateral movements are incredibly effective in making the horse’s hips and spine more and more supple in both directions, and they involve weight shifts between the two sides of the body, so that the horse learns to support himself easily with his left pair of legs and his right pair of legs.
Conclusion
This is a great discussion of how a thinking rider can correct the horse’s attempts to evade the demands of the shoulder-in by using the other lateral movements to bring both hind legs underneath the body. This somewhat indirect approach is much more effective than trying to create the correct bend by pulling on the inside rein, or trying to create a contact on the outside rein by using “more inside leg and more outside rein”, which are so often the standard recommendations of trainers. These direct approaches actually only make the problem worse, whereas the indirect approach teaches the horse better body awareness and it makes the hind legs stronger and more supple, so that he is able to perform a correct shoulder-in easily and without feeling the need to evade.
