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What are the 'Scales of Training'?
The Scales of Training is a list of six points, that encompass all the things a horse must learn to become a healthy mount. These points are developed by flatwork. They are thus also the points that are used to judge horses in dressage competitions. All successful international riders of all disciplines (i.e. not only dressage riders but also show jumpers and eventers) work according to these points.
Why should I bother?
Because -believe it or not- horses are not made for riding. Studies for thousands of years (see Xenophone 400 B.C) and more recent ones very scientific have proven that horses can only carry a rider's weight without incurring physical and consequently psychological damage if they do specially designed exercises to develop their muscles to be able to cope with the extra weight. This is what flatwork is all about - you could call it physiotherapy for horses. It is like human sport where e.g. swimmers or footballers spend a lot of time in the gym building up muscles to be able to swim or play football better. Remember though that these (equine) exercises must be ridden very accurately in order to be of benefit to the horse. This is why dressage/flatwork can sometimes seem quite tedious if you don't know why you are doing it.
The six points - know these in your sleep!
1. Rhythm
2. Suppleness
3. Submission
4. Impulsion
5. Straightness
6. Collection
What does each point mean?
1. Rhythm
When you did your D and D+ tests you probably learned that the walk has 4 beats, the trot has 2 beats and the canter has 3 beats. However young, inexperienced or not properly ridden horses often do not show a clear rhythm. The canter can easily change to 4 beats or the trot can become a pace (i.e. instead of the diagonal legs moving forward at the same time both legs on the same side do). Also the walk (by experts known to be the most difficult pace - yes, really!) can lose its rhythm when the wrong legs move at the wrong time.
The reason why rhythm is so important is the kind of muscles a horse uses to carry the rider. When these muscles are used in a regular fashion like clockwork they get stronger but if they are used irregularly they actually become weaker.
When a horse moves its legs like a machine in the way in which it is supposed to (check any good horse book to find out how that is) it is said to have a good rhythm.
In the judges' comments to dressage tests you will often find references to lack of rhythm or being unbalanced, stumbling, etc. that refer to this point.
Back to top 2. Suppleness
Suppleness can best be thought of as the direct opposite of tenseness. When you ride the instructor will sometimes tell you not to 'grab' with your legs or to relax or something similar. This means you (the rider) are tense. No doubt you have sometimes noticed your holding your breath when trying hard or becoming tense. The same basically goes for horses. When they become tense they will use the wrong muscles, which can cause chronic damage to several parts of their bodies. Any human athlete can tell you that tenseness is deadly for muscles.
You can tell whether a horse is tense if you watch them closely. They are never tense (unless they are ill) when they don't carry a rider so watch them out in the field first to get a feeling for how they normally move. Watch them again under a rider - can you spot the difference? Especially beginner riders who are not used to the movements of the horse will become tense and so will the horse. You can often see horses 'pulling up' their backs when ridden. This is one form of tenseness.
No athlete - human or equine - can exercise healthily with tense muscles. I think anybody can see why this point is so important.
Judges will sometimes refer to horses' making a 'hollow' back or being tense or pulling up the hindquarters or something similar. This means your horse was tense and thus lost points on suppleness.
Back to top 3. Submission
The term 'submission' reminds me of dog obedience training, which is a bit misleading. I prefer the term 'acceptance of the bit'. This is the point. When your instructor tells you you need more 'contact' this means your reins are too long. However, it doesn't figure that holding the reins short means you will score highly on submission. In order to be able to accept the bit your horse needs to be well balanced, have a good rhythm and be supple (which is why this point comes third). What you want is a horse that can carry itself. It should not be heavy on the bit (i.e. let you -the rider- carry its head) or go above the bit (which means unfortunately the back will go hollow and thus weak as well).
As you probably know from the books the horse's nose should be about one (adult's) hand width in front of the vertical. However, simply pulling it there won't do. A horse that is well balanced will automatically carry its head exactly in this position. Young horses usually go behind the bit (i.e. their heads are tilted towards their chests the neck being too round with their noses sometimes nearly touching the chest). This is NOT right. For a young horse it is acceptable for a while until it learns to balance itself better but a properly trained horse will not 'roll up' like this.
Submission is important because it means the horse is well balanced physically being able to carry and thus control all its body parts including the rider's weight independently of the rider. Psychologically it means the horse has accepted the rider and his/her dominant position as the one who gets to say what is to be done and is 'listening' to the rider's commands (aids).
In the judge's report you will find comments like 'was above the bit' or 'went against the hand' meaning submission was lacking.
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The next few points should not be worried about until you have got the first three straight!
4. Impulsion
Firstly: no, impulsion is not speed! An easy way to explain the difference between impulsion and speed is that impulsion is more to do with how high a horse picks up its legs rather than how fast. It is like the difference between an army corps marching vigorously and a tired wanderer dragging his feet over the ground. The former have impulsion, the latter does not.
In a good walk you will feel the back side of the horse working like an engine and your pelvis being pushed forward. Also the belly will come out relatively far on either side. In the trot the horse will be softer to sit (remember you have achieved a good deal of suppleness and balance at this stage) and lift its legs up higher sometimes even seeming to float. The exact opposite would be some of your riding school ponies that look as if they were ice-skating with their back legs. They literally never leave the ground but drag over the ground. They have no impulsion and are very hard to sit. It feels like being knocked on the bum with a stick from below. In the canter when you watch the hooves they should make a circle, i.e. a ROUND movement. Ideally it feels as if the horse was going uphill on the flat. What you see most of the time though is that the hooves are making a flat elipse lying on its side. This is due to a lack of impulsion.
Judges will often comment on lack of impulsion.
Back to top 5. Straightness
Straightness is to do with the horse being equally well trained on both sides. Horses are naturally crooked. Researchers claim it is to do with which way round they lie in their mother's belly because for months (while developing) one side is bent more. Supposedly, this is why most horses are left handed. Apparently this is also why their manes usually fall into the opposite direction of their 'better' side.
Unfortunately, this is not a good prerequisite for becoming a riding horse. It is absolutely mandatory that horses are equally supple and well trained on both sides. It is possible but harder to achieve than it sounds because you have to check and recheck to make sure you are training the horse to straightness. The fact that most riders are better on one side doesn't really help, either, because you tend to do more work on your better side without noticing it.
You have probably read judges' comments about straightness of entry, going down the centre line, square halts, etc. , which comment on exactly this point.
Back to top 6. Collection
This is the crown of riding and unfortunately rarely achieved by most riders. Usually, you find people know that the horses take their heads down when they are collected. Thus they pull their heads down very hard and think they have achieved collection - think again!
Firstly, if you haven't achieved a very good level at the other 5 points don't bother with this but go back and correct again! Secondly, a collection comes from behind not from the front. This brings us to what collection actually is. Think of a bull-fight horse if you have ever seen one - they carry all their weight with the back legs and play with the front ones. Their croups are much lower than the withers. That's what perfect collection looks like! Most of us, however, don't strive for that kind of perfection.
Think of a horse's body. Where are all the muscles - back or front legs? Yep, definitely back there! Now picture the bones of the front legs and those of the back legs. Which joints look like shock absorbers? The front legs are relatively straight, whereas the back legs have a zig-zag shape. So both the muscles (engine) and the shock absorbers are in the back legs. The front legs are like pillars. There you have got their functions in a nutshell. Thus you have to try to engage the back legs to carry the weight and move forward, whereas the front legs merely keep the horse from falling on its head.
Unfortunately, by nature young horses carry most of their weight with the front legs and merely use the back ones for pushing forward (like the ice-skating described above). You will find that more dominant horses carry their weight further back and since horses are great show-offs (they are really into the body language, you know) the most dominant stallions are those that can move best, i.e. show the most collection.
Now you can imagine what happens if a young unbalanced horse that cannot even carry its own weight with the back legs where it belongs is mounted and thus presented with the additional dilemma of carrying extra weight by a more or less swaying rider with muscles that have not been made or trained for this: a disaster waiting to happen.
To get back to the point: if the hind legs go further under the body the croup moves down, the middle of the back comes up, the neck comes up and the nose goes down - automatically since they are all linked by ligaments, tendons, and muscles. This significantly strenghthens the horse's back and enables it to carry the additional weight of the rider without damage. However, if you pull down the head the croup goes up to avoid the restriction from the front, the hind legs go further back, and the middle of the back goes down, thus the back is weakened and cannot carry the rider's weight without damage. This is why we must work towards collection!
Back to top How does it work?
The first three points form the basis of training and must come first! You can develop these points by doing flatwork. However, exercises must be ridden very accurately in order to be of benefit to the horse. Most exercises develop more than one of these points to a certain extent. However, some exercises develop one point more than another.
Also remember: don't overdo it! Horses get tired faster than you think when doing flatwork. If you have ever had to do physiotherapy you'll know that it looks like nothing but wears you out quite fast. It's the same with flatwork. It's probably more exhausting than hunting even though the horses don't gallop for hours. Also it takes a good deal of concentration both by the rider and by the horse. According to psychological studies people can only concentrate hard for about 20 minutes. If you don't concentrate the work will do more harm than good. Besides, horses will get sore muscles from flatwork (never mind the riders...) since they are forced to exercise muscles that they have not been using enough. Think of yourself when you have sore muscles - you become tense and try to avoid using the sore muscles (which of course defeats the purpose) - horses are no different so always listen to what your horse's body language tells you!
Back to top Which exercises help to develop which point?
1. Rhythm
The important thing in all paces is that the horse goes through the poll and drops its neck.
Walk:
- Try to keep your horse going forward eagerly
- Ride on bent/curved lines, i.e. circles, serpentines
- Lateral work (i.e. going sideways), leg yielding, shoulder-in, travers, renvers
Trot:
- Ride eagerly instead of fast
- Get the hindlegs to come under the horse by riding lots of transitions
- Ride a lot of bends
Canter:
- Extensions-Gathering-ups
- Canter-walk - in advanced training also canter-halt
- Small circles
- Make circles smaller and larger
2. Suppleness
- Walk, Trot, Canter - at first forwards-downwards in working pace
- Frequent changes of rein
- Riding on large bent/curved lines, i.e. circles, serpentines, large figures of eight
- Transitions, i.e. trot-walk, canter-trot, at the end of the warming up phase also trot-halt, trot-halt-rein back
- Leg yielding
- Extend-gather up in trot and canter
- At the start, at the end and in between keep asking for forward-downward
- If necessary longing and/or trotting over poles can be included in the warm up phase
- Praise!
3. Submission
- If you want to improve submission you should primarily focus on riding transitions.
- Also include all exercises that improve impulsion and suppleness.
- Chewing reins out of hands
- Give and retake reins, i.e. move both hands towards the horse's mouth so that the horse's frame is extended forward-downward keeping the same speed
- Energetic driving forward, especially in canter
- It is easier to get horses that tend to take the bit between the teeth (especially in transitions to halt) to let go of the bit and to chew on it by a small right-left movement of the hands rather than by alternatingly pulling on either rein.
End of basic training. Please make sure you have the first three points well established before attempting to go on!
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4. Impulsion
Trot:
- Transitions, i.e. extend-gather up, trot-halt-trot, trot-walk
- Gather up-extend - before each corner, each circle point or simply in between
- Small circles
Canter:
- As in trot
- All exercises from the basic training
- For horses in advanced training shoulder-forward, shoulder-in, and half steps in the trot can later be included
5. Straightness
- Ride forward first on large circles, then on bent/curved lines of decreasing size, i.e. circles, serpentines, small circles, figures of eight
- Frequent changes of rein
- Let the hind legs reach over the front ones in walk and trot (along the open side of the circle)
- Shoulder-forward
- Simple canter changes
- Counter-canter
- Circles temporarily in counter position
- Frequent riding on the second track
6. Collection
Most exercises prepare for the goal of collection. Some of the ones that are especially good for advancing collection are:
- All transitions including extending-gathering up
- Rein back
- Halt-rein back-trot
- Making circles larger and smaller
- Simple changes in the canter
For advanced horses also:
- Shoulder-forward
- Shoulder-in
- Lateral work, i.e. travers (quarters-in), renvers (quarters-out or tail to the wall), shoulder-in in quick succession
- Counter canter on bent/curved lines
- Half steps
The most important thing is to make sure that you are not asking too much of the horse keeping in mind its age and level of training!
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