Hiya,

Could anyone help me out please? I ride a beautiful stalion and I really want to learn to get him to do that thing where their neck curves while your riding them. I think its called leaning on the bit, is it? But yeah i've been riding him for a long time now and just haven't been able to get him to do it much. Any advice???

Thanks

Leaning on the bit is where the horse becomes heavy on the forehand & fights your hands, not something you want to encourage! I think what you mean is 'on the bit', where the horse engages his quarters, creating impulsion, lightens on the forehand & accepts the bit.
To encourage him onto the bit you need to create impulsion & ride him forward onto the bridle with your seat & legs, & send small signals down the rein to his mouth, just gently squeezing alternate reins should do it. Hope that helps!

I think what you mean is working in an outline or on the bit (leaning on the bit is where the horse is on the forehand and feels heavy in your hands).

What you need is for the horse tuck his hindquarters under him, arch over his back then his neck will arch also. To achieve this you need him to get him to carry his weight on his hindquarters so he becomes light in your hand.

Exercises to help this are doing lots of transitions - walk-trot-walk - each time you come down to walk do a half halt (a quick tweak of the outside rein as you put your legs on), then ask for walk, then push foward into an active walk. Do a few strides in walk then then ask for trot and as you move up to trot as soon as he trots, half halt to get him to carry his weight behind whilst maintaining the trot.

The half halt is essentially using your legs to ask for engagement as you tweak the outside rein (ie a very slight pull back with your fingers/hand) so that you don't let him get quicker. So he becomes more active but not faster.

So you are pushing the back end to make it work harder, but controlling the front end so you don't go faster.

As you ride each time you feel like he gets fast, or heavy in your hands, then do a half halt - ask for more work behind, but don't let him go faster.

Circle work is also good - using a half halt if you ever feel he becomes unbalanced and leaning to the inside.