How to leg yield in walk?

Question

My horse has been trained by my trainer, and he's amazing at dressage. He's only six years old and literally started a month ago, but he can do half pass in walk, trot and canter.  This looks great when my trainer is riding him, and then I get on, try to do a basic leg yield in walk, and we look disastrous.

I think its mainly because I'm having trouble with my seat, he always ends up with too much inside flexion, or he crosses over in front but the back legs are all over the place.  I also can't seem to get the right balance with my leg aids.  Either I'm doing too much and he goes too fast and stops crossing his legs, or I don't do enough and his butt sticks out to the side.  I have a crop, which I do use, but it seems just as bad as my leg aids.

Any tips on how I can improve my riding to get him to leg yield?  It looks so damn simple when my trainer does it!  He's given me a whole load of tips in lessons, obviously, but it would really help to get a fresh outlook and some written advice, I sometimes feel he contradicts himself when trying to explain.  Or maybe I'm just that bad!

? · Accepted Answer

Try to "lead" him to it. Open your outside hand(where you want him to go) and use your inside leg slightly behind the girth (not much) to push him over. Every stride is a squeeze release squeeze release. Make sure to keep his bend to the inside by wrapping him around your inside leg. Hope this helps - Good Luck!! :)

Anonymous · Answer

Do you have mirrors in the arena where you ride? I've found that practising the leg yield in front of the mirror makes a huge difference. Make sure you are face on to the mirror and go either left or right. What you'll find is if you can look in the mirror while doing it you will see the mistakes quicker and be able to correct them. You'll see in the mirror if the horse isn't straight before you will feel it. This allows you to make a quicker reaction to fix it :-)

Anonymous · Answer

My trainer taught me how to do it by using it to cool down with and we would face the wall and ask our horse to leg yield down the wall. Another way is to go down the center of the ring to the very center then ask your horse to leg yield one way or the other.

Hope this helped!!

How to leg yield in walk?

3 Answers