by Roxanne Sapergia
We hear it all the time, “That horse is soft in the face,” or “This horse is soft in the bridle!” But what exactly does that mean? And, more importantly, how do we attain it and keep it?
Recently, I asked well-known trainer, Vance Kaglea of High River, AB, to discuss his program for keeping his horses “soft.”
Kaglea states that repetitive, daily exercises are the foundation of being able to get and keep your horse soft. Many of the exercises he uses on his young horses are also the same ones he uses on his older horses as they advance through his training program.
“These exercises help soften a horse to some degree, but not all horses have the feel to be soft. Some that look soft often appear so due to presentation. In other words, they are not always as soft as they look.
“This is due to the fact that the rider’s legs are backing up what the rider’s hands are asking for. The rider picks up the horse’s belly rounding out his back thereby lengthening his top-line, shortening up his underline, and making the horse look round and soft, when it’s not.
“If you want your horse to be able to progress softly through all of the training transitions, you have to start slowly and build on the foundation you create in the beginning. I want my horses to be just as soft when they reach the bridle stage of their career as they were when I had them in a snaffle.”
He goes on to stress the importance of softness in the bridle: “A horse has to be responsive and soft in the bridle in order for you to keep them broke and correct. If not, it is way more difficult to guide a horse in the bridle. One of the most common problems I see is a horse outside the bridle, meaning that a horse travelling to the right will look to the left side of the circle.”
Kaglea explains that training a horse is made up of many different building blocks and the first block in softening a horse is a very simple and low-stress exercise. I watch as Kaglea takes his young horse into the middle of the pen and stops to let him relax.
He begins by explaining that all he wants at this point is the horse to stand still and give his face to the left and right without moving. Slowly, Kaglea picks up on the right rein and bends his horse around. “If the horse wants to move around and walk out of this pressure point I will just hold him until he quits moving,” he says.
“Once he quits moving and gives his face softly, I will release the pressure and reward him for being correct. It won’t take long, just a few minutes, and the horse will be standing quietly and stay flexed with no pressure on his face. I will repeat this exercise each way several times and repeat it daily until he is very comfortable staying flexed.”
Once the horse is willing to stand and stay bent or flexed, Kaglea adds another building block to the exercise by adding vertical flexion to the horse’s frame.
“Once I have the horse willing to bend each way horizontally, I will now pick up on the outside rein and encourage it to give to the bridle vertically. At this point, I am looking for the horse to start to soften in the poll, neck, and shoulders.”
Kaglea stresses, “When developing vertical flexion, I feel it is important to advance and retreat building on your timing with the horse’s slightest bit of try, simply because horses panic in a trapped situation.”
Keeping the horse soft throughout the exercise Kaglea now adds forward motion to the exercise. “I will now start to walk the horse forward. Using a direct rein, I will ask the horse to soften in both the poll and neck and keep them walking forward. Using my inside leg to encourage the horse to bend if necessary and letting him follow my hand in order to stay bent.”
Slowly walking in a small circle, I watch Kaglea as the horse begins to relax as it realizes it already knows how to bend and soften so now he just needs to stay in frame and do it at a walk. Kaglea has a very soft hand, and I understand now why his horses all stay so soft in the bridle.
He does not hurry these exercises and continually rewards the horse for its efforts both by the release of pressure and with a reassuring pat on the neck.
Once Kaglea has the horse walking softly and giving its face in one direction, he will slowly straighten the horse out, walk a few steps, and then ask the horse to bend the opposite way. Kaglea adds as a reminder, “Any exercise you do one way needs to have equal time the opposite way, and remember, every horse has a good and bad side so make sure you give the ‘bad’ side the extra time it requires.”
Laughing, he also reminds me that, “Once you fix the bad side you have to go back and fix the good side.”
From this point, Kaglea will continue to add blocks to his program such as adding a degree of difficulty by asking the horse to trot and stay in the same frame both ways.
“However, if I move up to the trot too quickly I will run the risk of having my horse lock up and become rigid in the face,” he says. “If this happens I just slow things down a notch and return to the softening exercise until they soften again, and then I kick it up a gear again.
“Repetitiveness is the key here. All horses learn by repetition, so this exercise, done daily, will soon become second nature to the horse and it will look to stay soft and look for the reward in the release of pressure.”
If you’d like to learn more from Vance Kaglea and have your horse in training, you can reach him at (403) 652-1326.
