The Training Scale

“The Ger­man Train­ing Scale”

Tammy’s teaching/training method comes from the solid Ger­man
train­ing scale:

1. Rhythm - The reg­u­lar­ity and the purity of the steps or strides in each gait,
cov­er­ing equal dis­tance and of equal dura­tion. The metro­nomic “beat” of the horse’s foot­falls. It should not vary.

2. Suppleness/Relaxation — Relax­ation has been achieved when the horse is
will­ing to stretch his neck for­ward and down in all three gaits (allow­ing the horse to chew the reins out of the rider’s hands). A relaxed horse moves with a swing­ing back and in a nat­ural, reg­u­lar rhythm with­out hur­ry­ing. The horse accepts the dri­ving aids and allows a sup­ple rider to sit com­fort­ably.  The horse’s body is free of tension.

3. Con­tact  - A soft, steady con­nec­tion between the rider’s hand and the horse’s mouth. A cor­rect, steady con­tact allows the horse to find its bal­ance under the rider and find a rhythm in each gait. Con­tact must never be obtained by pulling back with the reins. It must result from the cor­rect devel­op­ment of the push­ing pow­ers of the horse. The dis­creetly dri­ving aids of the rider cause the horse to step into the hands with confidence.

4. Impul­sion — The energy cre­ated by the hind legs trans­mit­ted into the gaits and into every aspect of the for­ward move­ment. Impul­sion is the result of the cor­rect
influ­ence of the rider, uti­liz­ing the nat­ural gaits of the horse and com­bin­ing them with relax­ation, and the devel­op­ment of the horse’s push­ing power and throughness.

5. Straight­ness — In a straight horse the push­ing pow­ers work directly towards the horse’s cen­ter of bal­ance. The fore­hand is in line with its hindquar­ters allow­ing the horse’s lon­gi­tu­di­nal axis to fol­low the straight or curved line of the track. The rider’s restrain­ing aids will then pass through the horse cor­rectly, via the horse’s mouth, the poll, the neck, and the back through to the quar­ters and influ­ence both hind legs equally.

6. Col­lec­tion — When a horse is work­ing in col­lec­tion the quar­ters take more of the load. The haunches (hip and sti­fle joints) are flex­ing more and the hind legs step more under the horse’s cen­ter of bal­ance. This light­ens the fore­hand and allows greater free­dom of move­ment. The strides become shorter with­out los­ing energy and activ­ity. The horse looks and feels more “uphill.” In the trot as well as in the can­ter, the
impul­sion needs to be fully main­tained, ren­der­ing these gaits more expres­sive and cadenced.