Bettina and TS Lanfranco at Burghley 2012 Photo: Libby Law
The walk pirouette may only be required at the highest level of eventing and piaffe is not required at all in eventing dressage tests but Bettina Hoy likes to use these exercises to help sharpen the horse’s response and to activate the hind quarters. Some work in hand also helps the rider become more accustomed to the feel of a horse which is active behind and really nice and soft in the rider’s hand.
“We can play with the piaffe but we don’t need to overdo it” says Bettina. She told how she only works on this exercise during the winter with her horse Lanfranco as he tends to remember it and brings it out at unexpected times during her dressage test during the eventing season!
“I had one comment from a judge who said ‘Lovely piaffe – shame it’s not required!’” she laughs
The most important points to remember in the walk pirouette are;
- The horse must keep walking behind
- The horse must be active and in front of the leg before asking for walk pirouette
- Think small, controlled steps
If your horse is lazy or unresponsive to the leg, use spurs as they must respond to the leg aid. Make the walk active (not fast), stay on the wall of the arena in a slight shoulder-in, use your hands (as an idea think of turning bike handles) to bring the front of the horse around your inside leg and as soon as you start to turn, use the outside leg to keep the hind legs walking actively in very small steps back to the arena wall facing the opposite way.
My horse and I have been taught to do the walk pirouette before but I hadn’t thought of using it as a training exercise. Doing the exercise repeatedly until my horse was really responding to my aids and particularly the outside leg really helped sharpen him up.
When we went back to the trot and canter exercises he was much more responsive and softer in the hand. Rather than trying to achieve this in those paces (especially as it was a very hot day and I was pretty unfit!), the walk pirouette had provided a relatively easy breakthrough
Bettina hopped on and used the exercise with another horse that was not familiar with walk pirouette and achieved a similar result very quickly. With this horse, a large young 17.2h chestnut that due to his size and relative inexperience found it particularly hard to be active behind in the canter, Bettina also used some work in hand to help the rider create the activity.
As well as helping improve the activity behind, Bettina likes some work in hand to help create a ‘positive response to the whip’ i.e. as a requesting aid rather than something to fear.
As soon as the horse responded positively to the light tapping aids of the whip from Bettina and offered a few steps of ‘baby’ piaffe, the exercise was finished and the horse praised.
Work in hand from the ground is a great way to achieve the aims Bettina outlined but, if you are going to work on this, please ensure that the person on the ground is competent to fulfil the role. This is a job best left to experts who can really judge the horse’s response and know what they are doing!
Bettina is hoping to be back in Australia in October/November to help some riders leading up to the Australian International 3 Day Event as well as teaching clinics for all levels of riders. We’re certainly looking forward to having another lesson when she returns
Bettina and Designer10, part of the winning German team in the FEI Nations Cup at Boekelo
Read the first part of this article Bettina Hoy on Posture and Position
View our video interview with Bettina Hoy
