Teaching piaffe to the Hamper

Had my last lesson with my favorite instructor this morning. She was kind enough to give me the lesson as a gift - and even better, we worked in-hand with Hampton teaching him the foundation for piaffe.

Yes, he's only 5 but teaching this exercise is beneficial because:
• It teaches the horse to raise his withers and lower his pelvis.
• When you are ready to start it under saddle, the pony already has an understanding.

I have found many videos on YouTube about teaching piaffe in hand, but they are almost all of horses who already know how to do this. No one really shows how they REALLY start out, unless you have a super talented horse who understands piaffe immediately.

So here's how we started.

• Teach Hamps that a touch with the whip on his back legs means to pick the leg up. I had already taught him this.

• When leading in hand, raising the whip means come forward. He knows this pretty well, too.

... now comes the tricky part.

• Horse must respect your space. He cannot barge or rush past you. He must first respect the whoa, and then the piaffe will come. Hampton, while not exactly rude, had some moments where he needed to have a discussion about not running past the handler (J, my instructor). A good bonk on the nose with the rubber end of the lunge whip usually does the trick. (Warning: Don't do this with an ultra sensitive horse who may freak out and rear).

• Once the horse respects this space, it's all about marking the behavior. Reward after even 1 or 2 prancy steps.

• ALWAYS make sure you keep the horse moving forward (so you will be walking backward). At this stage, they can't piaffe in place. So make it fun, rewarding, and easy for them. Don't drill it too much or they become and dull and quit having any sort of reaction. Hampton likes to cow kick at the whip ... this should be corrected, but not too sharply as at least it is a reaction. :)

• The final result should be that you simply raise the whip, horse piaffes.

Here are two short videos I took of his work today. Remember he is just starting this, but you can see him thinking about what the right answer is. By the end, he did about 3 really nice piaffe steps and I immediately shoved him full of treats and ended the session.