horse stretches down, but then pops head up

Question
I have been re-training my 11 yr. old HANOV. mare now for a year and ahlaf. She has been trained to second level dressage by her previous owner, but not correctly. I had to teach her from square one to maintain contact. She had a major habbit of sucking behind the bit,with short choppy steps. In other words, she was trained to look pretty, but not really work. We've overcome a lot and she is a different horse now. She's extremely high spirited and gets upset very easily when she doesn't understand. In the last 4 or 5 months she has finally cought on to the concept of stretching her neck down and out while trotting. While I am exctatic that she will do this now (for months I couldn't walk her on a long rein without breaking into a trot), the probelm is, when I want to collect her up and work on other things, she tries to repeatedly stretch down,stay there for a few strides, then quickly pops her head up losing all contact and I am left reeling in the reins to regain it. My question is, how do I teach her that the point of stretching is not to just pull the reins out of my hands. I don't want to discourage her from stretching.

Answer
Hello Liz,

If and when she drops back it is because her hind quarters are not fully engaged.  Give with the rein just a tad so that she feels the room to come up, and at the same time use leg, whip or spur to drive her on and upward into the bit. Always remember to ride from back to front. Do not lift her head with the reins.  This will create a false carriage.  The head must come up because the hind quarters are working. If the rear is doing what it needs to do, chances are that the front will also.  The sequence is give, drive on. And they come very quickly in sequence.  But the drive on must be strong enough to make her push off more strongly with the hand feet.  If you give without the drive on, she will just drop on her forehand. THen take the contact again and work on.  Each and every time she drops down, repeat.  It may take many repeats before she gets it that she cannot escape work.  Those hind feet must be tracking at least in the prints left by the front feet, or in front of them.  The working trot is nothing less than that.

It is like the half halt except that you do not take when she is behind the bit.  Just give and drive on and take contact again.


Good luck,
Dorothy