August 2007 • VOLUME 24 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

Straightness and /or Crookedness in Horse and Rider Part I: A Crooked Rider Cannot Straighten A Crooked Horse


Although I've done my best to keep this article down to a manageable length, I feel it is one of those subjects that gets glossed over with a couple of paragraphs, when it is one of the Prime Directives in classical riding:

Calm, Forward, STRAIGHT

What do we mean by straight?

This is generally defined as a horse that 'tracks true' - hind leg following in the track of the fore leg on the same side. Each hind leg bears equal weight. A young horse will not be showing engagement at this stage, merely getting each leg to bear equal responsibility. When a horse is straight, he allows the aids to come through and is equally responsive to the aids on either rein.

Riders and horses are, by nature, one-sided. We must both work diligently to become ambidextrous in the equestrian sense. A horse moving at liberty, without a rider, is moving in 'natural balance'. He is not necessarily moving in the 'functional straightness' we require for dressage.

Although the Training Scales places Straightness at position 5 it is not a list of strict linear progression. They are all interconnected. Straightness should be worked on from an early stage for crookedness is an imbalance.

A crooked horse is an unbalanced horse. An unbalanced horse becomes tense and shows resistance. A tense and unbalanced horse will not be able to achieve relaxation: the second element on the training scale. A horse lacking in balance, relaxation and straightness will not give the rider a light, even, elastic/living rein contact, which is the third element on the training scales.

Some of the terms used to describe the different qualities we perceive on each rein when asking for a turn, for example:

· Stiff vs. Hollow
· Hard vs. Soft
· Convex vs. Concave
· Strong vs. Weak
· Elongated vs. Contracted
· Long vs. Short
· Banana-shaped
· Toffee vs. Chocolate - this was my first German teacher’s attempt to explain the differences in broken English


The usual theory put forward as to why horses are one-sided like this is that it is the way the foetus lay in the womb. However, it is now considered more likely due to the fact that the horse has - as do all mammals - a split brain, with the two hemispheres responsible for controlling different functions.

Lets say our hypothetical horse is Stiff Left / Hollow Right. The obvious signs of this to the rider will be