TLC

No, not that kind of TLC (though Tender Loving Care is always great!). This kind of TLC is the kind I go over in almost every first lesson, and it’s a TLC we need to remember with every movement in every ride. Tempo, Line, and Contact. The key to all three is to keep them consistent, but to do so, it’s important to know what each one of them means.

Tempo

Tempo is basically how many steps per minute the horse takes, the metronome for each gait. Tempo doesn’t necessarily correlate to speed; a horse can take longer or shorter steps at the same tempo to change their speed. Ideally, the horse should maintain the same tempo within the gait, no matter the movement. So, at the basic level, the horse should stay at the same tempo all around the arena, not speeding up on the longside and slowing down in the corners or on the shortside (or not speeding up on the straight line and slowing down on the circle). As things get more challenging, the tempo should stay the same on single track movements as well as two-track or lateral movements. The tempo also should stay pretty close between the working, collected, and medium gaits, but there will be a slight difference when you get to the extremes. Passage of course uses a slower tempo than the collected trot, and ideally, the extended trot should have the same tempo as the passage. Piaffe is, in a way, its own gait, but should be closer in tempo to collected trot than passage. However, these are the extremes and not as important to remember in daily schooling. The key is that there shouldn’t be unnecessary change in tempo when changing lines, changing from single track to two-track work, or with moderate changes in stride length (ie, the lengthened trot shouldn’t have a faster tempo than the working trot).

Line

The line is basically the accuracy of your arena figures. Ideally, the horse’s outside hind should track in the line of the outside front for appropriate alignment, and otherwise, your lines should be accurate. If you’re riding around the arena, the corners should be ridden with care, and the straight lines should be straight, not wiggly. Diagonals should be straight, centerline should be straight, and circles should be accurate circles. On two tracks, the horse should stay on a specific line, so in shoulder-in, the hind leg should track along a straight line, and in travers/haunches-in, the shoulder should track along a straight line. In leg-yield and half-pass, this alignment applies on a diagonal line; this can actually make those movements easier to ride accurately (treating leg-yield like head-to-rail leg-yield on a diagonal and half-pass like travers on a diagonal). No matter the line, try to ride it accurately and consistently at all times; this will elevate your riding enormously.

Contact

This is maybe the stickiest of these three elements. In essence, contact should remain consistent: same weight in each hand no matter what the movement. A lot of trainers advocate having constant wiggles or squeezes in the rein to keep the contact “alive,” but I find it’s better to have your baseline be very still and quiet. Some horses like having a little more contact than others, so it’s important to follow your horse’s lead as to what is the “right” amount of contact (and this amount will change through training; as Steinbrecht points out, we often start with “firm” with greenies, move to “soft” with intermediate horses, and end up with “light” with advanced horses, but be prepared to accept it if your green horse prefers it “light” from the get-go). However, no matter what your horse does with its head, it’s important to keep the contact consistent. You can always add the occasional squeeze, rein shake, or other influence on the rein, but it’s important to come back to a baseline that is quiet and consistent. Many horses will move their heads in different ways as they perform different exercises because of stiffness or weakness, but if you keep the consistent the same, this will work its way out (so if your horse braces above or behind the bit in shoulder-in, resist the urge to pull heavier to bring the nose in; try a few rein squeezes but then let your hand resume the same level of contact as on a straight line so your horse can process). It’s amazing how many contact issues I’ve seen clear up by just trying to keep it consistent and equal in both reins, so if this is a problem you struggle with, give it a try.

TLC: Putting It Together

If you haven’t focused on TLC before, start slow. You can focus on one at a time. While dressage is a bit of “patting your head, rubbing your belly, hopping on one foot, and reciting the Gettysburg Address (backwards),” if you focus on one piece at a time, eventually, you’ll be able to put them together. You can warm up focusing on tempo, work half the “work session” on line, and finish focusing on contact. Or you can focus on tempo one ride, line another, and contact a third. Over time, they’ll become muscle memory, and you’ll have all three consistent in every movement. However, not only will they become muscle memory for you as the rider, they’ll become muscle memory for the horse. So, with practice, neither of you will have to work at it, but it’ll be there semi-automatically, just needing the occasional “oops, tempo slowed there; need a little more forward,” or “uh oh, that line went crooked; let’s fix that.”

Try adding a little TLC to your riding, and see how much your daily work improves!

-Emily Wright