Transitions: preparation is most of the transition

Ask a rider to show you a transition and watch what happens. They ride along quite happily, arrive at the letter, and then something occurs. The horse goes up a gear or down one, usually untidily, and the rider spends the next few strides tidying it up.

That is the whole problem in one picture. The rider believes the transition is the moment. It is not. The moment is only where you find out what you prepared, and starting earlier is the change that improves most riders' flatwork fastest.

The transition begins before you ask for it

Think of it as three parts. The preparation, which is the few strides before. The ask, which should be small and clear. And the first stride of the new pace, where the quality shows up.

Riders put almost all of their effort into the middle part, and it is the least important of the three. A big ask cannot rescue a horse who was not ready, and a tiny ask works beautifully on a horse who was.

If your transitions feel like an event, that is the tell. A prepared one is dull to sit on. It just arrives.

What "prepare" actually means

Riders nod along at "prepare" and then do nothing, because on its own it is not an instruction. So here is what I am asking for, and it is four things.

Balance. Is he carrying himself, or leaning? A horse falling in through the corner, or running slightly downhill, has nothing spare to give you. Fix the balance and the transition often makes itself.

Straightness. His hind feet should follow his front feet. A horse whose quarters are drifting will do the transition crookedly, because you have asked half a horse to change pace.

His attention. Is he listening, or looking at the gate? A horse who is somewhere else will be late, you will ask again harder, and now you have a rushed transition and a worried horse.

You. Sit up. Stop leaning forward at the thought of it. And breathe out, because a great many riders hold their breath in the stride before a transition, and that tightens everything they are sitting on. If you do nothing else from this article, do that one.

Four checks, three or four strides out. It takes longer to read than to do.

Treat the three or four as a starting point rather than a rule. It depends on the horse and on the day, and adjusting to the horse in front of you each ride is the real skill. As a basic, three or four is a good place to work from.

And prepare against something fixed. In a marked arena that is the letters, and the corner before the marker is where the work happens, which the dressage arena letters piece goes through. Schooling at home, put down two cones or a pole. You cannot practise timing without something to be on time for.

Upward transitions

The mistake in an upward transition is asking for speed instead of a change of pace. That is a subject of its own, and I have written it up in forward is not the same as fast.

The sequence itself is simple. Ride the last few strides of the pace you are in as though they matter, because they do. Get him straight. Sit up and gather yourself. Then ask once, lightly, and mean it.

If he answers, leave him alone. Riders often keep asking through the first few strides of the new pace, which teaches him the aid has no end, and that is how you end up needing a bigger leg. If he does not answer, follow up more clearly, then go back to the light ask next time.

Trot to canter is the same job with less room for error. Most poor canter departs are a balance problem two strides earlier rather than a bad aid: he is falling in, hurrying, or swinging his quarters out, and the canter has nowhere clean to start from. Set him up on a good line, keep the trot steady rather than faster, then ask.

Downward transitions, and why he falls on the forehand

This is the one riders find hardest, and it helps to know what is happening underneath you.

A horse already carries a good deal of his weight over his shoulders. When a rider wants to slow down, the instinct is to take a stronger contact and pull. The front end slows, the back end keeps coming, and the whole horse tips onto his shoulders. He lands heavily in the new pace and the rider calls it rough.

He did not do that to you. The front of him was asked to stop before the back of him was told to step under. The fix is not softer hands on their own, it is asking the hind legs to come underneath him before you ask for less.

Ride him forward into a downward transition. That sounds like nonsense the first time you hear it and makes sense the first time you feel it. You are not asking for speed. You are asking his hind legs to stay active and stepping under, so there is something back there to carry the weight.

Then ask with your seat and body first. Slow your own posting, stop following quite so much with your seat, sit tall. The rein is the last part of the conversation, not the first.

And think about where you are going, not what you are leaving. Think "walk", not "stop trotting". Riders who ride away from a pace get a horse who falls out of it. Riders who ride towards the next one get a horse who steps into it.

Then check: is he still in front of your leg? A downward transition should end with a horse ready to go again, not one who has switched off.

Transitions within the pace

All of that applies just as much to the transitions that do not change the pace at all: lengthening and shortening the stride, opening the canter up down the long side and gathering it again.

Most riders skip these, and they are the best training there is, because the horse cannot solve them by changing gait. He has to rebalance instead.

Same rule. Prepare, ask once, and ride the stride you want rather than pushing or pulling at the one you have. A shortening produced with the reins is a slower horse on his forehand. One produced from behind is collection in its earliest form. Start at walk, where it is easiest to feel.

How to practise without souring him

Transitions are the most useful exercise in flatwork and the easiest to overcook. A horse drilled through forty of them anticipates, then braces, then switches off, which is the opposite of what you wanted.

Small numbers, done properly. Half a dozen prepared transitions do more than thirty rushed ones. Quality is the whole point of the exercise.

Vary them. Always walk to trot at the same letter and he will learn the pattern and do it without you, which feels like progress and is not. Change the pace, the place and the direction.

Ride something else in between. A circle, a change of rein, a stretch on a long rein, a line of poles. That is not filler, it is what stops the session becoming a drill, and pole work at home has plenty you can put in the gaps.

Stop on a good one. When one felt genuinely balanced, walk away on a long rein and leave the subject for the day. Ending on the best one is how a horse learns what you were after.

And ask a horse who is ready to work. Sharp, balanced transitions in the first few minutes on a cold horse are unfair and the answers will be poor, which is one of the reasons the warm-up is for the horse and not just for you.

One honest note. If a horse who normally handles transitions comfortably has started struggling to rebalance, or has gone resistant about downward transitions in particular, do not school it harder. Read will not, or cannot?, and have that conversation with your vet rather than with me. I am a coach, and telling those two apart early is part of the job.

What it feels like when it works

The odd thing about a well prepared transition is how little there is to feel. No lurch, no scramble, no correction afterwards. He arrives in the new pace balanced, straight, still in front of your leg, and you carry on.

Riders ask me whether that means it was too easy. No. That is the thing you were trying to build.

Frequently asked questions

How many strides before should I prepare a transition? Three or four is a reasonable working answer, though it depends on the horse. The better question is whether you have finished preparing before you ask. If you are still fixing the balance at the moment of the ask, you started too late.

Why does my horse fall on the forehand in downward transitions? Almost always because the rein came first. The front end slows, the hind legs keep coming, and the weight tips forward. Ride him forward into the transition so the hind legs are stepping under, then ask with your seat and body before your hand.

Why does my horse trot faster instead of cantering? Because the ask arrived before he was balanced enough to answer it, so the only thing left was to hurry. Steady the trot, get him straight, then ask. A bigger aid on a horse who is already running produces a faster trot every time.

My transitions fall apart at a competition. Usually that is preparation being squeezed out by nerves: you tense, you stop breathing, you ask late, and he feels all of it. Practise the four checks until they are automatic.