The Training Scale, when followed progressively, ultimately ends in balance in dressage.
Collection is perhaps the greatest expression of balance: the horse is able to organise its body, carry more weight behind, remain light and mobile in front, and respond to the rider without losing rhythm, suppleness, connection or impulsion.
Balance allows every element of the Training Scale to come to fruition.
And yet, mysteriously, balance itself is missing from the Training Scale.
I believe this is an important omission.
Trainers and researchers such as Philippe Karl, Manolo Mendez and Dr Karin Leibbrandt have approached training from somewhat different directions, but their work repeatedly returns to the importance of the horse first being able to organise and balance its body.
These ideas are not entirely new. They have roots in classical approaches to training, particularly within the French Classical tradition, while modern research into equine biomechanics increasingly gives us ways to understand why balance has such a profound effect on the horse’s movement.
The fundamental idea is simple:
Balance must come before everything else.
Without balance, a horse cannot reliably maintain rhythm, tempo or regularity because he must continually speed up, slow down, shorten or lengthen his stride to catch his balance.
Without balance, the horse cannot be truly supple because parts of the body must tense, brace or compensate to prevent him from losing equilibrium.
Without balance, the horse cannot maintain a consistent connection with the rider because he may need to lean on the bit, duck behind the contact, hang on one rein or otherwise use the rider’s hand to help stabilise himself.
Without balance, the horse cannot produce true impulsion because the energy generated by the hindquarters cannot travel efficiently through the body while the horse is simultaneously trying to stabilise himself.
Without balance, the horse cannot become truly straight because he will continue to use his natural asymmetries to compensate.
And without balance, the horse cannot develop collection because collection requires the horse to progressively redistribute his weight and carry more of himself through the hindquarters.
Balance isn’t simply the result of the Training Scale.
It influences every level of it.
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So Why Aren’t Horses Already Balanced?
The answer is that, for the purposes of being a horse, they are.
A horse in his natural environment is extremely well adapted to the things he needs to do.
He can graze for hours with his head down. He can walk over uneven ground. He can turn quickly, accelerate suddenly and flee from danger. His body is organised remarkably well for survival.
But the balance required to live successfully as a horse is not necessarily the same balance required to carry a rider and perform dressage.
Horses naturally carry approximately 60–70% of their weight over the forehand. This makes perfect sense for an animal whose head and neck extend forward from the body and whose daily life involves spending considerable amounts of time grazing.
Horses also have natural asymmetries.
Like humans, individual horses tend to find some movements and directions easier than others. One shoulder may be more mobile. One direction may feel easier to turn. One hind limb may push more effectively while the other carries more effectively.
In a natural environment, these asymmetries are not necessarily a problem.
A horse can graze, move with the herd and escape danger perfectly successfully while being naturally asymmetric.
Under saddle, however, the equation changes.
We place additional weight on the horse’s back and then ask him to travel on circles, negotiate corners, perform transitions, move laterally, lengthen and shorten his stride, jump, collect and perform increasingly complex movements while remaining relaxed and responsive.
The horse must therefore learn a new kind of balance: the balance required of a ridden athlete.
Natural asymmetry that caused little difficulty in the paddock can now interfere with the horse’s ability to perform correctly and may contribute to uneven loading of the limbs and body.
The purpose of training is not simply to make the horse perform movements.
It is to progressively teach the horse how to organise his body so those movements can be performed in balance.
What Is Balance in Dressage?
It can be useful to think about the ridden horse’s balance in several different directions or planes.
Rather than viewing a horse simply as either “balanced” or “unbalanced”, we can ask where the imbalance is occurring.
For practical training purposes, we can consider four aspects:
- Vertical balance
- Horizontal balance
- Lateral balance
- Diagonal balance
These interact constantly.
An imbalance in one can create or exaggerate an imbalance somewhere else.
The good news is that the reverse is also true:
Improving one aspect of the horse’s balance can help improve another.
Vertical Balance
Think of the horse falling inward or outward on a circle.
The horse may lean through the body rather than remaining organised over his feet. The shoulders may drift in or out, the ribcage may displace, and the horse may use speed or the rider’s reins to prevent himself from losing balance.
A balanced circle is therefore not simply about following the correct geometric line.
The horse must remain balanced on that line.
Horizontal Balance
Horizontal balance concerns the horse’s distribution of weight from front to back.
A horse that falls heavily onto the forehand is horizontally imbalanced.
This doesn’t mean that the goal is simply to make the front end lighter by lifting the horse’s head. The horse must gradually learn to organise the entire body so that the hindquarters can participate more effectively in carrying and propelling him.
As training progresses, the horse develops an increasing ability to redistribute weight toward the hindquarters while remaining forward, relaxed and connected.
This progression eventually contributes to collection.
Lateral Balance
Lateral balance concerns the horse’s ability to organise himself evenly from side to side.
Imagine a horse that leg-yields easily to the left but becomes stuck, crooked or resistant when asked to move to the right.
That difference gives us information.
One side of the horse’s body may be more mobile or supple than the other. One limb may accept weight more readily. One shoulder may escape more easily.
Lateral work allows us not only to identify these differences, but progressively improve them.
Diagonal Balance
Diagonal balance considers the relationship between the horse’s diagonal pairs and the way forces travel through the body.
A horse may, for example, find shoulder-in relatively easy in one direction but struggle significantly in the other.
That difficulty may not be isolated to one shoulder or one hind leg. It may reflect how the horse coordinates and transfers load across a diagonal line through the body.
Looking at balance diagonally can therefore help explain asymmetries that don’t make sense when we consider only “left versus right.”
Balance Is Interconnected
The difficult part is that these forms of balance don’t exist independently.
A horse that falls inward on a circle may compensate by accelerating.
A horse that is heavy on the forehand may become more difficult to bend.
A horse that struggles to load one hind limb may displace the opposite shoulder.
A horse that cannot organise a diagonal pair effectively may struggle with lateral movements in one direction.
One imbalance creates another.
But this is also what makes balance such a powerful training concept.
When we improve one area, other pieces can begin falling into place.
A horse that becomes better balanced on a circle may suddenly maintain rhythm more easily.
A horse that learns to control the shoulders may become straighter.
A horse that becomes more symmetrical laterally may develop a more even rein contact.
Rather than treating every problem as an isolated fault, balance encourages us to look at how the horse is organising his entire body.
How Do We Bring a Horse Into Balance?
Balance is developed progressively.
It isn’t something we manufacture by holding the horse in a particular outline.
Instead, exercises should help the horse discover a more efficient way of organising himself.
Useful exercises include:
- In-hand work including flexions and mobilisation
Simple in-hand work can help identify stiffness and asymmetry before adding the weight and influence of the rider. - Shoulder-shift on a straight line
Teaching the horse to reposition the shoulders without losing forward movement begins developing control of the forehand. - Shoulder-shift on a circle
This adds bend and the challenge of maintaining balance on a curved line. - Weaving and zig-zag exercises
Frequent changes of direction encourage the horse to reorganise his body repeatedly rather than locking into one posture. - Figure eights
Changes of bend reveal differences between the two sides and encourage the horse to move smoothly from one balance to another. - Leg-yield
Leg-yield develops lateral mobility, body awareness and the horse’s ability to move sideways while maintaining rhythm and forward movement. - Shoulder-fore
Shoulder-fore begins to address natural crookedness while remaining relatively accessible for the developing horse. - Shoulder-in
Shoulder-in develops greater control of the shoulders, engagement of the inside hind and the horse’s ability to carry himself while moving on multiple tracks. - Forehand yield / turn on the forehand
Used appropriately, this can teach the horse to move the hindquarters independently from the shoulders. - Transitions
Well-ridden transitions require the horse to reorganise his balance without falling forward, rushing, bracing or relying on the rider’s hand. - Spiral circles
Gradually decreasing and increasing the circle challenges the horse to adjust bend, balance and loading while maintaining rhythm.
The important point isn’t simply to perform these exercises.
The exercise is the tool.
Improved balance is the objective.
How Do We Know When the Horse Is in Balance?
Balance is something the rider learns to feel.
Some useful indicators include:
- The horse can move forward, down and out into a longer neck without falling onto the forehand.
- The rein contact feels even rather than one rein becoming consistently heavier.
- The horse can remain balanced on the chosen circle or line without falling inward or outward.
- Rhythm, suppleness and connection remain consistent through changes of direction and exercises.
- Lateral bend becomes more even in both directions.
- The horse feels lighter through the forehand without becoming hollow or disconnected.
- The rider feels less need to physically hold, steer or support the horse.
And perhaps the simplest description:
It feels like flying a kite.
You are connected to it, and you can influence it, but you are not physically holding it up.
The horse is carrying himself.
Balance as the Foundation of the Training Scale
This is ultimately why I believe balance deserves to be considered alongside the traditional elements of the Training Scale.
Rhythm depends upon balance.
Suppleness depends upon balance.
Connection depends upon balance.
Impulsion depends upon balance.
Straightness depends upon balance.
Collection is an increasingly sophisticated expression of balance.
But the relationship is not entirely one-way.
As rhythm improves, balance can improve. As the horse becomes more supple, he gains more options for organising his body. Better connection allows energy and information to travel more effectively between horse and rider. Improved straightness allows the limbs to load more symmetrically.
The Training Scale is therefore perhaps better understood not as a rigid staircase, but as an interconnected system.
And running through that entire system is balance.
Balance isn’t something we wait to achieve at the end of training.
It is something we develop from the beginning and continue refining for the rest of the horse’s ridden life.
