April 16, 2016 
You ride out of a turn away from the out gate and see a forward distance to a triple combination. You close your legs on the horse. But he’s slow to react. Two strides more and the distance you saw is gone. You get to the jump wrong and take a flyer that ends up scaring the horse. Your class and his confidence shot—all because of a moment’s lag time.
Responsiveness to the leg is critical to effective riding, says 2012 World Cup Champion Rich Fellers of Wilsonville, Oregon. And it starts with walk–trot transitions.
“Flat work is the biggest focus of my whole program,” says the US Olympian.
Rich Fellers
“I typically do walk–trot transitions at the beginning of a flat session to establish sensitivity to the leg. Of the basic characteristics of good jumper carriage, there is nothing else, in my experience, that I can create right out of the hole. I can’t create really high-quality animation. I can’t create high-quality elasticity. I can’t get perfect straightness. I can’t get perfect elevation in my horse’s frame. But I can get sensitivity,” says Fellers.
“Until I get sensitivity, I don’t go onto anything else.”
Step 1: Be consistent and light
Riding is 99% feeling for the rider. When I’m sitting on the horse there is contact; my lower leg is touching the horse. It’s not squeezing.
When I close my lower leg with my heels down and I feel the inside of my calf muscle start to flatten or compress a little bit from the pressure, I know the horse feels it. If I feel it, they feel it. That is pretty much the limit of leg pressure on upward transitions.
Step 2: Calibrate to leg pressure
If the horse does not respond, then I add a cluck to help remind or wake him up. If the horse still doesn’t respond by moving forward into the trot, I give him a little smack with my stick behind my inside leg.
I do not increase the leg pressure. Ever. That’s what I call calibrating a horse to leg pressure. Light leg, cluck, stick—that’s my method. It’s always the same. It never changes.
Step 3: Discipline evasive responses
Very spoiled horses sometimes buck up when you go to the stick. If that happens, I use my stick harder a second time or a third time, whatever it takes to make the horse forward with their hind end down and pushing forward. That’s the reaction I want.
Step 4: Step off the spurs
I never use my spurs for upward transitions. That’s just my rule in my program. I only use spurs for acceleration and animation once I’m in gear, if you will.
If I want to animate the walk, I might use a little bit of spur and close my fingers to try to put a little bit of energy in the walk. If I want to accelerate from a posting trot to an extended trot and the horse doesn’t lengthen when I close my legs, I might prick him with my spur. I animate using my spurs. I accelerate using my spurs. I don’t use my spurs for upward transitions.
Rich Fellers (USA) riding Flexible
©Kit Houghton/FEI
Step 5: Focus on forwardness
For the downward transition, I don’t put a lot of pressure on the horse’s mouth with my hands. I think more about keeping the horse forward through the downward transition from the trot to the walk, especially at the beginning of a flat session.
As the horse gets its blood up later in the ride, they are more forward, more energetic, more lively. At that point, I put more emphasis on the pressure response to my hands.
Step 6: Stay lively
Even through the downward transition, it’s very important that the horse stays lively. I don’t want the horse to ever go behind my leg and lose their forwardness.
Early in the ride, I like the horse to take some time to go from a working posting trot to a working walk. I don’t want it to just happen immediately. I want them to jog a little and collect a bit and take a few short, springy steps before they walk. With some horses, I even grip or squeeze a little bit with my legs through the downward transition so they don’t drop too fast.
As soon as the horse hits the walk, I encourage subtly or allow a little bit with a light contact so that the horse stays very forward in that first walk stride. I want them on their toes and ready to make the next upward transition.
Step 7: Frame is a secondary result
I’m all about sensitivity. I never put much focus on the horse’s frame. I like horses very straight. I like them very down and pushing behind. I like my horses up in front, light and athletic and elevated.
As far as keeping the horse round and in frame, for me, that just comes naturally with all my horses through good power. It’s never an emphasis. It’s a secondary result of the basic primary flat work.
Step 8: Ride the hind end
I think the biggest problem in flat work is that most people ride the head and the neck and that is totally backwards. The more you focus on the head and the neck, the less push, the less swing, the less energy is created in the hind legs and that’s where everything comes from. That’s the motor.
Everybody knows that, but people don’t seem to think about the back end on the horse. They think about the head and the neck a lot.
When I have any distraction whatsoever from the horse’s head and neck, whether it’s being crooked or low or throwing its head, the first thing I think about is pushing more behind. That usually resolves the secondary issue of the horse being erratic with its head and neck.
Step 9: Repeat until you get the result
I do as many transitions as it takes to get the horse very responsive. If I do four or five and my horse is going straight, I might move on to some other exercise. I might do 20 if he hasn’t. I don’t move on with anything in my flat work until I get the response I want from the exercise I’m working on.
Step 10: Maintain sensitivity
Once I establish sensitivity, I maintain it and I recheck it throughout the ride. If at anytime I feel like I’m losing sensitivity to my leg, I go back to transitions. If the horse feels heavy or strong in my hand, I go back to transitions and I stay with transitions until I get sensitivity. You have to have it and you have to keep it—otherwise, you’re handicapped. Plain and simple.
