How to… Teach Your Horse to Piaffe
DQs make the piaffe out to be this holy grail of dressage training, attainable by only a select few. Whatever! Teach your horse to piaffe today using our simple, step-by-step guide.
STEP 1: First things first, you need a whip. Tap your horse’s legs with the whip, one at a time, until he is so annoyed at you and your stupid whip that he starts picking up his legs “on cue.”
STEP 2: Many horses, when you aggravate the crap out of them, will try to run away from you. That’s why some people like to start their piaffe work in “the pillars,” which is a fancy word for cross-ties.
STEP THREE: Repeat steps 1/2, but with a rider on the horse’s back. See how, in this video, the horse is so fed up with getting his legs swatted at that he starts kicking out and prancing and it kind of looks like piaffe? That means you’re on the right track!
STEP FOUR: So far, so good. You’re horse is piaffing under saddle… but only when there’s a person standing three feet away menacingly holding a whip. How do you make the transition from a whip on the ground to a whip in the saddle? Easy! Tie a string and a carrot to it. When he goes to try to eat it, close the reins and apply leg.
STEP 5: By now, your horse has gotten the idea of what it is that you want–a perfect piaffe–and is ready to “piaffe it” like a champ!
See? It’s so easy!
Stay tuned for more episodes of “It’s Easy! How to…” coming soon! Check out episode 1, “How to… Train Your Horse to Jump Through Fire,” here.
Good luck with your piaffe training, and Go Riding!
- Send an email to wylie, the author of this post at wylie@horsenation.com
I was taking notes the whole way through — I’m so glad I finally know!!
Yeah, cat’s out of the bag I guess. We’re on to your secrets, Grand Prix dressage people!!!
this made me wonder if they use any of these together a horse started…you never know
OOOOooooh. If you put classical music as the background of your horrible “training” video, that’s CLASSICAL DRESSAGE!!! Lol.
Now wait a minute… some of this is for real, right? I really had no idea how Piaffe was taught, but then I watched the Colbert video, and saw the whip tapping the mare’s butt, so I thought, “A-HA!” The only thing I didn’t like here (providing the carrot video IS a joke) was the between the pillars bit, which reminds me a little too much of Mexican “dancing horses.” But maybe when pillars are used correctly it’s not bad? Wish someone would enlighten me!
Also–take an excited cow horse and put her before a herd of cattle without loping her down. INSTANT PIAFFE. You’re right, it’s easy!
Riderwriter, piaffe really is that easy, jokes aside. Piaffe is not an upper level move only, you can teach a youngster piaffe, even before it’s started. In Ellen Schuthof-Leismeister’s book, TRAINING HORSES IN-HAND,she shows training piaffe in-hand. In Riz Ilyas’s DVD PIAFFE REVEALED, he shows training piaffe in-hand and under saddle, and it is not that hard. Riz learned training piaffe from my instructor, Carol McArdle, who learned it from Phillip Karl, of whom Carol is a student.
Piaffe is not only an upper level movement, but a very good supplying exercise and strength-building exercise, good for any horse, not just the expensive WBs. I’m sure that Carol would teach me piaffe for my Lusitano mare, if we didn’t have many other steps to take first.
Riz makes piaffe so easy on his DVD, as does Ellen in her book. Both would be great places to start, and you’d be doing piaffe soon.