Why Adding More Energy Won't Fix Your Contact Problems

By Brett Parbery — World Equestrian Games Top 10 rider, Performance Riders co-founder and Gold Program coach

Quick Version: When a horse drops behind the contact or backs off the leg, more impulsion rarely fixes it. Energy amplifies whatever frame the horse is already carrying, so a faulty connection just gets faster and tighter. The fix is to sort out the connection first, on the simplest lines you can find, and only then add the power back in.

I get sent the same video constantly. A rider has been told their horse needs to be more forward, more in front of the leg, more "uphill." So they add leg. They add energy.

And the picture gets worse, not better!

The horse curls behind the bridle, or it braces and pokes its nose, or any other manner of contact problem. The rider is doing exactly what they were told, and it's backfiring.

Here is the thing I want you to sit with before you add one more ounce of leg. Energy is an amplifier. It does not create a connection. It takes the connection you already have, good or bad, and turns the volume up. If the underlying frame is hollow or tight or evasive, adding impulsion just gives you a louder version of the same problem. You can't power your way into throughness. You have to build it, and you build it slowly.

Why does adding impulsion make a backed-off horse worse?

Think about what is actually happening when a horse backs off when he feels the contact. It has decided, somewhere along the line, that the rein means "slow down" or "stop".

Now you add power to that. The horse still believes the rein means stop. So the extra energy has nowhere good to go. It comes out as tension, as rushing, as a horse that gets quicker in the legs but no rounder in the back. You have given a confused horse more to be confused with.

In the way I teach it, the rein is not a brake. The bit is how I talk to the horse about its posture, how I ask it to let go of its back and carry itself. Stop is a transition, and a transition is ridden from the seat and the voice, not the hand unless necessary. Until the horse genuinely understands that distinction, every bit of impulsion you add is being poured into a leaky bucket.

What "yield and draw" really means

The connection I am chasing has two halves, and most riders only ride the first one. The horse yields to the contact, meaning it softens to rein pressure rather than leaning or bracing against it.

Then, and this is the half people miss, it draws forward into that contact, reaching its neck out and down into a relaxed top line because the contact has become a pleasant place to be.

Yield without draw gives you a horse that gets light by getting short and tight, hiding behind the bridle. Draw without yield gives you a horse that leans and runs onto the forehand. You need both. You set a boundary with steady resistance, not a pull, and you reward the moment the horse reaches into it.

When that relaxed top line shows up, something important changes underneath you. The hindquarters can start to carry the horse rather than just shove it along. That carrying is where real impulsion lives, the kind that makes a horse feel adjustable and uphill rather than fast and flat. This is why I am so stubborn about connection coming first. It is the thing that lets every other quality become possible.

Why "go slow to go fast" beats drilling the movement

When a horse is backing off, the instinct is to go and practise the hard thing, the lateral work, the lengthening, the change, the place where the problem shows up most. I want you to do almost the opposite.

The problem you see in the medium trot or the half pass is not really a medium trot or half pass problem. It is a connection problem wearing a costume. If the horse drops the contact coming out of lateral work, the lateral work exposed the weakness, it did not cause it. So I take riders back to the simplest lines I can find, a twenty metre circle, a quiet diagonal, ordinary transitions, and we rebuild the way of going there, where there is nothing complicated to hide behind.

It feels like going backwards. It is not. Consolidating a correct way of going on easy lines is exactly what sets a horse up to handle harder work later without falling apart. I would rather a rider own a genuinely honest connection at a simple level than fake their way through a movement two levels up. Go slow now and you go faster in the long run. I have never once regretted spending a week on fundamentals, and I have often regretted skipping them.

What about evasions like rushing or fussing with the bit?

Some horses do not just back off quietly, they find an active evasion. They get busy in the mouth or try to slip the tongue over the bit. They nod and snatch the contact away after a moment of effort.

The mistake is to treat the evasion as the main event and start fighting it directly. An evasion is information. It is the horse telling you which question it finds hardest to answer honestly. My job, and yours, is to make the correct answer the easy one, and the evasion the slightly less available one, then reward the instant the horse offers something heading in the right direction. Sometimes that involves a sensible piece of gear to gently close a door the horse keeps trying to open, but the gear is never the fix on its own. The fix is always teaching a clearer answer and rewarding the warm one.

The order of operations that actually works

If you take one idea from this, let it be the order. Connection, then carriage, then power. A relaxed, honest top line first. The hindquarters learning to carry second. The impulsion you have been so eager to add comes last, and when it finally arrives it amplifies something worth amplifying.

Riders who reverse that order spend years frustrated, adding energy to a frame that cannot hold it. Riders who respect it often find that the forwardness they were chasing shows up almost on its own, because a horse that is connected and carrying wants to go.

FAQ

Is my horse behind the leg or behind the contact? They often travel together but they are not the same. Behind the leg is about responsiveness to the go aid. Behind the contact is about whether the horse reaches honestly into the rein. A horse can be in front of the leg and still curl behind the bridle, and a lazy horse can still lean on your hand. Diagnose both before you decide what to change.

Won't slowing down just let my horse get out of the work? No, because slowing the work down is not the same as letting the horse switch off. You still expect the horse to be in front of the leg and honest in the contact on a twenty metre circle. You are reducing the difficulty of the line, not the standard of the connection.

Does this only apply to upper level horses? Not at all. This is arguably more important at the lower levels, because the way of going you build now is the foundation everything else sits on. The principle is identical whether you are starting a green horse or schooling changes. A backed-off connection holds back a first level horse exactly as much as a Grand Prix one.

My instructor told me to ride more forward. Are they wrong? Probably not. Forward is usually part of the answer. The point is sequencing. Forward into a connection the horse understands is gold. Forward into a connection the horse is avoiding just speeds up the avoidance. Same advice, very different result depending on what you fix first.

How do I know the connection is genuinely better and not just quieter? Look for the draw, not just the give. A genuinely connected horse reaches into the contact with a relaxed, swinging top line and stays there through transitions. A horse that has merely gone quiet often gets shorter in the neck and tighter in the back. Lightness that comes from softness is the goal. Lightness that comes from hiding is not.

Why does my horse drop the contact right after a good moment? Usually because the effort cost it something and it is taking a break. That nod or snatch after lateral work or a lengthening is the horse releasing the connection the instant the pressure to maintain it eases. The answer is rarely punishment, it is keeping the picture honest through and immediately after the harder work so the horse learns the connection does not get to clock off.

How long does it take to rebuild a connection? Longer than you want and shorter than you fear. Some horses change feel within a session once the rider stops pulling and starts asking for yield and draw honestly. Embedding it so it holds under pressure is a matter of weeks of consistent, patient work on simple lines. There is no shortcut, but there is a reliable road.

About the author: Brett Parbery is an Australian Grand Prix dressage rider who has represented Australia at the World Equestrian Games and competed internationally at the highest level. He is co-founder of Performance Riders and a coach in the Gold Program, where his training system underpins the dressage pathway.

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