What does this mean, has he lost a group of friends? Does he no longer like me?

Falling out when riding means a couple of things. The most common and correct use of this term is when the horse being ridden on a line, has his shoulders to the outside of this line with the neck bent too much to the inside. The horse is curled too much to the inside through the whole body. So the horse is drifting out more and more, leading with the shoulder.

Sometimes “falling out” is used to describe when a horse swings his hind quarters to the outside. I like to describe it as exactly that. The horse is swinging his quarters, which is different to falling out. This is normally a suppleness problem; the horse is stiff through the body and does not want to bend.

 Falling out occurs when the horse has too much bend to the inside. The correction is to straighten the horse to the outside aids. Use a more supporting outside rein. This will need to be applied until the horse only has enough bend for the line he is riding. The outside leg will need to be applied stronger so the horse continues on the line you want. Be careful that the outside leg does not come too far back when applying the stronger aid. This might result in the horse bending the hind quarters more around the inside leg, making him more bent, not straighter. The inside leg continues to encourage the horse forward and provide a support for the inside bend of the body. If you are still having problems bringing your horse to the line you wish to ride, you can use an opening inside rein. To help guide the horse, this requires the inside hand to open away from the horse’s neck, out by 6 to 10cm, to lead in the direction you wish. This should only be needed for a couple of strides at a time.

     A half circle and return is ridden as a half inward circle followed

     by riding a diagonal line back to the long side changing the rein.

Since a horse will mostly fall out at a certain point you can prepare for this prior to coming to that point. These incidents are often behavioural in the beginning, for example, as the horse goes past the gate or the part of the arena close to other horses. But soon these can become a learnt response, falling out whenever he does not want to do something.

One school figure to help falling out problems would be half 10m or 15m circles and return, repeating this on the other side of the arena and continuing to ride this as mirror image exercise. By riding the half circles you encourage bend and then by riding the straight line to the long side you make sure the horse is straightening. By changing rein continually the rider makes sure inside and outside aids are being changed. Therefore, not creating resistances and stopping your horse from falling out.