Part I: Why is it important?
One of the first things beginning riders learn are posting diagonals. This is the first time a student is asked to be aware of, and react to, the position of the horse's legs within the stride.
In many cases, this is also the last time riders are asked to think about the horse's feet beyond basic tempo and direction.
This is a huge mistake and all too common amongst riders of all disciplines.
Timing is not only for professional or upper level riders. It is for everyone who wants to be an effective rider, regardless of discipline.
A horse cannot respond to an aid to engage the hind leg when that leg is on the ground. The horse also cannot respond to an aide to half halt when the affected leg is in the air.
Another common mistake is to ask a horse to move laterally when the affected leg is on the ground and cannot yield to the aide.
Often, you will see horses trailing their haunches in the leg yield, getting stuck in the canter pirouette, getting uneven in extended trots, or not half halting smoothly at the end of extensions. These issues all have origins in timing.
Many times you will notice a horse's gaits become corrupted or destroyed over time. Yet another timing issue.
These problems cannot be fixed by kicking, spurring or bigger bits. That will only sacrifice the quality of the horse. Only correct timing will solve the problem in a way that preserves and increases softness and quality of gaits!
The FIRST thing a rider should learn once they can go, stop and steer is the timing in which to ask the horse to do those things. It MUST be an ingrained habit to ONLY ask the horse for a transition, movement, or reaction to an aide at the moment in which he can respond.
ALL aides have a specific moment they can be effective and they are useless at any other time.
Once a rider can execute timing effectively, riding becomes a more logical endeavour. Without timing the aides properly, movements are little more than hoping and praying for a good result.
It takes a lot of work to master timing. The rider's timing skills needs to be practiced until they happen without thinking.
I have a cute little horse in training who was disunited (one lead in front, the other in the back) in every single upward canter transition. Even at liberty! He simply never learned what comes naturally to most horses.
Understanding timing aids allowed me to fix this issue by teaching him to hold the outside hind on the ground and engage the inside hind. Through many exercises, lateral work, and logical process, today he has united canter transitions because he understands the half halt and driving aids.
It would have been easy to put him in a larger/stronger bit or spurs and try to force him but neither of those things would have educated him to the point that his transitions would have been united. He would have ended up shelved as a horse that was too difficult to fix or he would have become dangerous and sold when he got upset and scared over the inevitable frustration and anger of the rider.
This is why I believe that any horse can be improved with knowledge and no horse is a bad horse. The real education comes from fixing less than perfect animals.