You leave the arena on a long rein at A and to say you feel a little disheartened is putting things mildly… Dressage can be difficult, there’s no doubt about it, however what tends to stack the odds even more so against a good dressage score is the fact that many riders see it as ‘boring’; a means to an…
You halt, salute, and exit the arena from your latest dressage test. Your best ‘free walk on a long rein’. Now, your thoughts turn to your scores; how well your dressage test went… That one circle may have looked a little more on the triangular side… But, on the plus side, you aced the canter leads each time and you’re…
You have spent the past few months diligently improving your young horse’s standard of education. A lot of time invested on the basics of moving forward in a balanced rhythmic way. He is happy, you are happy and the next natural progression is to ask for the canter. However, it seems all those carefully cultivated hours in the arena fly…
Left – Right – Left – Right – Left – Right… The horse’s head turning one way and then back the other. Every single stride. A misguided attempt by the rider to achieve ‘on the bit’. Have you ever seen this? The horse looks like he is auditioning for the role of the bobblehead in the back window of…
How many times have you asked your horse to leg yield, moving forward yet sideways, only for it to become frustratingly obvious a few steps into the moment that what is happening underneath you is definitely not what you had in mind?! Asking our horses to leg yield is one of the first introductions they will have to lateral movement.…
Do you find that when you ask your horse to perform haunches in or travers, the forward movement tends to get a little ‘stuck’? It feels as though he is on his tippy toes, pottering along with no inclination to get to the other end of the arena?! The Benefits of Haunches In Haunches in is a lateral movement that…
