2021 goal planning Part 1

Jumping into 2021 like wooo we got this! Download your calendar and listen to this training to plan out your year and start kicking goals.

Horses are an emotional and sentient being

I remember years ago having a riding peer try to tell me horses don't feel sad because they can't cry.....

Say What!?! No way was I believing that.

Just because we can't understand or measure what our horses are feeling doesn't mean they can't feel!

Horses have all the things they need to be emotional, they have the areas of the brain and the chemicals that communicate feelings just as we do.

The one area of the brain that is smaller than ours is the frontal lobe which is responsible for rational thinking and problem solving, so if anything horses rely on their emotional interaction with their environment far more than their intellectual.

This makes for an important consideration in training and the one thing we discuss a lot with our facebook group, the stronger bond community, is that how we make our horse feel when we are training them is key to how well or how poorly they respond to our training. A horse that feel safe, secure in its environment and relationship with us, is confident in itself, trusts in us, enjoys learning and movement feels good is going to work far more reliably.

"This sounds well and good", I hear you say,"but easier said than done!"

And I so hear you, there are so many times we watch back on the videos we use for our membership trainings and go “oops, missed that’!

But the important thing is to start with this as our goal post, because when we start here and we are aware and listening our horses communication of its needs become so quiet and subtle because guess what? It actually causes them stress as well to get into those big "dangerous" behaviours and argue with us. They would much prefer to work together in unison as well!

And it's not about them walking over the top of you, pushing you around. We still expect you to set clear, consistent boundaries that you follow through on (FYI your horse likes this as well) but we do it in a way that we can check in on our horses and they can tell us if they are ready or if they need some help processing their emotions.

Want our favourite tool (actually a couple of our favourite tools) that we use to deescalate our horses big scary behaviours? We share them in our training video in our stronger bond workshop which is coming up again in February! Want to join us?

Managing your Inner Critic (video

When you are working with your horse, sometimes your inner voice can be over-critical -- even more so than those people that have their own opinion. Understand a little about the why, how and what you can do to try to manage that criticism (note: we recommend you seek professional advice if you are suffering depression, escaping violence or need additional support - we are not therapists, just sharing some skills to try).

How understanding your horses gait will encourage a longer ridden career

Have you been wondering why we are so passionate about analysing horses gaits?

When we look at the horse for the quality of soundness, regularity and evenness of stride first and foremost before the frame we have the best chance of creating a horse that enjoys being ridden and can have a long, healthy riding career.

When we focus on frame without gait we compromise the horses soundness and quality of movement.

If you are interested in learning more about having an analysis for your own horse, click the button below.

What is a gait analysis?

So many times in my riding career, when I was out and about competing, I’d hear lots of the same things:

• Horse needs to be rounder;

• Deeper frame;

• More bend;

• Get them off your leg;

• Ride with more forwardness.

And while these do go a long way in helping our horses develope, it we focus purely on these as our gold standard, it means that we end up compromising our horses:

• soundness,

• quality of gait,

• longevity of riding career,

• competitive potential, and

• overall comfort when being ridden.

I have seen a number of horses developed to these “gold standards”, and ended up watching their strides shorten & become irregular, to the point of causing the horse to become unsound and causing long term lameness issues.

I have even seen horses that have had to be euthanased because their quality of life has significantly reduced due to developing them under these “gold standards”.

Just because a horse is in a rounded frame or on the bit, doesn’t mean it is working soundly!

How then, you ask, can I ensure my horse is working with and for soundness? How can I make sure I am riding my horse in a way that will help protect their riding career longevity?

That is where the gait analysis comes in.

The gait analysis can spot:

• how much our riding is interfering with the quality of the horses movement and their overall soundness;

• an indication of what lameness issues are most likely to come up in our horses future if they continue to work in the same way;

• shows us how we can change their exercise program so that we can not ony ride them for soundness but increase their expression of movement; and

• it can show us what exercises to revisit when the training plateaus, so we can revisit and then continue the progression through the training scale.

At Equestrian Movement, we actually strive to ride horses in a way that the horse itself WANTS to be ridden, and that the action of riding and movement FEELS good.

When the quality of how we ride is judged on head carriage instead of self carriage, quite often we end up seeing horses that are, at best, ridden in discomfort, and at worst, ridden in pain and in a way that they will break down and have to retired or meet an untimely end to their life.

The purpose of a gait analysis is to keep us accountable - that the riding is happening FOR the horse, not to the horse.

So if you want to take steps towards a horse that is sound, happy and working really well in self carriage, click the image below to view our virtual gait analysis package.

Your horse will thank you for it.

How your seat position impacts your horse

Feel what your horse is thinking when riding

When our horse's personality impacts their training

Have you ever had a situation where you were working with a horse and thought,

wow, this horse is totally different to the horses I am used to.

Perhaps you are leasing a friends horse while yours is on break. Or it could be that you have chosen to purchase a second horse. Maybe you have started at a riding school to get in some extra skills while your own horse is growing, much like I have been.

It is at this stage you realise, all horses are not equal!

• They don’t come with the same, preset buttons trained in

• They don’t exhibit the same reaction to the same stimulus

• I will admit thought, they do seem to have the same tendencies to get into trouble…

SHOCK! HORROR! GASP!

Ok, so you probably already knew this or realised it to some extent. What you probably haven’t realised is that using the EXACT SAME TRAINING APPROACH may, at it’s best, fail; at it’s worst, end up with you in hospital.

A number of things will determine how your horse learns, but none is more crucial than a horse’s default personality.

• All the tricks of the world trained in won’t alter their default response to stress significantly

• Trauma or pain will tend to exacerbate their default behaviour

• Maturity and enducation will tend to mellow their default behaviour

This personality is there EVERY SINGLE MINUTE we spend with our horse, whether they show it loudly or subtly. It is up to us to understand their default personality and support their unique emotional needs when pushed.

Using this default behaviour, Katie and I put together the Trainability Scale, a part of the Training Trainability Program.

The Trainability Scale looks at the three default reactions of Fight, Flight or Freeze, and puts it together with the horse’s level of responsivity (i.e. do they over-react or become ignorant and passive).

When we compare where the horses sit within these areas, we can easily see what behaviours the horse may escalate towards, and then understand how we can tailor our approach to help these horses work calmly, confidentally, but still ENGAGE in their training.

How can you learn more?

Register your interest for the next round of Training trainability enrolments by clicking here.

Can’t wait? Our mini course Opening Communications, shares some more insights and will give you a taste of what is available in Training Trainability.

Are you filling your horse's emotional needs?

We talk a lot in the human world about filling our cups but do you know how to fill your horses emotional cup?

Every time we work our horses we are creating stress.

That stress can either influence them positively and help them grow and develop or it can influence them negatively and they can develop stress associated vices like crib biting or behavioural issues associated with fear and frustration. 

The way that we structure our training sessions should work to create just the right amount of stress that allows them to grow and develop their cognitive skills, emotional range and physical skills. We can do this by giving our horses a tool to connect back in with us to let us know if we are creating too much stress.

When we open this pathway to communication our horses start licking.... a lot!!! And I often find they need a good licking session before we get started to connect and fill their cup and to break up the training session as we go.

Often if they are pushed to the far end of their stress management skills this licking becomes nipping. The nipping is them asking us to back off and be more respectful of the pressure of our asks. 

Having this conversation with our horses empowers them to have more control in the training session over what is done to them which builds mutual trust and respect and in turn improves true willingness instead of submission. 

What is the biggest mistake we can make when training?

What is the biggest error we make with our horses?

One of the biggest human errors I believe that we make with our horses in training is expecting a certain task is achieved to our expectations. That success is only valid if the horse performs to a particular, pre-determined level.

Going in to a training session with this as our goal posts is a sure fire way to get ourselves in arguments with our horses, turn our horses sour and get stuck in our training. Or even worse create big, dangerous behavioural problems.

Having a task achieved to our expectations doesn't factor in whether our horse is trying, giving us yeses or nos or is an active willing participant in our training.

It doesn't tease out whether our horses understand or can do what we're asking or if they have an underlying issue that needs addressing.

Rather than setting our goal posts to whether or not we achieve a certain task to our expectations we should be structuring our training session around our horses yeses. When our horse consecutively says yes to our ask we are setting our standards and rewarding for willingness and their active engagement in our training session.

Long term this means that we don't need loads of pressure for big challenging asks, because we've already geared our horses to be agreeable with what we are asking rather than getting the yeses through intense pressure and stress.

It also means we can trouble shoot the “no” before it becomes a bigger problem.

A lot of horses have legitimate reasons for their no’s, and when we address them we can unravel some big behavioural issues and solve them quickly so that our horse is a lot happier to work with us.

Would you like to learn more about how to create a happy horse under saddle and in work? Sign up for the free training Help your horse love riding again.

The common denominator in all horse training methods - and when it goes wrong

No matter what your preferred style (or your horse’s preferred style) of training is, they all have something in common:

we are always moving them away from something they don't want (pressure or withholding of the treat) towards something they do want (release of pressure, treat or another form of emotional motivation).

When they get the thing they do want they get a happy hormone hit for task achievement. It is ours and their own reward system for recognising they've done something good.

The clearer we are at acknowledging the behaviour we want and reinforcing it, the bigger the happy hormone hit and the more willing our horses become to try again (for a certain period of time).

This isn't without its own problems.

The process of finding the answer and not getting it cause the opposite of happy hormones. The blocking of achieving a task is the cause of frustration and quite often it's us that's responsible for handing out rewards so that frustration can get directed towards us. 

The bigger happy hormone hit our horses get for task achievement, the stronger the feeling of frustration when they don't find the answer - and even more so if they think they have given the right answer but we withhold the reward because we think it wasn't a good enough effort. This withholding of reward can move our horses out of frustration into aggression if we are working with a horse of that temperament type.

However we choose to reinforce wanted behaviours we want our horses to find enjoyment in finding answers. This is what creates willingness and cooperation. When our horses find learning fun they more willingly participant and accept bigger challenges as they develop.

The added bonus is that when our horses understand how to seek and find answers, introducing new challenges is easy and we don't have to go through the whole process again. 

A lot of the horses I work with don't know how to find the answers and it makes introducing new asks harder because they get stressed not knowing how to respond. Teaching a horse to find the release of pressure both in a physical pressure and in the withholding of reward and guiding them through those emotions gives them the emotional range to deal with the different stressors that come up in training as well as moving them out of a flight brain into a learning brain. 

This is why we use the Trainability Program with our horses.

Fill out this form if you want to be updated on when we open the course to new enrollments!

Training Trainability

Pre-register your interest for enrolment by filling the form below

Let me know when the course opens!

Has your horse lost interest in work?

Sometimes when we push our horses boundaries a little or do something a bit more challenging our horses can at best become a little disconnected, unresponsive and uninterested and at worst sour and acting out behaviourly.

In this training I discuss 2 thoroughbreds I've been working with that lost their interest to work with us after challenging their boundaries a little and what we do to help them re-engage.

Is the timing of your aids holding you back?

I’m sure you’ve heard time and again how important the timing and feel of your aids are.

But try as you might you have no idea what you’re even meant to be feeling for!!!

I’m going to share with you a couple of neat tricks that you can start using today that will get you those wins!

The timing of your leg aid when you are ready to work your horse in to contact is so important!! You need first to decide if you want to influence the hind legs or the forelegs and what you are wanting to influence them to do. So here’s a couple of tips.

• If you put your leg on when the leg is grounded you will create more forwardness and drive which could result in speed or a short choppy stride.

• If you put your leg on as the leg is back coming through you will create more lift and through but may result in your horse going behind your leg.

• If you put your leg on as the shoulder is forward coming back you will encourage your horse to lengthen its neck and if elasticity allows lower but will put your horse on the forehand.

• If you put your leg on as the shoulder is back coming through you will get more lift and reach through the shoulder but may hollow the back and disengage the hind.

These are important timings for balancing engagement, throughness and over the back under saddle. Practicing it in walk first helps.

You can develop straightness also with the timing of the aid. The horses tend to try to find the easy way out so will drop the hip, twist the pelvis and drop the shoulder so as to avoid using their core. We can feel this in the saddle and time our aids to straighten them up.

For a dropped/disengaged hind squeeze soften the same rein and leg as the hind leg is back coming through to ask it through further. Asking the hind leg to step through further to meet the opposite hind leg can help to straighten the pelvis. Quite often the horse will then drop the other hind so we end up bumping each through until we get equal power and throughness of both hind legs.

For a dropped shoulder, same rein and leg as the shoulder is forward coming back shifts the balance into the other shoulder so that they can lift and extend through the dropped shoulder. As above they will probably drop the other shoulder and you will need to bump it back until the horse starts to carry itself.

Second big tip:

When you have your horse walking actively in front of your leg they will be moving your seat. It will rock a little left and right and your seat swings up and through that is the hind leg that is coming through. If you put your leg on as your hip is swinging up and forward that is when the hind leg is back coming through and you are asking it through more.

In trot if you have the correct rising trot diagonal (in Australia its as the outside fore lifts you rise) you need to be applying your leg as you’re standing out of the saddle to step the inside hind higher and more through. Putting your leg on as you rise is actually quite hard and we are more inclined to put our leg on while we sit so we are actually grounding and disengaging the hind leg when we do that.

In canter we cuddle lift with each stride. Squeezing the inside leg and the outside rein as you cuddle lift can keep the jump in the stride if your horse has an established working canter.

If you think your aids are holding you back, or you need more help with your riding, we encourage you to sign up to the Green to Self Carriage course, filled with lesson plans and bonus coaching to help you fully begin to develop the correct aids and movements for postural soundness of your horse.

The holy grail of Dressage

Inside leg to outside rein: the holy grail of dressage..

Am I right?

Or is it?

While inside leg to outside rein is an important skill to develop it is just one piece of the bigger puzzle of connecting the action of the horses legs to rein contact so as to influence the lift, freedom and range of movement rather than ground and disengage.

If you’ve been following us for a while now you will know the purpose of the rein contact is not ask your horse to arch and round its neck but to work deeper into its haunches.

Inside leg to outside rein is one of our easy exercises to establish this. Wait? Did I just say easy!?! You better believe I did because once we understand what we are trying to achieve and how to time the aid this is an easy way to start connecting our horses hindquarter action to contact.

But before we do that our horse needs to know how to seek and work into contact and work over its back. And to work in to contact it needs to follow the contact without dropping the shoulder and falling out. And this is why it can be so hard. Firstly to working over the back in to contact the horse needs to have been introduced to away from leg into contact. Secondly, riders are so focused on more bend that they allow the horse to drop and fall through the shoulder in their effort to get a deeper angle rather than riding them around the leg. As soon as our horse drops and falls the shoulder, as soon as the shoulder stops following the nose we have no outside rein to work them in to.

So the easy part. Using a circle naturally creates more lift of the inside hind. Think about 2 cars going around a corner at the same speed, the inside car gets further ahead. Well the inside hind doesn’t get further ahead but it does lift higher. We can cue this extra lift in to squeeze soften inside leg outside rein.

Also in our yield we tend to mess this up by trying to ride flexion before our horse is ready. We need to start with just the direction and straight. If we time our direction aid (away from the inside leg following the outside rein, again inside rein and leg) to cue it into the hind leg as its coming through we are asking the hind to come through deeper and more under the horse.

So a combination of the circle to ask for lift and the leg yield to ask for through and under starts to get our horses working inside leg to outside rein and starts to cue the rein aid to more hock flexion.

Now the reason why I say this isn’t the holy grail and its just the easy introductory exercise is because we are only influencing the action of 1 leg. We need to influence and connect the action of all 4 of our horses legs so that rein pressure accentuates hock action and foreleg action instead of inhibiting and grounding and this is where things can start getting a bit tricky but if you don’t understand this it can also be why you are stuck in your training with your horse.

We have developed a course to hold your hand through this entire developmental process so if you think this blog is complicated and overwhelming, why not join us, start at the basics and work your way back up to this, filling in all the gaps in you and your horses training along the way.

Why won't my horse collect???

You practice. You train. But it still isn’t happening!

Your horse simply wont collect!!!

But is it really that simple? Yes it is…

Because here’s the secret to collection.

The reins don’t control the frame

They control hock action!!!

---

You have been working your butt off for years, trying to move through the levels to elementary, and you’re finally getting good marks for your novice tests, perhaps feeling like you should be ready for elementary but collection is eluding you?

You are not alone!

Moving out of novice and in to elementary is one of the most common places for people to get stuck on with their training.

It is one of the most common places for people to hear “Well maybe your horse just can’t collect. You should sell and buy a new one.”

It is one of the most common places for people to plateau and start doubting themselves and thinking their just not cut out for it. You’re not alone.

And guess what else!?!

It’s not your fault you’re stuck!!

If you’ve spent your whole riding and training career to this point thinking that rein contact only influences the roundness of the neck…. Or maybe you’ve even come so far as to understand how to free up the shoulders from rein contact to “round the back” but you don’t yet know that rein contact actual controls hock action first and foremost and then we ride the horse over the back into the frame there is no doubt you won’t be able to develop collection.

Because collection in and of itself isn’t a shortening of the stride alone, but also an elevating of the stride that comes from the horse getting deeper into the haunches. And the problem with using rein contact to create a frame our roundness of the back is that when we then go to use it for collection, instead of getting deeper hock action we just keep getting a deeper and deeper frame.

Sometimes getting the freedom through the shoulder by also working them over the back can give the illusion of impulsion that can come from collection, but the problem is that if it doesn’t come from the quality of sit and drive through the haunches the shoulder action will be irregular and will impact the horses long term soundness.

We sit this in horses that have been taught to lift excessively through the shoulder with exercises like the Spanish walk (without developing the complementary engagement required through the hindquarters). They will lift one foreleg higher than the other because they aren’t working their back properly and aren’t balanced, even and straight so that the lift through the shoulder is equal to the engagement and drive from behind into hand.

So if you are feeling stuck with how to develop collection and think it’s just not going to happen for you and your horse, there are a few gaps in knowledge that we can fill in connecting the rein contact to hock action which actually makes the transition to collection quite easy.

This is the easy part.

It’s taking a step back and reviewing what you really need.

And you REEEEAAALLLY need to review the missing steps of self carriage. The missing steps of balance, evenness, engagement and straightness.

Which is no easier than following the course Green to Self Carriage.

Check it out - you owe it to your horse.

Connection: Why you want it & how you can start getting it

We hear about it. It’s a term used in the horse world frequently.

But really, what is connection?

Connection is taking the conversation we built on the ground and transferring it to the saddle.

Connection is a willingness of our horse to seek out that conversation with us and to do that it has to be through pressure they put into the bit and our body (ie legs and seat).

This conversation or connection is similar to that of a dance partner moving together as one. There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle to come together to get to that point.

Firstly, our horses need a positive relationship with the bit or bitless bridle pressure. If our horses haven’t had a good bitting or bridling experience, have pain where the pressure of the bridle is applied or have dentistry issues there is no way of establishing that connection.

We have to ensure our bridle is comfortable and that we aren’t trying to control the horse through the force of the bridle pressure.

There are quite a few things they also need for this.

• They need to know to and how to seek the release of pressure;

• They need to know that pressure goes away when they find the right answer;

• And then they have to have had enough practice with the aids for bit pressure to know what behaviour makes them go away. Ie turning right makes right rein pressure go away, turning left makes left rein pressure go away, stopping makes 2 rein pressure go away and they have to be comfortable with that conversation.

Connection is also being able to say “no” and express their concerns and fears from what we are asking.

Our horses shouldn’t be forced to say yes sir, no sir, 3 bags full sir.

They need to be able to communicate if they don’t understand, can’t do what we are asking, are nervous or unsure etc. We start with this on the ground as well by opening up that conversation through consent, and the confidence to investigate scary things through targeting.

To become a good dance partner and establish flow and connection under saddle, both horse and rider have to be able to have a strong core and balance independently.

Quite often the horse or riders fitness is the limiting factor to that connection in the saddle. We establish this on the ground with lunging and in hand work and then bring it along in the saddle with our conditioning exercises to unite the movement of horse and rider.

Once we have a willing horse looking to have a conversation and a balanced horse and rider the connection comes from the horse working into and seeking the contact. Not sucking behind it, pulling through it, lifting above it. This is why it is so important not to force submission to the bit. Connection can’t be established through force and submission.

Want help developing a connection under saddle? Join our “Ride with heart” workshop that will be jam packed with tips on developing feel and connection in the saddle.

Join us live and ask questions!!

Why do we want to work our horse in a frame?

Why is the frame so important in competition?

Why should we want to work our horse in a frame?

The purpose of working our horse in a frame is to reduce the concussion and impact of riding on their musculoskeletal system and hopefully make movement, in particular movement under saddle feel good. Although it has also helped horses with arthritis and injury rehab feel good in the paddock as well.

A frame is not about points on your dressage test. It is not just about the pretty pony.

The true purpose of the working frame seems to be lost to the drive to improve percentages, win ribbons or trophies, and impress the judges.

The frame established for the motivation of competition is often rushed because we feel the pressure to impress our peers and critics.

Rushing the development of frame doesn’t enhance the horses movement, and in actual fact limits it.

Whereas the frame, established with the motivation of structural soundness for our horses to carry us, is a steady process of helping our horses along their pathway of development as told to us by our horses.

This may sound a little weird but our horses know what feels good and what doesn’t. The trick though is differentiating between whether our horse is being lazy or uncomfortable. And this also is the true reason for the progression of exercises in the different levels of dressage.

• The 20m circles in trot and canter, serpentines, transitions and long and low develop the quality of movement for prelim

• The 15m circles in trot and canter, lengthened strides and leg yield develop the quality of movement for novice

• The 10m circles in trot and canter, shoulder in and traver develop the quality of paces towards collection for elementary.

So the trick is, are you competing in prelim with prelim quality of working paces, and comparing yourself to the horse that is training elementary with elementary quality working paces that just happens to be competing in prelim?

Even the horse that is training novice will bring so much more quality to the paces because that’s what the movements they are training develops!

Is this what the judges are comparing you to when they are saying more frame, more bend, more impulsion, more forward?

Trying to force that elementary quality of movement with aids alone is what damages the horses structural soundness. Whereas doing the exercises correctly, that build upon one another to achieve that novice/elementary quality of movement, builds the horses soundness.

The working frame is just the end result of good posture established by solid training and exercises and reduces the concussions of a horse working hollow with poor posture.

The horse rushed or forced into the frame still has the same poor posture and hollowness but just looks pretty doing it, so can get the marks and accolades. But it does long term damage to the horses soundness both their physical soundness and their mental soundness.

Honestly, I do enjoy the challenge of the competition. But I think that a silk ribbon is worth far less than the pain and expense of a structurally unsound horse.

Don’t you?

If you want to establish the working frame so that movement feels good for your horse (whether you want to compete or not), enrolments for the Green to Self Carriage Course are opening for a short time only. We break down the aids, movement and exercises to their most basic form and then build them up to developing sound self carriage ready for collection.

All about contact...

You have heard the term many times, right?

Bu what is contact?

Simply put, contact is a feel of your horses mouth. Through contact we can have a subtle conversation with our horse and this becomes connection.

Contact should be a straight line - elbow, hands, and reins to bit. If we break this line by either lowering our hands or lifting our hands we interrupt the conversation with the bit to the horses mouth.

Quite often, contact and frame get confused for one and the same thing. You can have contact and your horse isn’t in a frame. You can have your horse in a frame and not have contact.

Contact also shouldn’t mean control - but some riders can feel like they are out of control when they don’t have contact.

It is important to ride your horse both in contact and without contact. Riding your horses in contact is important horse getting them to hold themselves together and in balance as is required for the athleticism demanded of them for the different disciplines we ride. Riding without contact is important for getting our horses working with us without “controlling” them with the bit.

If you don’t feel comfortable letting go of their mouths you are only get part of the conversation.

If this is you, and you feel you need more support with contact, feel and getting comfortable letting go of your horses mouth, join our free workshop “Riding with Heart”, which focuses on uncovering how to begin developing feel and connection in the saddle.

What is Self Carriage? (Video)

Does your horse need more forward?

Have you been told your horse needs more forward?

Do you think that means it needs more speed?

There’s a good chance your horse doesn’t actually need more speed, which is what we are inclined to think and try to do, but it actually needs more power!

When we ride our horses for more speed it pushes them out of their naturally stride, rushes them on the forehand and makes the stride short and choppy. This makes the ride less pleasant to watch but more importantly makes the horse less structurally sound.

The forwardness that we are looking for is power and the horse tracking up (prints of the hindquarters stepping into the prints for the forehand).

The power and tracking up that allows the power to travel through their body, lifts the forehand and develops impulsion. This connectedness and lift of the whole body engages the horses’ core postural muscles and improves their overall long term soundness while in the frame. It does this by:

• Shifting their weight off the forehand thereby reducing the concussion on the forehand.

• Getting them to lift their tummy muscles so they hold from their core instead of bracing their back.

• Lengthening their neck thereby reducing the compression and pain through the neck and pole.

• Increasing overall freedom of movement, elasticity and tone.

So to get more forward we actually need more slow!!!

Say what?

To build the strength and power of the hindquarters and also tune the sensitivity to legs mean go, we need to ask our horses to slow, wait and sit into their haunches and then drive forward out of it kind of like squats.

So now not only are you using an exercise that BUILDS your horses ability to give you that forward but also an exercise that TUNES your horse in to the aid.

And this is how we like to work at Equestrian Movement.

It doesn’t matter how good you are at applying an aid, if your horses can’t physically do what you’re asking it won’t respond to it until it is. So we use exercises that build our horses musculoskeletal system to ride a frame, and incorporate the aids within the exercise that will be our cues or words that we will use with our horse once they are physically ready.

This way, we are NOT desensitising or deadening our horses to the aids, but we ARE developing them for longevity of their career.

Interested in how we do this?

Check out our course Green to Self Carriage, where we break down all the aids and exercises so that they build on top of each other all the way through to your horse working in a working frame for soundness & longevity.