Photo # 30: This is Briana at the AEC's! (Current freebie!)

Hi Briana!

This is such a great picture! There is so much to like here! Henry looks happy and relaxed, and is nicely swinging through his back. He is correctly stretched into the connection of the bit, and is showing a nice frame for Novice level Eventing (Training level dressage).

Just look at his tail carriage. It is being held up and away from his body, and the bottom of it is swining softly back and forth with his trot. The top of his tail also appears to be slightly off to the right, showing that you have achieved a nice bend throughout his body for the corner that you are beginning. And his inside ear is tipped back towards you, indicating that you have his attention on your inside aids.

Some aspects of your position are a bit hard to judge from the angle of the picture, but overall you look very nice! Your posture looks good, you show a proper straight line from your elbow to the bit (although you could have your elbows closer to your sides), and your leg looks to be nicely stretched down.

There are a few (very common) faults that do show up in this picture however. Note that as you are bending and preparing for this right corner, you are slightly collapsing your right hip. This has caused your right shoulder to be slightly lower than your left, and therefore your right hand to drop slightly lower as well.

This will tend to make it hard to keep your horse straight, as the dropped inside hand will make the pressure on that side of the bit feel more pronounced to your horse, even if you feels it is the same as the outside. What usually happens then is that the horse reacts to the increased severity of the inside rein by over bending his neck to the inside. And he may either then lean heavily on his inside shoulder, which will feel to you like he is falling to the inside - or he will pop his outside shoulder and fall out of the circle or turn.

Since the best way to fix a bad habit is to exaggerate the opposite for a while... focus on really carrying your inside hand on your circles and turns, even temporarily making it a little higher than your outside hand. And to correct any tendency to collapse your inside hip, think about stretching up the whole inside of your body, keeping your outside shoulder down, and keeping your outside leg on your horse's side. This will help to keep you truly centered on your horse, which will allow you to ride your horse straight and balanced.

A quick little trick you can use to test yourself is to occasionally bring your hands together so that your knuckles touch for a moment. You will notice if your hands were not the same height, as your knuckles will not match - or will be so far apart that you have to consciously raise one hand to make your hands even touch at all!

You also have a mild case of "piano hands". You should rotate your wrists slightly to the outside, so that your thumbs are on top. A good exercise to fix this problem is to ride with the whip over top of your hands as outlined in this entry.

Overall, good job Briana! Let me know if you have any questions!