Take enough lessons and you will come across conflicting advice. Hands up or down? Quiet hands or vibrate reins? Sit to jumps or stay off his back? As an amateur rider, it can be very confusing to get such conflicting advice! Here's how to best handle these situations and figure out which to use.
"You can see suppleness by observing how the rider can sit on the horse and not on top of the horse." ~ Susanne Miesner
If you are hoping to improve the scores on your medium and extended gaits, improve your collected gaits.
From Facebook fan Dorothy Smith ~ "In riding, as In a dance, one leads, one follows, but both must love to dance for it to become art."
Give your older horses even more time to fully warm up before any challenging or strenuous work.