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Once your horse is fairly solid at first level Dressage, a good thing to ask yourself regularly while riding is, "Could I easily go into shoulder in at this moment?" If your horse is balanced and straight, and stepping up into your outside rein, you should be able
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"Anyone using their spur every stride, should be yellow carded and kicked out of the sport. Use your whip, get a response, then ask again with your leg, and get a light response." ~ Christopher Burton
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Riders with busy hands create horses with less responsive mouths.
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Think of Dressage training exercises as physical therapy for your horse… similar to the strength training that you might do at the gym. Do a few good reps of a particular exercise, and take a break, or move on to something else. Overtraining any particular group of muscles can be
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You can't assume that a horse with a low head and neck is on the forehand, any more than you can assume that a horse with a high head carriage is truly collected. You have to look at the whole picture.
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When your horse is impressed by a jump, and gathers itself a bit to "look" on the approach, you have a free half halt. Do not get caught taking back in this situation, or you may cause your horse to stop. Think "keep the hind legs moving&
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"I want any rider approaching any jump to concentrate on rhythm. They should concentrate on HOW they get there, not where they get to." ~ Jimmy Wofford
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You have to be able to halt before you can have an effective half halt.
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"What is essential is not to tighten the legs during the dressage training, but rather to use them without effort while allowing them to hang softly near the horse’s sides." ~ Nuno Oliviera
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Remember that even a COW can jump a 3 foot fence from a standstill... if it wants to. So never worry about whether or not your horse has enough scope to do lower level eventing or jumping. The bigger issue is whether or not you can keep him balanced at
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"When you piaffe, you should be sitting over your knee, not sitting on your backside." ~ Carl Hester
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The better the rider's seat, the more easily the horse can understand the rider's aids. So make working on developing and maintaining an independent seat a top priority!
