Get your FREE daily tip here!
"I find it better to often have short, intensive moments – ten or fifteen minutes – not longer, then a break to allow the muscles to recover. If you want the horse to carry more weight, then you need time for muscle recovery." ~ Johan Hamminga
Get your FREE daily tip here!
"Let your horse be your teacher, pay attention to his invaluable feedback." ~ Lilo Fore
Get your FREE daily tip here!
Activity doesn't really start in the horse's hind legs... it starts in their brain. They have to decide to create activity before it will appear. Why is this significant? You need to train your horse's brain to understand and respect your light leg aids,
Get your FREE daily tip here!
"If I want my horse to be steady and up to the bridle then I have to provide a steady target [quiet hands] and use leg to keep him up there."
Get your FREE daily tip here!
"Push him to the contact, release and then push to the contact again." ~ Carl Hester
Get your FREE daily tip here!
Horses usually add a stride when jumping uphill. Make sure you wait for it… with your leg on.
Get your FREE daily tip here!
"I make my students ride in gallop position in trot and canter with no rein contact and no hands on the neck, as there is no point in trying to progress until a good balance is in place. It is a great concern to me that so many riders
Get your FREE daily tip here!
The rider's leg creates the energy in the horse's stride, and their seat is what controls that energy.
Get your FREE daily tip here!
"Lightness, whose characteristic lies in the elastic and springy flexibility of all joints and muscles, can only be acquired after all resistances have completely disappeared, that is, with the disappearance of all inopportune contractions." ~ Alexis François L’Hotte
Get your FREE daily tip here!
"Shorter reins generally allow for a better connection and less delay of the aids." ~ Reiner Klimke
Get your FREE daily tip here!
"Keep it calm. Ignore the wrong answers, praise the little wins. Horses cannot learn when stressed." ~ Sandi-Leigh Norris
Get your FREE daily tip here!
An exercise to check if you are sitting straight and putting your weight equally down into both stirrups is to stand straight up for a few strides (at all three gaits), and notice which stirrup you have to consciously put more weight into to keep yourself balanced.
