Recent Articles in Tip/Quote of the Day!

For both jumping and Dressage, riding square turns improves the horse's carriage, and aids in building collection. 

"Transitions, transitions, transitions and, when you are done with them, more transitions." ~ Jan Ebeling

"Every pull & resistance in the horse's neck originates in the back." ~ Stefan Wolff

To encourage your horse move fully through his body, as well as giving him the confidence to truly think forward, you must make sure your hips and lower back are 100% moving with his motion. The bigger your horse moves, the more you must move your hips.

Remember that your horse is always learning based on how you react to his actions and responses. Be careful that you are only teaching him things that you actually want him to learn.

A good horse will forgive you when you make a mistake. And they expect you to do the same.

Tension meeting tension will only double the tension. If your horse becomes tense, you must be able to stay relaxed, or you will make it worse.

"The four things you have to own are rhythm, tempo, frame and length of stride." ~ Robert Dover

Don't make the mistake of "skipping" rising trot just because your horse is comfortable with you sitting the trot. Rising trot can be a great way to encourage more back movement and swing within the trot, for horses at any level. 

Gridwork and gymnastic lines are meant to teach the horse to better solve problems when jumping. They develop the horse's "eye" for jumping, as well as his mental focusing skills, timing, and judgement. And of course to be more clever with his footwork. Make sure you leave your horse alone through the gymnastic lines as much as possible, to let him learn from the specific exercises you have set up. Your job is to get into the grid correctly - straight and balanced, with the right amount of impulsion for the specific question. And then leave him alone to let him do his job!

If you don’t ride and train in such a way that your horse learns to listen to your seat, you will usually find that you have to use a lot more hand to get things done.

Horses need to be moving with a supple and relaxed back to have true impulsion. If the body is not relaxed and supple, any forward energy is just running. 

Feel your horse's rhythm with your whole body when riding. Whether you are doing Dressage, jumping, galloping cross country, or just enjoying a relaxing trail ride, the more you can be in sync with your horse's rhythm, the more harmony you will find. 

Let your aids breathe. By that I mean two things. While giving any aid, keep breathing. And for the aid itself, make sure you are able to keep it supple so that it can go with the horse's motion while being applied. Aids of any kind always work best when given within the rhythm of the horse's stride as well. 

As an Eventer, it is smart to do some of your canter flatwork at the gallop, to teach your horse that the extra speed of the gallop is not an excuse to be wild or disobedient.

"Dressage riders should have been born without arms." ~ Johan Hinnemann

Ride your horse to the contact, but be careful to not drive him through the contact. 

"If one induces the horse to assume that carriage which it would adopt of its own accord when displaying its beauty, then, one directs the horse to appear joyous & magnificent, proud & remarkable for having been ridden." ~ Xenophon

Teach the lazy type of horse to think forward coming out of every corner, in both Dressage and Jumping.

"Generally shorter backed horses find it more difficult to stretch." ~ Carl Hester

From Facebook fan Jennifer Stankiewicz ~ "To move the back end faster, move your hips faster. To do changes in dressage, you need to move your hips faster than the change, not with the changes or they get too slow and you end up behind the horse instead of with the horse (for 3's and 4's and tempis)"

Never forget that success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and out. It will NOT come all at once.

Bend in the horse's body is not created by the rider using the inside rein! In fact a correct inside bend in the body is evident only when there is a soft, almost loose inside rein.

"Do I still get butterflies? You bet! Adrenaline is an important part of the deal." ~ William Fox Pitt

I love to look for an area in a field where I can do a big circle on the side of a hill, where on that circle the horse has to go down into a little dip in the ground and back up again. This can really help the horse to let go in their backs. The canter in particular usually feels loose and free when they come out of it.

"The warm-up should lead each horse to a physical, emotional, and psychological state of balance and relaxation. The phlegmatic horse has to become alert and responsive to the rider. The timid, nervous horse has to become calm and confident in his rider as well as himself. The hot, overly reactive horse has to become relaxed and more tolerant. The distracted, spooky horse has to become attentive and focused on the work." ~ Thomas Ritter

"It is important that you do a variety of things when you are training an eventer, that means you never do two training sessions the same in a row. Maybe you will do two dressage sessions in a row, but then you might start the session by working your horse over cavaletti. Once or twice a week you jump – either you do gymnastics or cavaletti work or you do some jumping exercises from the cross-country course, like training over narrow jumps in the arena.  Make sure you work always on getting your horse supple and loose." ~ Ingrid Klimke

Your rein connection is a line of communication that connects your brain to your horse's brain. When done correctly, your horse should feel every nuance of your seat through the reins as well as his back. 

"Our goal should be to make our horses more beautiful and keep them healthy through their training." ~ Ingrid Klimke

Excessive bend in the neck, whether lateral (most often to the inside), or longitudinal (behind the vertical) disconnects the haunches from the rein aids and allows the horse to remain locked up in other parts of the body, such as the poll and hips.

"If you want a soft & responsive horse, you must be a soft & responsive human." 

"I do a lot of cavaletti work also with my dressage horses because then I can really make them active behind, over the back, stretching into your hand, and really supple in the back." ~ Ingrid Klimke

Working on shoulder fore or shoulder in on a large circle is a great exercise to teach your horse to pay more attention to your inside seat bone aid, as well as to improve the outside rein connection. 

Horses will respond best to an aid when the rider has the ability to give it smoothly and within the rhythm of the horse's stride.

Always think about the depth of the water when deciding how fast to approach and negotiate a water obstacle. Riding too fast in deep water can easily cause the horse to lose his balance or even fall.

The sign of a good rider is that their aids are so consistently smooth and subtle that you can hardly see what they are doing.

Soften the reins too much at the beginning of a lengthening, and you may find that you lose your stored energy. Which will likely cause your horse to quicken his stride rather than giving you a true lengthening.

Think of riding your horse's outside hind leg actively through the turns to your jumps, to keep that canter well engaged behind.

Ride forward within the stride that you already have to the jump, vs pushing horse out of its stride and disrupting balance.

Dressage is natural for horses, but that does not mean it is always easy for them. Since we cannot explain to them why we are asking them to do things that require increased effort, and go against their natural instincts to try to do things in the easiest way possible - we must handle any inevitable resistances that might show up with patience in a quietly persistent manner.

Gustav Steinbrecht on the French school of Baucher ~ "The greatest example of such quackery is Mr Baucher, who with the audacity of his claims and the enormity of his promises, has brought the entire equestrian world into uproar and confusion. His method consists in gradually and cunningly robbing the horse of its natural power, which Mr Baucher considers to be the enemy, and to thus make it subservient. He renders his horses so wilted and limp by unnatural bending and twisting in place and so thoroughly robs their natural forward action, that the poor creatures lose all support and are no longer good for any practical purpose."

The more spirit a horse has, the more difficult he may be to train. But once you have developed a good partnership with the horse, this same spirit will make him a tremendous competitor who will fight for you when things get difficult.

"Every pull & resistance in the horse's neck originates in the back." ~ Stefan Wolff

The more you can find a deep, plugged in seat in the down phase of the rising trot, the more you can sort of "suck" the horse's back up into your seat in the rising phase.

It is wise to remain at least slightly seated on the takeoff of an open ditch jump, and to look for the feeling that your horse jumps out in front of you. If you are too far forward, and/or are ahead of your horse's motion as he begins to take off, he can easily lose heart and jump weakly (and therefore losing confidence). Or he can even change his mind completely and stop, in which case you would then likely become a victim of the laws of physics. ;)

"There are only few mouths that cannot be taught a good rein contact by giving the horse the appropriate degree of balance, provided it is otherwise well conformed." ~ Borries v.Oeynhausen

Try to always be aware of the amount of tension that you may be carrying when riding, and whether you are breathing softly and evenly, or holding your breath. Talking or humming quietly is a good way to ensure that you keep breathing throughout your ride.

Horses have to learn that the free walk is a purposeful movement, not break time. Make sure you are conscious about teaching your horse this concept by training them to stay attentive, straight, in front of the leg, and reaching towards the connection in your free walk work.

"The outside rein is for me like the wall on the track, or the edge of the autobahn. The outside rein is the border and it maintains the horse." ~ Ernst Hoyos