Wrong lead!” The coach calls out and the rider deflates. Fast forward a year down the road to see the same rider initiating the wrong lead…on purpose. Why? She’s discovered the counter canter as an essential tool in building a …
Training
Are you having difficulty developing shoulder control, circles and consistent impulsion? The “Daisy Pattern” is a great exercise to help with these issues because it involves many turns, which encourage the shoulders to do most of the work, creating better …
Leading a large, anxious, excitable flight animal that outweighs you by 800-1,000 pounds can be a nerve rattling situation and it can also become dangerous.
A correct spin is essentially a horse walking his forehand around his haunches – body parts aligned fairly straight and a slight bend.
An exercise I like to use to for improving focus, straightness and rating speed is called Post to Post. Compared to some of the other exercises in this series, it may seem fairly simple. It offers many benefits for both …
Barging behaviour is sometimes about space – whoever owns the space and can move another horse out of that space determines the herd hierarchy.
To shift your horse closer to a gate, along a pole or away from the horse giving off bad vibes beside you in the class line-up, you’ll need to teach him to side pass.
What’s a side pass?
Most equine …
Steve Rother teaches a series of foundation exercises to develop balanced control of your horse’s movement. Keep reading for more information.
When you go to get your horse, what does he usually do? Stoically stand still while you approach him? Ignore you? Look toward you? Look away from you?
Many riders learn the “hows” of riding, but often miss out on the “whys.” It’s a shame, because if we could grasp the logic behind the skills, and their future application, we would be more motivated to master them. In …
Recently, the ‘alpha theory,’ where the human is dominant (‘alpha’) and the horse is submissive, has become the accepted way to establish relationships with horses. While this type of relationship can make the horse easier to work with, it does …
If you have ever watched people attempt to mount their horses, you may be surprised by how difficult this seemingly simple task can be. Often, the rider positions the horse and then scrambles to mount before the horse moves off.…
A key to understanding horse behaviour is to realize how much horses learn by associating one thing with another. This is called classical conditioning. They associate a certain environment with the place something significant happened or typically happens.
Could your …
A grey Andalusian stallion gallops at liberty across the Cavalia stage, comes to a sliding stop in front of his handler and dances with her in a breathtaking choreographed sequence. A grand prix dressage horse seems to skip effortlessly through …
Horses move when being mounted either because they are unbalanced, in pain or being ridden has not been a good experience for them. As with most behavioural problems, check that all your tack fits your horse properly, that his teeth …
