(upbeat music)
- Hey guys,
Today, we're gonna be talking about getting your horse
more forward.
If you have a horse that you're struggling
to motivate to get forward,
and you always feel like you're driving that horse
or you're feeling exhausted at the end of your ride,
today's video is for you.
I'm gonna be sharing with you three tips
that have helped me to get my horses more forward
and hopefully will be a help to you.
So I'm gonna be taking Legend out into the ring here
and we're gonna get started, come buddy.
So here we are in the arena.
My first tip is all about body awareness.
So I'm gonna be talking to you about the difference
between positive and negative tension.
I've got two clips here that I'm gonna walk you through
and we're gonna talk about how my body
and the tension in my body is influencing
how forward or not forward my horse is.
So in this first clip,
I've got Legend in a nice forward walk
and I'm stretching up supporting with my back
and letting my hips swing and follow the motion
with a nice supportive tension.
In this next clip that I'm showing you,
I'm tensing up my thighs and also tensing my core
and this is restricting the motion of my horse.
So you can see, even when I bump with my leg,
he is going too slow.
So the important thing to remember here
is our horses follow our body tension.
When we're tight, this often slows them down
and keeps them from moving out.
So tip number two is all about being consistent
in your cues.
If you've been around horses,
you know how important it is to be consistent
so that it's clear to our horse, what we're asking.
So I'm gonna be showing you two different clips here
of me riding Legend and asking him for a transition to trot.
And I'm gonna show you the differences in my body
and how that influences Legend's responsiveness to that cue.
So here, I'm gonna ask Legend to pick up to the trot
and the way he understands,
I'm gonna stretch up and touch him with my lower leg.
And you can see he gives me a nice, smooth transition.
The important thing here is you always wanna ask
in the same way and even slight changes
can make a big difference to your horse.
So here, I'm gonna make a slight change by looking down
and touching with my lower leg and you can see
how Legend gets a little confused so he breaks gait
and I have to ask him again.
All right buddy, it's Monday,
time to work on our trot circles, you ready?
Here we go.
(upbeat music)
So what should we work on this Tuesday, buddy?
I think we should work on our trot circles again.
Okay buddy, it's Wednesday,
we gonna work on our trot circles again.
We all have these goals that we're working towards
in our riding.
We're always trying to improve which is a wonderful thing,
but it's easy sometimes to get stuck
on one thing we're trying to improve
and maybe to, kind of, lose our horse's interest
as we're working on that.
I know that's happened to me and maybe it's happened
to you as well.
So changing up the routine in our work
with our horses can go a long way to motivating them
to be more forward and more interested in the work.
So having your horse mentally engaged
is really gonna help him to be more physically engaged.
One way that is great to be able to change up your routine
is just adding in poles or cavalettis.
And you can add these into an exercise you're already doing
to break it up, help your horse to think more
about where he's putting those feet
and have the added benefit of building some strength
and some top line as well.
Another great exercise you can do is just
to simply change up whatever pattern you're working on.
So if I was working on circles one day, the next day,
maybe I'll work on some serpentines.
So I'm just breaking up that pattern
so that I keep that horse's interest.
So lastly, you can ride your horse outside.
Riding outside is a great way to change up
your horse's environment and you don't have any
of those walls keeping the horse in.
So it's a great way to be able to help them
be thinking more forward and just be more interested
in the work.
So I hope this video is a help to you
if you are working on getting your horse more forward.
If it was, remember to like and subscribe
and I'll see you in the next video.
(upbeat music)