hi it's josie and today i'd like to talk to you about corners corners are important because it's
important for you to understand the aids they're aids we use for everything they're the bending
aids that we put on a horse so we'll talk a little bit about that then i'm going to show you
some bending and how i do it through a corner and then i'm going to show you a couple of things that
people do wrong and give you some tips to fix them up so i hope you enjoy it let's get on with it
here comes the theory guys so i've done a video on bend and bending your horse
and how to bend them and i'll link that up here and in the description
so you can go and look at that if you don't understand that or if you just want a refresher
and so today we'll get on with bending but remember i told you in that other video
that i think of my horses because they can bend more in the neck than they can from here to here
and from here to here can't actually bend because all of their vertebra are fused
so i think of them as basically three carriages or three separate pieces of the horse but think
of it like three carriages of a train you might get a visualization with that so you don't want to
pull the front train like this if you're on a nice curved line because you'll pull it off the track
and it'll it'll um go out that way won't it if so the horse should follow the arc of whatever corner
you're doing with these three carriages one two three the aids for bending your horse flexion good
boy so flexion i've done a video on that too and i'll link that in the description and i'll pop it
up here flexion and bend so if inside rein gives you flexion outside rein stops the horse from over
bending the neck and the amount of neck bend you need depends on the diameter of the circle
it's a 20 meter circle basically none if it's a 10 meter circle you definitely need some so your
outside rein is to stop the neck from over bending to the inside and the outside rein controls the
wither or the shoulder depending on what analogy works better for you i think of it as the shoulder
so that i can turn my horse's shoulder like that that's from my outside rein good boy
outside leg bottom half of your leg is there to catch the outside of the horse if he falls out
thigh is there to help the shoulder around i do use my thigh to help my horse's shoulder come
around inside leg is there to help the horse bend around and if he's falling in to just
remind him to move over that way and give me some bend it also keeps the hind leg coming in
underneath the horse now the tips which i will show you as well but i want to tell you them now
most people the problem i see with most people is they pull the head and neck too much or they
think they're driving riding a push bike and when you ride a push bike with your handlebars if you
pull this way because they're rigid the outside hand has to go forward when you're riding a
horse it does not go forward if you do that with your horse if you do that that's how you allow
the shoulder to jack knife and then the horse will fall out through the shoulder
so if i pull this and let that now he's jackknifed but if i hold my outside rein and ask him to flex
now i didn't have to do anything there the rein was just there to stop him bent over bending but
how i remember to do that because particularly when my outside reins my right rein i'm terrible
at putting my hand forward is i think about the point of my elbow is attached to my hip
it's on a little string there so i can go a little bit forward so that i'm not rigid
and tight because the horse isn't going to like that it's got to have a little bit of
movement but it doesn't have a big piece of string where it can go all the way out the front
so with that little tip let's get on with it so we'll walk a couple so i can talk you through it
and even in the walk the aids will happen faster than i can tell you but i'd like to just walk
want through it once and then explain it to you a bit more so
we're coming up to a corner i'm going to ride a smaller corner here five meter corner
so i'm going to warn him on the outside rein once twice flexion bend inside leg
finish and out we go and as you can see i could give my inside rein so let's try that again listen
listen bend in flexion off my inside leg good boy and walk through the corner now when i say listen
sorry that's just what i think in my head i'm actually giving rebel a half halt there are
many different types of half halts that you can do and that's why it's so hard to explain to somebody
what a half halt is but when i do my half halt i've got a feeling on my outside rein
and i just close my fingers in a squeeze release you must release the release is more important
than the squeeze and your half halt should only last for a stride because if you close it and
hang on to it you become pulling that's just pulling so it's squeeze release squeeze release
and if they don't come through that's what they talk about and what that really means is the horse
isn't listening to it so if i do half halt half halt and he doesn't listen i'll do a full halt
so i do that to say are you listening something's coming and if he doesn't have his ears at me if
his ears are off somewhere else because that's where his mind is when i do my half halt his ear
will flick back and you go oh that's right we're here doing something so we're about
to do something so i go listen listen at the same time usually i've got my inside flexion
and my outside rein goes half halt half halt my inside leg goes on my outside leg
now i'm as bad as everybody else okay in a corner like this when you've got a fence it's so easy
to allow the fence to be your outside aid you really need to go do circles where you
have no fences so that you are required to use your outside aids because well outside
leg at least i'm happy to put my hand up and say i'm guilty of that too so you come through
come on rebel wake up half halt half halt flexion inside leg inside leg inside leg and i let go of
the inside leg and i straightened him with the outside rein so again half halt half halt flexion
through the corner get off my in yeah he lent on my inside leg then and now he's here and you
can tell he's bent because i can give the inside rein whilst he's looking this way and he doesn't
um look out because i've got him on the aids i've got him on my inside leg and my outside rein
inside leg to outside rein i've done a video about that and i'll link that up here so when you go off
in trot that all happens a lot faster so we'll see if i can do a couple in trot and show you
half halt half halt flexion bend through the corner with my inside leg outside leg was on then
boy can i do it here inside leg inside leg outside leg's definitely on here so that he doesn't
um fall out with this hindquarter okay so what happens if i don't
have the outside rein if i haven't kept my elbow close to my hip attached now i'm not
hanging on to the rein it's not stiff but i'm telling you i've got a nice contact there
i'm going to let go and steer like we do on a push bike and show you what happens
sorry rebel i apologize in advance so if i do that look what happens see how he falls
out through his shoulder good boy sorry mate so what happens if i don't use my inside leg
can you see he's falling in around i need to put my leg on and say yeah good boy stay away
so how can you fix that if he's falling on your inside leg
in the very beginning on a young horse that falls against my leg
if i'm trotting i'll come back to walk i'll cut the corner a bit here and then i'll ask him to leg
yield out a bit good boy until i have him on the outside rein you can do that in trot as well you
just need to cut the corner a bit to give yourself room to leg yield and then leg yield out good
good boy i hope that helps you and thanks for watching guys