hello i'm josie and today i would like to talk to you about turning your horse
years of starting young horses under saddle
has taught me how to teach a horse what i want it to do when it knows nothing
and you break that down into pretty simple tasks and i'd like to try and share them with you today
and my hope is that by the end of this video you have some understanding of how to train your horse
to turn and what to do if you get any issues arise so when you know
how to do it sorry the flys are a bit friendly you actually have some tools
for working through issues with your horse so in the very beginning when you're turning the horse
you actually do use the inside rein the aim of turning a horse is for it to be from inside leg
to outside rein i'll explain that in a bit but in the very beginning you definitely use the inside
rein on a young green horse so he'll usually go where his nose is pointed so i'll come in here
and i'll show you what i do so in the very beginning you actually use an opening rein
and bump the horse sorry spider's got good lateral flexion but you bump the horse bump the horse and
you come out because you if you come backwards you bend the horse and all his energy is going
to go out that way and particularly young green horses with limited balance will actually fall
out and jack knife through the shoulder so if you're having problems with your horse turning
you use the opening rein and i would in a green horse bump it and straight bump it and straight
bump it and straight bump it and straight so the horse does a lot of straight line turn straight
line turn now this is in the very beginning on a green horse but this helps you to go back if
you're having issues with your horse go back and start from there and work forward so on a young
green horse it'll look kind of like this bump straight bump straight bump straight
bump straight it's been hard to do it on my horses they've done this but that's how it looks
so i'm coming down here and i want to turn my young green horse bump straight bump straight bump
straight bump straight on a 20 meter circle you don't need much bend at all okay for correct bend
on the turn the horse's front legs if you draw a line and an arc the front legs and the back legs
should be one either side as if there was a hose and you were riding with a hose in the center of
your horse but you do need flexion the greener horse i don't even care about that i don't care
if they're actually leaning out as long as they're coming around the corner to start with you've got
to start with basics but i just thought i'd show you flexion so if you go back yep there you can
see his crest flipping there so you saw his crest flipping and that is when he's actually bending
in the atlas joint horses have a joint up here called the atlas joint very much like our wrist
these joints are very specialized and the horse has an atlas joint at the top so he can actually
look in look out sorry because i'm thinking of the arena look in look out and you can see
that crest flipping there so flexion sorry i've got a mare in season in the paddock
um so flexion just comes from the atlas joint from the poll of the horse got nothing to do
with the neck bend okay and you should be able to flex your horse without bending the neck and you
can see that ligament just popping from side to side there that's part of your lateral suppleness
when i use a turning aid on my horse other than bumping the next step is i just use a sponge aid
so you need to learn to hold your reins correctly which means it should go through the little
finger and the ring finger the rein should go up over the top and then your thumb gently on top
your hands should be closed i'll go through that in another video but if they're not closed trust
me you don't have a good communication line with your horse not squeezed in a hard fist just closed
and so when i want to turn i will use a squ like a sponge motion like squeeze squeeze
squeeze squeeze in the very beginning we just bump with the inside rein at no outside rein really
but we do need to end up using the outside rein that's in fact the main turning aid really when
the horse is a little bit more educated i don't use the outside rein on really really green horses
because i don't like pulling their head in and tying their head in young horses use their head
and neck to balance themselves while they're finding their balance with their rider on
their back a little bit like if you were walking somewhere where you were losing your balance you
would actually put your arms out to try and balance think of a young child walking on a
balance beam a gymnastic balance beam imagine if you tied its arms to its side and told it to walk
it would probably fall off more than it didn't to start with and it would have no confidence because
it would fall off so i feel the same about the horses they need their head and neck to balance
once they find their balance and build some musculature to hold themselves and me on their
back then i'll ask them so the outside rein is basically to stop the horse from over bending
his neck to the inside so if i pull spider's neck this way and don't do anything where is he falling
through his outside shoulder okay so that's what happens when horses fall out
so my outside rein oops sorry spids that was me so my outside rein sits here and just holds him
so that he can't bend his neck to the inside or over bend it so i can
indicate like i showed you sponge but my outside rein is just here sponge
sponge sponge sponge sponge and now you can see spiders coming around
so we also use weight aids to help turn our horse and i use them on the young horse
so if i step on my inside stirrup here spider will follow my weight
you can see i'll see if i can actually do a complete turn here just with weight
oh
so now we'll go straight down the long side even weight in both stirrups
now i'm going to weight my inside stirrup and look where i'm going
he's he's had 12 months off with an injury he's feeling a bit yippy you're all right mate
he has been back in work for a couple of weeks okay
all right plus i don't normally riding with no reins like that
but i want to show you okay so step to the right a little step to the left and
all right mate i'm not going to cut this because i think it's good
stuff happens straight towards you balanced in the middle of my saddle
so when i talk about putting weight in a stirrup hopefully i wasn't looking too
much like this i'll have to watch the video think about it like standing up in a canoe
if you put too much weight in one you're going to fall when everything's going to flip
so you only need to add tiny bits of weight and the horses soon become very conditioned to that
and so you can turn your horse on a weight aid so the other aid that actually fits in
to a turning aid is a um is your leg aids so my upper thigh i'm going to put my right upper thigh
and look over here and my right upper thigh is pushing him or so my thigh to my knee is
part of my seat aid really so when i put that on there i expect him to move basically to help with
shoulder control to go that way all right the lower leg is a little bit more for lateral work
takes time to teach your horse that so give him time to learn it and give yourself time to learn
as well but once your horse can do that he's a bit fresh but we'll see if he if he'll do this for me
oh he's very fresh today so with everything i said i should be able to bring his nose
and neck in but i had to put my inside leg on then go back and watch to keep him on the track
now my outside leg goes back and he can do traver
if i use my reins to tip his nose out here
and use my right leg i can ask him to do a little leg yield
left leg on straightens him up whoops now he's all crooked oh looking at the mirror
coming down the center make him look that way
ask him to shorten that and then ask him to come over this way and i know these aren't
very beautiful because he's been out of work but that's a little that's how half pass happens
so once you can do all of this so when you've got go stop turn and move over from your legs
you've got the basics of nearly every dressage movement there is
i'm really enjoying sharing these with you i hope you're liking them if you do
hit the subscribe button please give me a like and i'll see you next week