Hi there and welcome to another video bringing you the best information
For showing and training riding and all that other good stuff
So if you like horses and would like improve your riding and training remember to subscribe and hit the bell icon
So you don't miss any new videos coming out and this video today is brought to you by Grace
Grace, so kindly send in some photos to have her position reviewed if you'd like to have your own position reviewed
Send us some photos send them to Thistle Ridge @ hotmail.com. Thanks grace for sending in these photos really appreciated
Generally speaking generally overall grace your position is great
You look like you're in balance with your horse, but we have a few little tweaks that we'd like to
Work with to help you improve your riding and get more in balance with your horse
so first of all
I want to go over some of the great things that Grace is doing in her riding position and you can see this
From these photographs. So here's the first photograph that we have here really like that
The photographs are taken from the side. That way you can see your position really nicely and there's no
Jump standards or anything in the way.
so here you can see one thing that we really like is that
Keeping your eyes up keeping your eyes up looking forward is really important because if your head is up that helped teach your whole balance
Your whole body and balance so that you can keep yourself aligned with the horse
also, if you keep your eyes up and looking where you're going that
Tells the horse where you're going
If you're sitting here
if you look left and
Look, right
You can
Feel that there's minor
shifts of your weight and the horse can feel that so if you're looking up and looking around your turn the horse can feel the
Difference in the way your weight is shifted and will be able to anticipate the turn a little bit better
Keeping your eyes up, it helps keep your head straight and your back straight and your horse going forward and straight
Really love that this riders keeping the weight down into her heels
You can see your heels are down here weight is right down coming past her knee into her stirrup and into her heel to
Keeping her lower leg locked on the horses side be a little bit careful with your spur here. It looks like you may be
Tickling him a little bit with your spur. So make sure that your legs are on and relaxed without your spur digging into a side
One thing I really noticed is this riders straight line shoulder nito this means
That you are in balance with your horse
When you are in a riding position in the horse show ring
This is one of the things that the judges look for is a straight line
shoulder knee toe shoulder knee toe in your half seat or two point position helps keep your
Keep the rider and balanced with the horse now
for example
if you were to take that horse away from underneath or just by magic if you could pull that horse away from
underneath this rider this rider would stand with
on her feet in balance
She's not the chair seat. She's not tip forward. She's in balance over top of her leg. And that's really important when you're cantering around
The other thing we like about this is that she's got a D ring snaffle in the horse's mouth
I do want to point out. However, if she's going in the hunter ring that this nose band is a
drop noseband
A figure 8 nose band and it's not permitted in hunter ring
So I'll make sure that if you do if you are going in with the hunters
Make sure you change to swap out that nose band for a cavesson noseband
And again, another thing that we like is this riders seat is over in the middle of the saddle
Not over the pommel not over cantle, but right in the middle of the saddle showing that she's a good balance with the horse
You can see your hands here are soft and relaxed. There's a nice lope in the rein
her elbows are soft and
Relaxed your hands are soft and relaxed in front of in front of her keeping her in balance really good position here
She is coming off the jump
And you can tell by this picture that
This straight line shoulder nito is kind of at an angle now, so you want to make sure that when you are
jumping and landing that you are again shoulder knee toe straight line, but that's shoulder knee toe straight line should be more or
more vertical
So for example, we'd like to see
This green line her shoulders coming back to the Green Line here so that she'd be more in balance over top of her horse
if
we were to
Take the horse away from underneath her
She'd be landing on her toes and body would be tipping forward which means that she's not in balance
So we'd like to bring your shoulders back and to do that. Just let it get her seat closer to the saddle and
More over the middle of the saddle shoulders up. Maybe not so much closing of the hip angle, but keep the
Keep a straight line shoulder knee toe more vertical this is where we'd like for her shoulders to be a little bit backward
I
Did so here what I've done is I superimposed your body
where I'd like to see it on top of our other body where she is and you
would like to see her foot closer to the
girth with the weight down and you could see that I
Kind of rotated about her knee
So her shoulders are back over top of her hips a little bit more and we like to have her hands down
So that's kind of like where we'd like her to be. Here's another lovely photo of grace going over top of a jump
Excellent position. She looks like she's with her horse totally with her horse
Heels are down. But again, you got to be careful of those first
looks like her slake his swim back a little bit and her seed is push more towards the pommel of the saddle like
See closer to the seat of the saddle over top of the middle of the saddle and be careful of those Spurs
Don't let them dig in the horses side when you're going and that's a real problem
And this is because you're pinching with your knee and when you pinch with your knee your lower leg swings back and your upper body
slips forward
Really love that. You've got your eyes up looking forward at the jump the next jump
So we want the seat closer to the middle and towards the back of the saddle so that your hips over top of your heels
and
Your shoulder. If you bring your seat back more towards the back of the saddle
It'll get your shoulders where you need to be on the top of your knees
You can see that if we were to take the horse again away from this rider and let her plop down onto the ground
She would tip forward and fall on her face. That's not good straight line
Shoulder knee toe and you can see that her shoulders are well ahead of her and she's folding over top of her hands
so contrast this position where her heads are
to the first photo that we have
Here where her hands are up nicely in front of her and you know that's different phase of the jump
But you have to keep that in mind and here you see that her hands are nicely out in front of her as well
But here this one is that she is
Her hands with her eyes are up really nicely
Like to see your hands out in front of her a little bit more and there's two things that can happen to get our hands
out in front of you're a little bit more is
One bring your shoulders back and our seat back closer to the saddle and to just pushing your hands out a little bit more
a
Few comments on the horses jumping
Look at this lovely horses jumping his knees are up. He's a little bit late little bit slower with his right front
Just a little bit look lower with it, but it's pretty good. One thing you have to say is she
Swapped out the noseband which was a great thing
One seat closer to the saddle. This is the biggest thing is that
He is got his hind legs split open like to have both the both hind legs together as he's pushing off
So to help improve this rider
There's some exercises that you can do lots of two-point position doing a two-point position actually with your hands above your head like this
Helps keep your upper body steady, because if you lean forward too much with your hands above your head
It's really important
to point position hands behind your back helps to keep your
weight centered more back and of course
riding without stirrups
Take a look at some of the other position reviews that we have and if you'd like to get your own position reviewed
Please send me an email put position review in the subject line. Send it to thistle Ridge at hotmail.com
Thanks now. Bye
Thanks grace. Appreciate it