hi guys it's josie and in today's video we're going to talk about shoulder fore. this video is
brought to you by angela holland who asked that question of me so angela i hope this helps you
please let me know in the comments if it does or let me know if you need any clarification i'm more
than happy to try and help you out there by the end of this video you should know what shoulder
fore is why we do it and how we do it so let's get into a little bit of theory here i'm going
to keep this very basic like anything in horses there's layer over layer so you learn the first
little layer and you think you've got that and then there's something else to learn about what
you thought you knew about and horse riding and training is all like that forever and it used to
frustrate me in the beginning but now i actually love it so i am forever a learner on a horse
by nature horses carry more weight on their forehand than they do on their hind quarter
that's just the way they have been made and if you look at where i'm sitting i'm
sitting more up on his forehand than his back end so i'm adding my weight to his forehand
what we'd like to do for longevity of the horse and for his own health and well-being of his
joints is to get him to carry more weight behind just to complicate that a little bit more
nature also made horses narrower in the shoulders than they are in the hips
and then adding one more layer of complication on that she bent them a bit like a banana so
they don't sit perfectly straight horses are a little bit bent one side of them is concave on
one side is convex so if you allow your horse to go down the wall how he would naturally like to
go particularly young horses and green horses he would have his shoulder against the wall and his
hip against the wall and because he's that wedge shape that we talked about a wedge shape so narrow
at the shoulders than the hips that means as you can see his right hind leg here is stepping out
so when he steps forward that hind leg steps out away a little bit from his body mass certainly not
as close as his left hind leg would which would be stepping underneath and taking the weight this
one tends to be able to step out and not carry so much weight so the aim of shoulder fore is to help
the horse learn to bring his hind leg which will be his inside hind leg because that depends on
the bend underneath towards his center of gravity and carry more weight so what we're looking to do
is put that inside hind leg between the front feet so it's tracking not literally between them but so
it moves towards them into the space between them so it's done on three tracks so there is
the inside fore leg the inside hind leg between the two fore legs and then the outside legs should
be on a nice straight line this brings the hind legs closer together in doing that this
hind leg that's coming in underneath the body has to bend more through the hock and step in and take
a little bit more weight so your horse needs to be able to do a leg yield before he can do
a shoulder fore and he needs to be able to do a turn on the forehand before he can probably do
a leg yield i've done videos for them so please go and look for them they're the ones that you
hold that's the building blocks as you go along to build your horse up so the aids for shoulder fore
inside rein asks for flexion outside rein keeps the neck so it doesn't over bend it also helps
direct the horse down the long side if you're doing shoulder fore on a straight line inside
leg of the rider gets the inside hind leg to step between the two front legs and the outs and it
also keeps with your forward momentum and the outside leg tries to guard the outside hind leg
from stepping out so i've got my flexion and my bend and i need his hind there we go there we go
there we go there we go you can see spider's outside hind leg does step out occasionally so
when you're doing this with a really young green horse one or two steps in the direction you want
is good enough it doesn't matter if it's not perfect you just need to praise the horse for
any attempt to do what you want because we all have to start somewhere so this is the first
exercise we do where the horse is actually flexed and bent into the direction of travel if you think
about leg yield he was actually flexed away from the direction of travel so the inside rein
is used to ask for flexion you just want a little bit of flexion on the end of the neck so you can
see the corner of the horse's eye and the side of the horse's nostril the outside rein's job is
to actually limit the amount of neck bend because we don't want a lot of neck bend and the bend we
require from the horse is about the bend on a 20 meter circle so it's not much the inside leg of
the rider sits on the girth and asks the horse to go sideways away like that okay so that's why your
horse needs to understand turn on the forehand and leg yield before you go ahead and do this
but it doesn't need to be perfect guys these all help teach the horse the aid as well
the outside leg so so not only does the inside leg ask for the bend and the sideways movement it
keeps the forward momentum as well the outside leg guards the outside hind leg from actually stepping
out as well and then turning it more into a leg yield and than a shoulder fore losing the bend
so when you're starting this with your horse come in off your 20 meter circle
think that you're going i'm going to try and slow this down think that you're
continuing on here and as you get to this point where you would be stepping onto your circle there
put your inside leg on your horse at the girth and ask and you're outside rein i squeeze and
release squeeze release to say come this way this way this way i've lost my haunches here
i know that and in the beginning your horse is perhaps going to do this in the beginning when
you're teaching this allow your horse to be a little bit longer long things are easy to bend
short tight things are difficult to bend so he comes around now and i need to make sure
he doesn't step out good boy good boy good boy good boy good feel the left hind step out then
need to catch that with my left leg i've got my nice rhythm nice tempo hopefully you can
see his leg his right hind pardon me stepping between his front legs his left hand stepped out
let's move that and now he's right hind i need to get under there tuck it in good boy
here we come bend in the corner keep my bend
nice rhythm and tempo outside leg just stepped out then
so we should be good boy good
good and he's almost stopped in shoulder fore position there can you see that good boy so
doing this in the beginning is a little bit like patting your head and rubbing your tummy
it can be quite difficult until you get it get the hang of it so let's have a look at it correctly
again so come here as i get to the step he's about to take off the circle around that way
inside whoops inside leg inside leg inside leg and i haven't i want i want to point out what
i've got going wrong here okay so how many tracks have i got i've got four i've got inside front
inside hind outside front outside hind that is not shoulder fore he needs these two to be on the same
track so we'll try that again so you need to use less aids than you think to get what you want
whoops outside higher front hind is stepping out there we go there we go so you can see that his
hind legs were stepping a lot closer together then that is the aim of shoulder fore to get the hind
legs to move a little closer because then they're stepping underneath the horse's center of gravity
and carrying more weight so for shoulder fore you are literally moving
the shoulders in front of the haunches in all dressage movements we always move the shoulders of
the horse in front of the haunches just remember put the shoulders in front of the engine no matter
what you're doing that's the way it should be done i hope that helps and angela i hope that gives you
a little bit of a guide to how to do shoulder fore go out and play with it you don't learn anything
if you don't play with it be kind to yourself be kind to your horse and thanks for watching
you