hi it's josie and today i thought i would show you how i warm my horses up i come out
with a plan for all of my riding sessions on my horses but the horse actually dictates that plan
i might decide that today i want to work on leg yielding but rebel decides that he doesn't think
he should have to do walk trot transitions or trot walk transitions nicely and so that would
be part of my leg yield because walk trot walk transitions are all go forward and slow down
aids and they all fit into a leg yield so you need to start from the very beginning basic
basic building blocks with your horse so that's what i plan to do today in the beginning if you're
just starting out training horses or if you have a horse that's just starting out being trained it's
always good to have a plan because then you put the building blocks together in your own head and
if you're actually teaching a green horse you put the building blocks together in your green horse
and then you can go from there and pick which pieces you need to fit into the horse
on that particular day so today i'm starting from the very basics and i go through the very basics
on my horses every time i get on them sometimes it might take me 30 seconds to go through
will he go will he stop will he do this will he do that but i always start with abc
and then move on so the first thing i do with all my horses when i get on
is they're allowed to do a few laps of the arena basically on a no contact loose rein
just to let them step through and what i do whilst i'm doing this is i will actually loosen myself
up so once they've done a few laps and they're feeling a bit looser and so am i i'm going to
slowly pick up my contact in a walk still and have the lightest possible contact i have a contact
on rebel's mouth now it might not look like it to you but i can feel the corners of his mouth now i
can't because he's decided he'll look at the sheep but that's okay i'll just say excuse me we're
going this excuse me we are good boy we're going this way so now i start checking my go and stop
so the first things i want to do are walk halt transitions so i'm going to do a walk here i'm
going to warn him on the outside rein i'm going to do a halt how did he do that halt this is what
i think about he lent a little bit on the bit and he stopped on his forehand he's warming up
and i haven't asked i put my leg on asked him to go so i did a go aid then so my aids start
at the very lightest possible aid and then i move up the scale until i get the response i want
i usually want my horses answering my aids somewhere between a one and a three
and if it's above that i will go back and redo the actual transition i did and make sure
that i finish on a transition that's sitting somewhere between a one and a three so i'm
going to ask him to halt again so i pick my body up pull my belly button in and stop my
pelvis moving now to me rebels stopped on about a two then now i'm going to ask rebel to go
so i'm going to basically pick my energy up how do i explain that to you i pick my core up i i don't
do anything really active it's all very subtle horses are very subtle animals and they pick up
the subtlest cues you'll be amazed so i picked myself up and that's a little bit of a that's a
a little bit of a body half halt i use to go yep there's something coming and now i'm going to put
my legs on and i'm going to go up the training scale and he hopefully will move between a one
and a three so i'm going to put my seat on seats on legs on and he moved probably from a three
heading towards a four if i'm very honest with you so i'm going to just repeat that and ask him
to stop i'm going to ask him to go good that was much better that was off what i would call a two
is it as much energy as i want him to go off no not at the moment but i'm doing a warm-up
once i've got my halt walk transitions where they would be
i will go off to a walk trot transition and it's the same principle in it
i don't he doesn't have to be rounded on the bit because he's not i'm warming him up he's coming on
to the aids he's not on the aids yet this is how you get them to come on the bit eventually so i'm
asking him first of all i'm warning i always warn with my outside rein sorry guys sometimes it's
hard to tell you everything i'm doing because it all happens in a split second and i can't say it
all at once but if you just work slowly through these building blocks and put them together
you'll be able to do it like that too you'll have to think about it in the beginning but if you've
driven a manual car go back to remembering what it was like to learn to change the gears you would
put your foot on the clutch you'd think about it you'd take your foot off the accelerator you've
just rev the guts out the car then you would put it in gear and then you would try and take your
foot off the clutch while putting your foot on the accelerator and you'd bunny hop the car and
you'd stall it that's what happens when you're learning how to do this on your horse so don't be
mean to yourself allow yourself to learn and just be really grateful that our horses let us learn on
them alright so sit up and ask him to walk off and i am mindful of every transition i do when
i'm on my horse and my perfect no but i do try and keep in my mind when i give my horse an aid
i would like him to respond so we're going to just go and do some walk trot and i'm going to use
long straight lines because rebel is a little bit lacking in energy today
so i'm going to ask him to listen to me listen to me and bump bump for trot good
boy is it an energetic trot not really but he's warming up is he on the bit definitely not
i could i put him on the bit yeah i could pull him on the bit but that's not what i want to do
you're seeing a dinky die warm-up warts and all so now i'm going to do a down transition
good boy that was a very nice down transition so now i'm going to sit up and i'm going to
tip my pelvis on him that's how i ask for trot and i'm going to go
bump bump with my legs and that was a very good transition for me oh for him or for me really
so i'm pretty happy now i'm going to do a down transition i'm going to ask him to come back
to walk nice good boy nice walk transition now i'm going to do an up transition and i'm going
to sit up half halt touch the outside rein make sure his nose is this way because i'm on a circle
sit up and use my seat tip it and use good boy nice transition hopefully you
couldn't see too much going on there is he on the bit no why he's not warmed up
i'm bringing him onto the aids i'm putting him on the bit good boy good boy
good
another walk transition good boy but i want him to yeah keep walking forward in the transition he
sort of drops behind my leg a little bit i want him to do another trot transition good boy so
i'm going to sit here and i haven't done anything else but sit here then because i actually i want
tell you what happened then because i went to touch my outside rein and he lent on my inside leg
so i just wanted to correct that first because he was on a bend now he's nicely bent around my leg
now i'll ask him to go forward good get on the right diagonal josie
good good now i'm just going to shorten my reins a smidge more
which means his nose is going to come closer in so i need to add a little bit of leg there to
ask him to go forward into that shorter contact so now i'm going to ask him to walk and trot quicker
like a quicker repetition so come this way mate good
so it's going to be walk and trot okay so so there was no response to my aid there
the up aid you saw that i'm not gonna edit that out so i'm gonna that's how i corrected him
i got stronger and i bumped him with my leg and he didn't listen he got tapped with whip
let's try that again walk two three trot yeah good boy
so because i corrected him i went back and checked
that he would go off a lighter aid nope it's falling on his face there
one two three trot two three good boy
it's gotta be a little bit of time lapse for the message to get from my seat and leg
to his brain and back to his legs that's why a half halt actually gets their attention first so
half halt for me at the moment is because he's listening and he's on the aids as i close my
outside ring finger now walk now close it again and go trot good okay so once i've got the horse
listening to my forward aids my go aids and my stop aids i come and check
and for a really green horse guys or when you've just started under saddle that might be all they
do for the whole training session working on those until you get them once i've got them listening
to my going aids and my stopping aids i check them every horse i don't care which horse it is
check them when i get on as i said might take me 30 seconds might take me the entire ride
i then want to make sure the horse is listening to my sideways driving aid now if you don't know
how to teach a horse to leg yield i will link that one up here and put it in the description as well
it starts on the ground these blocks all build on each other for for you or me as a horse person to
be able to teach your horse you need to understand the concepts first so go there and watch that
so i use the nose to wall leg yield to start with because the actual wall or the fence line helps
take one incorrect choice away from the horse so he can't just walk forwards so when you tip
his nose this way and then he needs to keep going slide your my right leg back and on on
on and then he can and then i walk on straight i just do one two steps one it's a really green
horse just one step if it's an older uh horse or a little bit more experienced horse perhaps
three steps maybe even more i don't but as soon as they understand it i usually move
away from the wall and you'll find how i do my leg yielding ridden in this video up here i'll
pop this one up here and i'll link it in the description too once your horse can go stop
and step away from your sideways driving aids i'm pretty happy that i've actually warmed my
horse up i hope that one helps you i hope you find some value in it and thanks for watching