hi it's josie and today i'd like to share with you how i teach a horse to move his shoulders
personally i found this one of the most difficult things to teach a horse i struggled with it
and i've also found that a lot of horses actually have problems they get turning
moving the hindquarters not too bad but moving the front end
becomes a little bit difficult for them don't forget if you like the video give me a thumbs up
and tell me in the comments if your horse has problems moving his shoulders to start with always
think about setting your horse up for success so i've got a fence line on that side of rebel
because when i start to give him an aid in a little bit he's going to be looking for answers so
like he's going to be trying to find out what to do to get the pressure to stop so i've taken
one option an incorrect option away from him and that just helps him and it will also help you if
you're just learning how to do these when i'm teaching a really green horse from the ground
i will use a whip and i'll either use a short one with a flapper which works quite well on a young
horse or i'll use my dressage whip what i want you to do is think about what you want to happen what
you want to happen is the shoulders to go that way so in the very beginning it doesn't matter
if his head goes up and his shoulders go that way if he steps forward and his shoulders go that way
if he steps back and his shoulders go that way doesn't matter whether the foot goes in front
or behind we teach our horse one thing at a time and in the very beginning all i care about is that
his shoulders go that way so i'm not even going to watch his head or anything i will watch the
feet but in this particular exercise i'll feel for when the shoulder is going to make a move that way
to help the horse a little bit i will be tipping his head this way because that already opens up
a bit of an opportunity for the shoulders to fall out and although when we're riding them
we don't want the shoulders to fall out when i'm teaching him this anything that can help him get
what i'm trying to teach him helps me as well as helps him so a little bit of nose this way
if he's gonna back up too much back them into the corner so that then you're taking two options away
and he really only has the correct option so his nose a little bit this way i hold my reins you can
do this in a halter by the way it doesn't have to be with a bridle and in the very beginning i
teach the green horse with a halter but if you come in a little and have a look i hold my rein
right by the bit as if i was sitting on his back okay so my little finger is closest to the bit
and the rein goes between little finger and ring finger and my thumb over top
and that's because i use this motion a lot to indicate to the horse what i want him to do
so i'll bring his nose a little this way doesn't need to be a lot good boy and i'm going to you're
probably not going to see this but i'm going to put some pressure on his shoulder with a tap tap
tap of the whip i'll give you another angle in a minute so i want his shoulder and the minute his
shoulder goes that way i released okay he's a bit slow i could see that he was going to do it though
good boy so this way whip tap i don't care about the hind quarters yep now that was awesome to
show you the hindquarters went first but i still kept tapping and the minute the shoulders went
i didn't care that his hindquarters were over there i released the pressure that's how the
horse learns so if he's coming forward or going backwards or doing something you don't want to do
once you've started with the pressure keep the pressure on whatever it is and at this
moment is the tapping of the whip until he does what you want him to do that's the hardest bit
i think for people to understand he starts to go backwards and they stop and then they bring
them up and they start again well you've just released the pressure when he went backwards so
you're inadvertently teaching him to go backwards at the end of the day though just as a caveat
here if things are going really pear-shaped just stop what you're doing and start again
there is nothing wrong with doing that it's a little bit windy now so i hope you could hear me
once your horse has got turning his shoulders from the ground it's time to hop on his back and do it
and the same principles start again you try and set him up so that you block one way for him to
give you an answer that is an incorrect answer so because i want his shoulders to go that way
i'll pop the fence line on this side now i want to tell you it may not look at today but this can be
quite ugly before it actually turns into something functional so don't panic if your horse doesn't
look perfect because i've yet to find a horse that does this perfectly in the beginning trust me
there's also another issue with this particular exercise that
i've found and that is that horses can have a tendency to rear if you block them in the front
okay so it's not blocking the horse when you're using the reins the opening rein to
tell him which way i want him to go which will be that way is if you come in and have a look here
is a squeezing the sponge so it's come come come come and it's not backwards either it's an open
rein make sure you're not pulling backwards i turn the horse's head away from where i want him to go
with his shoulders in the beginning because that allows the energy to sort of escape that way and
it sort of sets them up to do a fall out through the shoulder but that all i want him to learn is
to actually turn off of the outside rein he's that turn that way i'm going to tap i use a flapper on
the shoulder because it actually has makes a bit of a noise more than anything and i teach my young
horses to turn the shoulder off a tap and then i go on to actually teach them to turn off the
outside rein because that the whip will end up being on the circle in my outside hand so i turn
his head away to allow him to fall through the shoulder i open this the right rein i'll squeeze
and indicate and i will tap on the shoulder until he comes and then i will release that was enough
to start with again open tap tap tap good boy so let's do that again i'll just turn him around open
with an indicating finger tipping his nose this way and whoops he's already doing it for me making
sure you are centered in the saddle not falling to the left or falling to the right and that's
sometimes actually quite difficult particularly if your horse won't move i also tend to use my
thigh on the shoulder i want to move away from it because under saddle you start to turn them
with your thighs as well so when you're riding your young horse and you're trying to do a half
a circle or he's falling out i'll see if i'll make rebel fall out a little bit so he's falling out
now i will tap him with this on the whip on the shoulder and ask him to bring the shoulders over
it's that easy it happens fast if you're doing a faster gait
so if you're actually trotting or cantering
on a young green horse come back slow down and in the end honestly if i can't teach the horse
if i can't sorry if i can't get him to do what i want him to do from the saddle i will get off and
go back to the ground work exercise on the spot i'll see if i can actually show you what i'll do
so if he started falling out here i would slow down
and even to a stop and ask him to move over and then go on if he didn't get it i would get off
and use my whip on his shoulder and say no no mate i'm trying to get you to move the shoulder over
you have to take the time it takes to teach the particular horse to do it once you've got them
moving the shoulder that's part of shoulder in obviously because you need to move the shoulder in
it's part of walk pirouettes it's part of canter pirouettes so it's quite an important tool to have
and to take an aid to teach a horse and it also teaches your horse exactly what the outside rein
is so the outside rein actually turns my horse if you like this video give me a little thumbs up
subscribe if you haven't down in the bottom right hand corner and let me know in the comments
if your horse can move his shoulders easily or if he finds it difficult and i'll see you soon