hello everyone i'm amelia and today i'm going to help you to ride the perfect circle
um this is a little trick that i find really helpful because sometimes what happens is that
when you're trying to ride a circle that your horse is like constantly drifting to the outside
and so you feel like you're like constantly trying to turn your horse and you're drifting
your horse is drifting more and more to the outside and it can be really frustrating so
this is a great way to kind of get your horse a little bit better turning so that then you
are able to ride that perfect circle so give this video a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe so you
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so this is Phargo and today we're going to show you how to ride the perfect circle
we are going to start off to the left and i'm going to show you so
what happens let me know if your horse is like this so most horses are naturally what we call
hollow left and stiff to the right so what that means is that most horses when you're
going on a circle to the left most horses tend to want to bulge out to the right
and i'm going to show you first what most horses do and then how we're gonna fix that and get
to where we can ride a perfect circle so if i just pick up the trot here i'm gonna exaggerate
a little bit what his tendency is because he is a horse that's hollow left and stiff right
so fargo's tendency on a left hand circle is that he kind of just wants to over bend and
then his his see how he's just drifting over here to the right like he's literally falling onto the
rim so his haunches are swinging out his whole body is just drifting out and what happens then
is that as a rider you end up like you're pulling him more and more to the left you're like come
on turn turn turn and he's just drifting this way more and more so this is like not gonna work right
so what we're gonna do is that instead of riding a circle i'm going to write a diamond so i'm going
to think about riding four straight lines so i'm going to turn from b to a little bit past i
here on the center line then i'm going to make a sharp turn and go to e so you see
how now instead of riding a circle i'm riding a diamond so i'm going turn and straight to b
and then from b i'm going to turn and go straight to the center line
and then again i'm going to turn and go straight so this is really a good exercise because
it allows me to give a distinct turning aid like come on turn release it's really important when
we train our horses that we remember the release and what happens is like i showed you before when
he's drifting out all the time my turning aids are constantly on him and he's never getting a release
from the turning aid so when your horse is just drifting and you're constantly trying to turn them
you're basically teaching them to ignore the turning aids so what are the turning aids
the turning aids are mainly your outside aids so mainly your outside leg a little behind the girth
and your outside rain here by the withers it's really important that your outside rain
doesn't come across the neck so your outside rain shouldn't go over the main but your outside rain
can be right here at the withers your inside rain is kind of like a blinker so your inside
rain helps to get your horse to look where they're going because you do want your horse to look where
they're going but your outside rain and leg are what actually execute the turn so if i'm walking
along here i'm going to close my right rein and right leg and kind of push him to the left
and then once he turns i'm going to soften that pressure on my outside rein and outside leg
so again it's going to be half halt turn and release and then i'm going to that next touch
point on the center line i'm going to close my right ring and my right leg half halt turn him and
then release him forward to the letter e so think about trying to ride this diamond shape and then
once you are able to ride the diamond shape you might like obviously if you ride a diamond in a
test right the judge is going to be like okay well that's not really a round circle so once you feel
like you've mastered the diamond shape then what you might start doing is think about riding like
a hexagon so that it's kind of like turn release turn release turn release so you have like a few
more little turns but it's always really important to remember to get your horse to turn soften
get your horse to turn soften so you put those turning aids on and then you soften your horse
and then same thing of course the other way but whenever i'm having trouble riding a circle
or my students having trouble riding a circle i find it helpful to go to this pattern
where you're riding more of like a square or a diamond shape
so that you really make a clear distinction of like okay i'm going to turn to the center line
now release turn to the center line now release and the reason that this is important is because
like if you're constantly trying to turn and your horse isn't turning so like if i'm constantly like
turn turn turn and like putting so much pressure you see how my whole body starts getting tweaked
and like i'm all crooked and leaning and then my horse is getting crooked underneath of me so
that's why it's important that when you're riding a circle you make this distinction where you turn
a little soften turn a little soften so that you don't end up always having the turning aids
on your horse another really good thing if you're having trouble with your circles is to do a lot of
changes of direction so like don't just dwell on one side but go you know the hard way with
for this horse it's a little harder on the left because he likes to drift out so i kind of like
go the hard way and then go back to the easier side and then go back to the hard side so just
mixing it up so that i don't end up getting like too crooked and that he doesn't either
good job buddy so i hope that this video was helpful like anything else you know
the turning aids are the same as like your leg so you want to like
get your horse to turn soften the turning aids get your horse to turn soften the turning aids
if you're constantly holding on to those turning aids and you never find a place to release them
then your horse just starts to ignore them so that's where sometimes doing
like an extreme like 90 degree turn release 90 degree turn release can be really helpful
thanks for watching be sure to let me know in the comments if this is helpful and if
you're going to give it a try also let me know which direction is harder for you to circle
and yeah thanks for being here we'll see you in the next video
bye