What do you do when a horse sport different from your own uses cruel methods? Be grateful that your own sport is humane and clean and turn a blind eye or do something about it?



Of course what constitutes cruelty is often debatable. In my opinion the isolation of horses in single cells with minimum activity is cruelty, and I am not alone in having concerns about the mental abuse of horses in bad dressage, while others think racing over…

Hi Guys,



Regardless of which discipline you ride, it's very important to sit straight and square in the saddle. Can you tell if you're collapsing at your waist and sitting crookedly?



Ask a ground person to stand behind you.

1. Are your shoulders level (i.e. the same height)?

2. Is your seat in the center of the saddle so that each seatbone is the same distance from the middle of the saddle?



If your shoulders aren't level which means that one…

Hi Guys,



Lots of riders are confused about how to smoothly switch their long dressage whip from one hand to the other. Many of you tell me you feel awkward while doing this, and you're concerned about making your horse uncomfortable and disturbing the contact because you're twisting the bit in your his mouth.



Here's a step-by-step method to switch your dressage whip without disturbing the contact with your horse's mouth. I recommend practicing this technique at first…

Jack le…

So we’ve done it. We’ve got a meaningful result at a decent level. Dell finished 9^th in the CIC* at Hambleden. But

blimey it was a bit of an epic weekend.....

For starters I was missing school on Friday (again) but an early start meant we had plenty of time for Gray and Dell’s dressage.yes""> I’ve often been told that a problem with the junior system

is that you don’t get the experience of competing against…

The following blog was inspired by a rider who told me, "I have a

wonderful, talented thoroughbred. We can do Second and Third level work

at home, yet when we compete, we can barely get through a First Level

test. The missing link seems to be relaxation. My horse is off the

track, and we seem to feed off each other's tension. How does a

normally…

Hello

Just wondering if you could give me some advice. My horse, a six year old mustang had been trained for about ten months. He stops, turns fine, but I cannot get him to slow down. Of course then I get nervous…

I was trail riding over the weekend, and my horse took a dislike to the horse behind him. I saw the symptoms (making faces) and tried to get his attention on me, but he would have none of it! That awful equine behind him clearly needed to be taught a lesson (he must have been several feet back). So my horse (an appaloosa) RAN backwards!…

Hi Guys,



With show season right around the corner, I thought I should go over some tips to help you in the warm-up ring. So many riders are confused about how to warm-up their horses so they can have a productive schooling session. So here are 9 tips to help you with your warm-ups.



As a rider and trainer, your goal in the warm-up is to take the restrictions away from your dressage horse's body. So depending on the day, your warm-up could be as short as 10 minutes, or it…

This Week in Horse History - April 19th Through April 25th

April 19, 1969 - The Lady Godiva Stakes was originally run today. Bill Veek, the President of Suffolk Downs, created the race to feature all female jockeys. The race offered a $10,000 purse, and was won by Penny Ann Early.…

How should my upper body be as I ride?…

Hi Guys,



In order for your lateral work such as shoulder-in, haunches-in, and half passes to be effective as collecting exercises, your horse must BEND.



Think of the following equation. Bend+Sideways=Engagement. (Engagement means the bending of joints. As your horse bends his hind legs, his croup lowers, and his forehand goes up--kinda like a seesaw or an airplane taking off.)



So here are some quick tips to help you determine if you're bending your horse…

So the eventing season’s now well and truly underway. Dells already had outings to Isleham and Poplar where he jumped double clears in the placings

and last weekend he jumped his first intermediate novice at Great Witchingham

and finished 10^th.

Things are looking up!

Continuing with the success front I also managed to pass my…

Dear Julie,

The question I have is for the Mountain Pleasure horse I bought about six months ago. He is a big sweetie, I love him dearly he has very nice manners and lunges well. The problem I'm having is the first time I rode him before I bought him, the people I bought him from used a headstall that was to big and he got the bit under his tongue I don't know and can't find out if he did this before then, but now it continues to…

You've carefully laid out a systematic, progressive schooling program for your horse. Yet every time you add new work, you run into a certain amount of resistance.

Don't panic. Understand that when you raise the bar, it's inevitable that you're going to encounter resistance. It's a normal part of training. Don't be afraid of it. Just work through it in baby steps.

Have a checklist…

Several of you have asked me if there's any value in counter flexing your horse while in true canter so I'd like to discuss that here.

1. Generally, you want to flex your horse in the direction of the canter lead he's on. That goes for true canter as well as counter canter. So if you're cantering on left lead, position his head so you just barely see his left eye and/or nostril.

2.…

Marengo with Napoleon

 …