At Training and First levels, you're asked to ride your horse in a working gait.

So you might ask, how do I know what is a good working gait for my horse?

A working gait is the gait that the horse most easily presents himself in the best balance. So a working gait is as individual as the horse…

Bert de Nemethy

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‘Indoor eventing’ was the title of the ‘continuous professional development’ training day held on Monday 15^th March 2010 at Hadlow College, nr Tonbridge in Kent. The coach for the day was Nick Turner FBHS.

In my…

I would always support investing in our coaches because the pay off is so great as they influence so many hundreds of riders over their lifetime. I agree with Sebastian Coe, the Olympic 800m and 1,500m medalist and now head of the 2012 London Olympics, that more money should go to

coaching and coaches rather than to individual performers…

Hi there Julie,

The question - it is kind of in depth, but since…

Lately, I seem to be getting a lot of questions about improving haunches-in and shoulder-in when the stiff side is on the inside.

So here are some ideas to help. I’ll start with haunches-in.

Let’s say your horse is stiff to the right. Start by tracking to the right and do the following:

1. Ride a 10m circle in the trot, and focus on…

Never underestimate the power of the mind, not only as a power for good but also as a negative power that can subconsciously restrict your activities and achievements. Fear is often connected to a negative attitude. There are two…

The point of the warm-up is to take the restrictions away from your horse's body. So depending on the day, your warm-up could be as short as 10 minutes, or it could end up making up your entire ride.

1. Since your horse has probably been standing in the stall, spend the first 5-10 minutes walking around on a loose rein.
2. After walking around "on the buckle" for several minutes, pick up a contact so you can begin your…

Dear Julie,

I am buying a 3 month old colt that I would…

Last week I began to look at the special value of equestrian sports. Jessica Kuerton, in the…

You can help your horse stay in good balance by sitting evenly on your seatbones.

Here’s a cool image to help you make sure you’re part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Imagine you're sitting on top of a basketball.

If you lean forward, the basketball shoots out the back.

If you lean back, the basketball shoots out in front of you.

If you lean to…

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Can you tell if your riding position is straight and centered on your horse? Or are you collapsing at your waist and sitting crookedly?

Ask a ground person to stand behind your horse.

1. Is your seat in the center of the dressage saddle so that each…

It is so easy at times to lose control slightly and ask too much of your horse...or possibly worst, to intentionally ask too much in a deliberate and continual way in the belief that 'stretching' the horse in this way will yield greater progress. Education is the key, but to develop the experience, feel, and sensitivity to judge with some accuracy how much a horse can be asked is not a short journey. However what a hugely rewarding…

“You can spit in their ear to get them to canter,” a former coach of mine, Robert Hall, used to say, when emphasising how easy it is to train a horse if you use any aid consistently. In a demonstration I will often demonstrate this point by doing something silly, like pulling the hairs behind the saddle as I give the normal aids for canter. I do this about ten times, then take the leg away completely and just pull the hairs and most horses…

I think the main reason riders lean to the outside in half pass is that they use too much outside leg to push their horses sideways. So here are 3 quick tips to help you sit in the direction of movement.



1. Pretend there’s a seam running down the middle of your saddle from pommel to cantle. Then visualize yourself moving your outside seatbone onto that center seam so you don’t get left behind.



2. Think about actually taking a "step down into the inside iron" as…