As the show season progresses, it’s easy to get caught up in competition and your goals of advancing through the levels. However, it’s back-to-school season, and both you and your horse can benefit from it. Taking a few rides to focus on the basics can make your more advanced riding even better. Here’s why you might want to take your horse “back to school,” even if just for a little bit.

Refocus on Your Position

Taking your horse back to basics gives you a chance to focus on your own position in the saddle and how it may be both positively and negatively affecting your horse. Ask a trainer or a friend to put your horse on the lunge line so that you can truly focus on and evaluate your riding position. If you make even small alterations to your position, it can have a great effect on your strength and development as a rider, especially at the higher levels.

Check Up On Your Horse

Refocusing on the basics gives you a chance to step back and check up on how your horse is doing. You can take your time in evaluating his position and balance during the ride, through transitions, and through every gait. As you return to basics you can also check in on just how responsive your horse is to your cues, and can get a better idea of what areas you might need to work on.

Develop Enhanced Communication

While communication between you and your horse is important when schooling for any level of competition or riding, going back to the basics can make communication issues particularly evident. Riding your horse on a loose rein at the walk can quickly identify whether you and your horse are “in tune” with each other, or whether more work needs to be done on communication.

Remember that you have many methods of communicating with your horse. You can supplement your typical aids of the reins, your legs, and your seat, with the additional aids of your voice and the direction in which you’re looking. Take some time to experiment with whether you can steer your horse simply by looking in the direction that you want to go. As you better understand how your horse already responds to you, you can tailor your training to develop and strengthen other communication methods.

Get a Mental Break

It can be great to be driven towards achieving a goal, but everybody – including your horse – needs a break at some point. A return to the basics takes the pressure of upper-level schooling off of you both, and can make rides less stressful and more enjoyable.

Taking a step back and going “back to school” with your horse can make your return to your upper-level schooling more effective.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/64081615@N06/5843188832

Original Source: Back to School: How You and Your Horse Can Benefit From Going Back ...