As you enter at A, the judge’s steely eyes will be firmly fixed upon you and your horse for the next few nerve-wracking minutes. But what’s going through her mind as she watches you? Is she judging the perfect...
Maintaining a balanced, consistent, and controlled canter on the correct lead presents enough challenges. But what if your horse has trouble holding his canter? If your horse starts off fine but repeatedly breaks to the trot, then you need...
Both English and western riders can sometimes be misguided as to how to hold the reins correctly. That diminishes their communication with their horse. When direct rein aids are used, a rein is held in each hand. In this...
Hunters and dressage riders often don't see eye to eye, but surprisingly in this case we do. Rising trot without stirrups is a fine thing—if and only if, a rider has mastered basic position. This is because riding without...
It may sound overly simple, but a dressage test is truly a test of geometry. Judges will score an average mover that makes accurate figures higher than a fancy mover that drifts off the rail and makes egg-shaped...
Braiding your horse's mane is easier than you might think. Practice these steps for a neat and polished look in the show ring.
For step-by-step mane braiding instructions, click here
For step-by-step tail braiding instructions, click here
Watch more horse videos
The canter’s rocking-horse, three-beat rhythm presents a problem for novice riders trying to master their position at this gait. In trot, the rider’s body position remains stable since the horse’s head and neck don’t move in this two-beat gait....
Shifting the shoulders at the trot to correct a horse that overbends at the neck
Ellen demonstrates how to get better control of your outside rein and stop pulling on the inside rein by turning the horse’s shoulders. She moves...
Here, Ellen rides Tvauri forward and sideways in approximately equal measures, while keeping his body parallel to the long sides of the arena; his forehand is correctly slightly in advance of his hindquarters.The aids to leg-yield from left to...
