On the other hand, when he is falling forward with his balance and pushing the base of his neck down, he will travel with rough, hurried strides, especially in the canter, which can feel like careening. For a better canter, you want to teach him to lift the base of his neck.

This is where an exquisitely timed half-halt helps. Without perfect timing, though, or when the half-halt is not working for various reasons, a neck rope offers a valuable assist. Learning how to canter with a neck rope can be very beneficial. In fact, you might be surprised at the difference it can make in the quality of your canter. For this exercise, you can use nearly any thick rope available at your barn that is comfortable in your hands.

How to Use a Neck Rope

1. Place a soft, braided rope around your horse’s neck as shown in the photo.
2. Hold your reins with normal contact. At the same time, hold the neck rope with one or both hands, hooking your pinky finger(s) around it.
3. Adjust the rope tightly enough so that when you pull upward 1 inch or so, it lifts into your horse’s chest and neck.
4. Now begin cantering around a large circle, asking your horse to move with good energy.
5. Use small, upward tugs on the rope, but try not to tug on your reins at the same time.

This article originally appeared in the October 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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A horse’s ability to cover ground with big, powerful trot strides comes from stability in his pelvis and hips. When he is weak or wobbly in the muscles and connections around his hip joint and croup, he can’t adequately balance the flexion and extension of each hind leg within each stride. This wobbliness often transmits to the rest of the body. Read on to learn more about the cavaletti snake over poles exercise that is great for horses to find better stability while riding.

Creating stability in the pelvis and hips is not always as straightforward as it seems. As with humans, it’s usually best accomplished by using varying planes of movement with small, controlled leg placements. These kinds of coordinated movements significantly help improve a horse’s balance for lateral movements like shoulder-in and haunches-in, in addition to strengthening the trot extensions.

I use the Snake Over Poles exercise to improve stability, and I like it best in the very beginning of a ride before a horse is warmed up. This provides the greatest challenge to the horse’s coordination and finely controlled motor patterns. If you lack blocks or risers to raise poles up as described in the exercise, you can still practice with the poles just lying on the ground. It’s best performed at the walk only.

The Exercise

1. Set up several ground poles touching end to end in a single straight line. If you have 6-inch risers available, raise the entire line of poles off the ground.
2. Now walk a very tight serpentine that crosses back and forth over the poles from one end to the other.
3. You should be crossing the pole every time at an oblique angle, not straight over.
4. Keep your loops as close as possible to the pole; the purpose is for your horse to make quick adjustments. Do not stray far away from the pole.
5. Be absolutely certain to change the horse’s bend and curvature with each loop.
6. Repeat the serpentine several times.

You can do this exercise either from the saddle or by leading or ground-driving. As long as the horse is moving steadily, changing the bend through his body in every turn, and stepping across the pole, he is gaining the benefit.

Snake Over Poles Variation

After performing the previous exercise for a week or two, many horses are ready for an advanced version.

1. To the Snake Over Poles set-up, add a second row of poles to double the width. Raise this row to the same height as described above.
2. Ride or lead your horse in a tight serpentine, crossing back and forth across this double-wide line of poles.
3. Aim to keep the horse’s neck low and reaching forward.
4. If the horse repeatedly hits the poles, leave the serpentine for a period and go elsewhere in the arena in a brisk trot to activate his energy and legs before returning to the pattern.

Since doubling the width requires so many poles, you can often be creative with other materials if you don’t have a lot of poles. Some barns have railroad ties lying around, which are an adequate height to step over in addition to being wide enough to mimic this exercise. Or you can try using planks or boards to set up this pattern, so long as the edges are smooth and won’t scrape the horse’s legs.

This article about a cavaletti snake over poles exercise originally appeared in the August 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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The ditch in your pasture might seem an unlikely place to refine your horse’s gaits, but terrain drops are actually very useful for changing or stimulating muscle recruitment. When a horse has to negotiate a short, steep downward slope followed immediately by a quick rise, he has to rotate his shoulder blades up and back. This helps loosen the muscles between his shoulders and ribcage. Read on to learn more about how to get rid of horse shoulder tightness.

When a horse favors one front leg over the other, it negatively affects muscular development. He will typically lean toward one direction or bulge outward on one side of his body when moving.

A helpful technique to remedy this is to stimulate his shoulder muscles using terrain. The action of abducting, or drawing the front leg out and away from the body for balance helps equalize effort in the front legs. It also introduces a new range of motion and can free up tight spots around the shoulder muscles.

Feel free to use any ditch you have on your property. In the photo, I’m using the drainage trench in our front paddock.

1. Find a ditch or canal that slopes downward approximately 5 to 10 feet and then rises up the other side. Be sure the banks of this ditch are stable enough to ride on and not crumbly or dangerous.
2. Begin by standing in the bottom with your horse’s body parallel to the banks or sides. Make sure he is calm and relaxed. This is not an exercise you want to scurry through.
3. Now proceed to ride a shallow serpentine that keeps crossing the ditch.
4. With each loop of your serpentine, proceed just two or three steps up the side of the bank and then return back down. The loops should be tight and swift, but be sure not to pull your horse around with the reins. Your contact should stay as light as possible.

Remember to change your horse’s poll flexion and bend for each loop, the same way you would in the arena. Be sure to not let him “fall” down the slopes with quicker strides. His rhythm should remain measured throughout. On your first few attempts, he might scramble a bit if he’s unaccustomed to this kind of exercise, but most horses catch on quickly.

This article about horse shoulder tightness originally appeared in the July 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Both exercises in this month’s routine, the turn on forehand and the turn on haunches, improve muscular coordination, not to mention stability and proper joint position. These maneuvers not only help improve a horse’s use of his body but also serve as a tune-up for overall performance.

As stand-alone exercises, the turn on forehand and the turn on haunches are valuable and worthy of practice nearly every time you ride. When combined in a pattern like this month’s turns on a square routine, the horse’s coordination and relaxation are challenged even more.

For some horses, you’ll see rapid improvement to their balance and ability to carry more weight on the hindquarters. For others, it will mean releasing old, unhelpful patterns of using muscles that are interfering in other areas of their work.

Because it can help a green horse gain new skills or a seasoned horse to further refinement, turns on the square are suitable for horses of all levels. For riders, the turns require clear and precise cues in order to be successful.

You must carefully consider how and where you’re positioning your outside leg, being sure to differentiate your aids for each of the turns. In this way, the exercise requires rider refinement at the same time as it benefits the horse.

Much of the value in this exercise comes from keeping your horse aligned and organized in his body. For this reason, be absolutely sure you stick to your square pattern and don’t begin wandering around elsewhere. In other words, don’t become so fixated on the footwork at each corner that you lose the accuracy of your pattern.

How to do Turns on the Square

1. Begin in a working walk around a 15-meter square. Use cones, blocks, or other objects to mark out four corners of your square. The quality of this exercise is always improved by using specific markers.
2. At the first corner, halt and ride a quarter-turn on the forehand. Your horse should take three steps with his hind legs to make the turn.
3. Now proceed straight ahead in a working walk to your next corner and halt.
4. Ride a quarter turn on the haunches so you end up facing the next corner of your square.
5. Keep repeating this sequence. At each corner, alternate riding a turn on the forehand and a turn on the haunches.

This article originally appeared in the June 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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When a horse is not physically ready to travel with flexion through his spine while crossing his legs, he will compensate by building up tightness and asymmetry, and that is where the giravolta could help.

The benefit of this month’s exercise comes from keeping the shoulder mobile. This reduces most horses’ tendency to brace or tighten through their shoulders and lock their back.

By keeping a walking rhythm with the front feet through the turn, the horse keeps his shoulders loose and torso more lifted, helping him use his body correctly.

We call this exercise the giravolta, sometimes translated from classical dressage texts as “to twirl” or “to spin around.” Historically, it was used when stepping the horse in a tight circle around pillars in the center of the arena prior to more highly collected work.

The giravolta introduces lateral work to the horse while ensuring good form and minimal strain or soreness. It also serves as a useful tune-up any time a horse gets compromised in his balance and rhythm when doing more complicated moves, such as shoulder-in or haunches-in.

How to Cue the Giravolta with Your Horse

The cues for the giravolta follow three-part sequence. Let’s assume you’re asking the horse to move away from your right leg:

1. First, ask to see your horse’s right eye with a light vibration on the right rein. Wait for him to swivel his head to the right.
2. Next, shift slightly more weight or pressure into your right seatbone while lengthening your right leg.
3. Lastly, if your horse is not already moving away from that weight shift, close your right leg rhythmically in time with his steps (on-off, on-off).

Riding the Giravolta

• Ride in an active working walk up the middle of your arena, or in any open space.
• Gently half-halt with your seat and back to downshift to a slower gear. Ask your horse to almost stop, but keep his feet inching forward.
• As soon as he responds to this downshift, apply the three-part cue described above.
• Make sure his right hind leg steps all the way across his left hind leg, forming an “X.”
• Maintain a little forward momentum in your turn so that your horse’s front feet keep marching incrementally ahead. Imagine his front feet walking around a tiny circle while his back feet follow a very large circle.
• After you have executed a 180-degree change of direction, ride straight ahead and resume the normal energy of the walk.

Continue repeating the giravolta in both directions interspersed with riding short straight lines.

This article about the giravolta originally appeared in the May 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Learn how to include the serpentine horse exercise into your training.

Blending arena figures together allows you to shape your horse’s body under you. Whether you want more bend, impulsion or roundness, remember that well-ridden, accurate, and rhythmic figures are your sharpest tools.

More often than not, riders end up with vaguely defined figures: wobbly circles, wandering turns, and so on. The downside of this, aside from being unclear to the horse, is that you lose communication with the horse’s hind legs and he adopts poor alignment, usually getting crooked in the direction of his dominant side, since horses are naturally as crooked as their human partners.

The benefit of serpentines as part of your horse’s exercise, in particular, is that they use a dynamic pattern of bending the horse from side to side, meaning he keeps flexing his spine back and forth in both directions rather than holding a fixed posture. This has the result of cueing both sides of the horse’s nervous system equally while he is traveling. In other words, it cuts through his innate side dominance. It loads his nervous system with different, positive input.

The following is an excellent sequence to coordinate a rider’s aids to help the horse overcome side dominance. It requires making subtle but clear shifts in geometry that bring more control and engagement to the horse’s hind legs. When this happens, other delightful things start happening, such as collection, self-carriage, and lightness because the horse is now pushing equally from both hind legs rather than traveling with misalignment. Practice alternating between the following figures during a session.

Three-Loop Serpentine

• Begin in working walk or jog, tracking right.
• At A, begin a three-loop serpentine. For an accurate three-loop serpentine, ride three 20-meter half circles connected together. Be sure to touch the rail at the apex of each loop. If you are not reaching the sides of the arena, your loops are too small.
• Be sure to change flexion/bend through your horse’s entire poll and spine each time you start a new loop; do not just turn and drift in the new direction.
• All three loops should be equal size and shape. Arrive at the end of your serpentine with the same rhythm that you started.

Square Serpentine

• Ride the above pattern again, except in the place of rounded loops, make box turns across the arena.
• Begin at A in working trot or jog, traveling right.
• Between K and E, ride a square turn to the right.
• Proceed straight across the arena to the opposite rail.
• Turn left and ride straight down the rail.
• Halfway between B and M, ride a square turn left and again ride straight across the arena.
• At the opposite rail, turn right and proceed along the rail.

Five-Loop Serpentine

• If you are in a standard large dressage arena, a five-loop serpentine contains five 12-meter half circles with straight lines connecting them.
• Begin at A in a working walk or jog, tracking right.
• Proceed straight for two to three strides when you change your horse’s bend. Then begin a 12-meter half circle the new direction.
• Carry on like this until you arrive at the end of the arena at C, having ridden five equal-sized loops.
• Be sure that each loop touches the track of the arena.

Remember to support your horse with your outside leg during each turn or loop. Many riders struggle to create an adequate bend with their horses because their own outside leg is not far enough back and against the horse during the moment of the turn.

Think of your outside leg like a guardrail. It keeps the horse’s haunches aligned, maintains his momentum, and defines the amount of bend or sharpness of turn you want. Also be sure to listen to and feel for the horse’s footfalls. Keep them steady and unchanging; a consistent rhythm is a big part of the success of this exercise.

JEC ARISTOTLE BALLOU is the author of 101 Dressage Exercises for Horse & Rider and Equine Fitness. www.jecballou.com

This article about serpentine horse exercise originally appeared in the March 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Set your horse up for a successful workout at the beginning of a ride by activating his deep postural muscles, the small tissues with a rich supply of nerves that store what we call “muscle memory.” These structures stabilize his spine, joints and body alignment, allowing his legs to move him freely forward.

Much like with humans, the core muscles are not automatically triggered just by moving around. They need to be specifically recruited by targeted exercises. A progressive warm-up period that asks the horse to organize his body without tension or speed does a remarkable job and will allow you to establish and reinforce positive patterns that soon become habits during each session.

Try It!

I call this exercise “controlled wandering” because you ride it just like it sounds: during your initial five minutes of riding, allow the horse to meander in the walk on long reins while riding him through all kinds of patterns and turns.

Try not to ride the routines you normally practice during your regular schooling, like circles and diagonal lines. Instead, it’s more effective to ride turns and wavy lines that feel unpredictable to the horse.

Your figures do not need to be specific or perfect. Remember: this all should feel like wandering, but with slightly more direction or purpose. Let the horse’s neck stretch completely down and out, steering him around with your seat and weight.

If you have access to ground poles lying around your arena, ride over them in any random order. Play around with riding different sized angles of turns—big, wide ones followed by tighter, sharper ones, or square 90-degree turns followed by a smooth, curvy serpentine.

Why It Works

This simple exercise works for two main reasons. First, keeping the horse in a fully relaxed state during these maneuvers works the horse’s postural system without the “wrong” muscles getting in the way.

Secondly, riding gentle turns and loops requires the horse to fire up the stabilizing muscles in his core and pelvis. When these muscles are activated, they will continue to play their role well during faster, more active movement.

This kind of practice stays ahead of poor habits. It promotes a more effective and purposeful—but not stressful or hurried—warmup for the horse. After several moments of controlled wandering, begin the more active phase of your warmup, trotting and cantering to increase temperature and fire up locomotion muscles.

JEC ARISTOTLE BALLOU is the author of 101 Dressage Exercises for Horse & Rider and Equine Fitness. She resides in Santa Cruz, Calif. www.jecballou.com

This article about work your horse’s core muscles originally appeared in the February 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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This month’s exercise, walking over poles, is a terrific tool for also keeping those postural muscles engaged while bringing both strength and looseness to your horse’s movement.

Additionally, walking over poles increases the side-to-side swinging motion in the horse’s pelvis and lower back, which relieves tension that can exist in the performance horse. When the back is relaxed, the muscles deep within your horse’s core are able to flex and stretch.

These muscles play an integral role in core stability and collection. They can also be the source of crookedness habits in the horse, so any exercise that helps root out these issues benefits his overall performance. This particular pattern alternately recruits the flexor and extensor muscle groups along the top and bottom lines of the horse, which helps in all disciplines.

Try It!

1. Set up four poles on the ground spaced slightly less than 3 feet apart, or the approximate distance of your horse’s extended walk stride.
2. Twenty feet away from these poles, set up four more poles spaced 2’6″ apart and raised 8 inches off the ground.
3. Now ride your horse in a straight line over both sets of poles.
4. Over the first set of poles, ask him to extend his strides so he places just one front foot between each set of poles.
5. Then over the second set of poles, think about asking him to collect and shorten his strides, still taking just one step between poles. He should feel like he is walking with short, high, energized steps.
6. Continue this extension-collection sequence for several rounds.

As you ride through this sequence, the horse should develop two very different feelings of walk underneath you. He should begin smoothly flexing and extending his spine with the help of the poles.
Be sure to maintain rein contact with him throughout the exercise; it’s much less effective to ride this exercise with loose reins as your horse walks over the poles.

Try it at a Trot

This routine can easily be modified to perform at the trot or jog. The same principles will apply to your set-up of the poles: one set of poles will be spaced with distances to extend the strides (approximately 4’2″ for a 15-hand horse) and one will be raised off the ground and spaced to collect the stride (3’8″ for a 15-hand horse).

This article originally appeared in the January 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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