This exercise is one of the 8 main exercises that compromises the basic controls of your horse’s body that you will use to teach all of the technical aspects. This exercise is where your horse learns to bend their ribs around your inside leg, and to move away from it.
Start this exercise in a small circle, similar to what you would do in the bending for relaxation exercise. Take your hand out to the side to steer in this circle. Add inside leg and wait for the horse to make the circle slightly bigger by drifting out slightly, then release.
Introducing Inside Leg
Success Tips:
- Make sure you do a small enough circle that speeding up or leaning into your leg are the least viable options for your horse.
Common Problems/Mistakes:
- Horse speeds up: This is not uncommon, it’s just the horse trying to figure out the answer. The small circle makes it hard to do that, and so just wait. They will slow down, then just wait for them to move over slightly off your leg.
- Rider's leg too far back: Ensure your leg goes on the girth and that you don’t use the articulation of your knee joint, doing so will cause your foot to move back.
- Trying this before the horse follows his nose. If you try this before the horse follows his nose well, you may be in fact teaching the horse to run his shoulders out rather than yield off your leg.