Maintaining Focus with a Reactive Horse Part 1
Dressage Problem Solving
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13m
With a tense horse, Laura suggests lots of changes of direction to encourage softening on both sides and suppling on the inside leg. The horse should give to the inside rein, which Laura feels is a good safety feature as many horses spook from something on the outside. When the horse is relaxed, then he can go straighter.
Up Next in Dressage Problem Solving
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Maintaining Focus with a Reactive Hor...
After warmup, they move on to canter work, adding 10-meter circles and shoulder-fore to improve the quality of the right lead canter. The voltes help to relax and balance the horse so that they can do other movements such as counter canter.
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Maintaining Focus with a Reactive Hor...
They move to the left lead, but again stress the quality of the walk before going to canter. Circles can be used in any gait to diffuse tension and to help balance a big canter. Then when counter cantering, the canter needs to be ridden the same way regardless of the direction. If the quality of ...
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Maintaining Focus with a Reactive Hor...
They finish the ride with lateral work in the trot working on the leg to rein connection with the goal of keeping the same tempo and connection regardless of what movement they are doing. If the horse gets too quick, Laura recommends using a shape to slow him down.
