Need inspiration to work your horse in this weather?

Are you fed up entering events only to find thunderstorms on the day or flooded grounds?

For some riders, competitions are what motivates them to ride and gives them the ideas of what and how to train. This is not such a bad thing as all tests, no matter if they are for pure dressage, eventing dressage or working eq, follow a logical training path.

Why not declare this Winter a time to train and learn something new? Maybe think about what level you would like to do next season and start some in-hand sessions to help your horse on his/her way.

If you are prelim then make sure your horse is really solid in his/her understanding of leg yield in-hand and can vary the angle without altering the tempo, alignment, contact or frame. This will set you up so well for when you start Novice.

If you are novice and working towards elementary it would be super if your horse could learn shoulder-in and travers/renvers as well as turn-on-the-haunches. This sounds really hard but when broken down into simple steps and reactions all horses can easily do these.

From this it is easy to progress to half-pass and pirouettes and later to introduce work to close the horses’ body and increase the flexion and weight bearing capacity of the hindlegs. Ideal for all horses to become stronger but particularly those destined for an FEI dressage career. 

The Equest Connect in-hand program has been developed to systematically introduce these movements and is easy and fun for both horse and rider. It really improves the horse’s straightness, suppleness and understanding of the contact. Best of all you will notices huge changes in your horse under saddle for only a short investment of time in-hand!

Do it! It’s fun, incredibly beneficial and you’ll love it!