Morrigan_Lady
Well-Known Member
...........AKA David, thank you sooooooooooooooo much :0)
Ive been having a few problems with Archie recently, with him hanging on the left and falling in, but thanks to David I feel that is a thing of the past!!
There will be no more constant fighting with my horse, just lots of calm steadiness.
After watching me warm Arch up, David proceeded to rip my riding to pieces (quite rightly so!) and give me a good talking too!!
I know Ive gotten in to some REALLY bad habits with Arch and know I ride with my hands FAR too much!
So we started by slowing things down, I seem to always be in a rush (even now Im typing at the speed of light!) loosen my reins and work on a small square asking Arch to bend on every turn then straighten up in-between. The hardest part I found was keeping my hands up! On the turn I needed to ram in to my head, HAND UP AND OUT! It did sink in eventually, promise! After doing this for abit, Arch started to lengthen his neck and stretch down, which was AMAZING!! Arch can be such a tense little horse and to feel him loosen and relax was fabtastic (que big smiley rider on board!)
Once we'd got the hang of this in walk, we moved on to a few strides of trot then back to walk and so on, but this time I had to ride out of sink with Arch to keep him steady. David taught me a fantastic trick, basically I didnt use my reins to change pace or even halt, I used my neck strap on my martingale, by simply applying a small amount of pressure and making my body go ridged I had SO much control and all without having to hang on his mouth and fight like I normally do! Arch soon got used to this handy little trick and by the end of the session all I had to do was put my hand near the neck strap and Arch would come back to me and just make my body go ridged and hed stop.
Just by slowing my rising and riding higher, it slowed Arch down and helped him to relax (All on a loose rein) Although I do have to say its bloomin difficult to ride out of sink with your horse! We did abit of pushing him on along the long side and bringing him back on the short side and 10m circles in the each corner, all by using my body, position and neck strap. The result.....and much calmer, longer striding horse WITHOUT touching his mouth!!
David, I bow down to you! When I rode Arch on the Sunday, it was like riding a different horse, weve still got a long way to go, but what an improvement already. And yes, I DID text David to tell him I loved him!!!
And now Im sitting in waiting to take delivery of my new dressage saddle and I just know it will help improve us even more. (Even after making me lengthen my stirrups by 4 holes in a jumping saddle, I still couldnt get my leg in the right place!!
Thanks for reading
Ive been having a few problems with Archie recently, with him hanging on the left and falling in, but thanks to David I feel that is a thing of the past!!
There will be no more constant fighting with my horse, just lots of calm steadiness.
After watching me warm Arch up, David proceeded to rip my riding to pieces (quite rightly so!) and give me a good talking too!!
I know Ive gotten in to some REALLY bad habits with Arch and know I ride with my hands FAR too much!
So we started by slowing things down, I seem to always be in a rush (even now Im typing at the speed of light!) loosen my reins and work on a small square asking Arch to bend on every turn then straighten up in-between. The hardest part I found was keeping my hands up! On the turn I needed to ram in to my head, HAND UP AND OUT! It did sink in eventually, promise! After doing this for abit, Arch started to lengthen his neck and stretch down, which was AMAZING!! Arch can be such a tense little horse and to feel him loosen and relax was fabtastic (que big smiley rider on board!)
Once we'd got the hang of this in walk, we moved on to a few strides of trot then back to walk and so on, but this time I had to ride out of sink with Arch to keep him steady. David taught me a fantastic trick, basically I didnt use my reins to change pace or even halt, I used my neck strap on my martingale, by simply applying a small amount of pressure and making my body go ridged I had SO much control and all without having to hang on his mouth and fight like I normally do! Arch soon got used to this handy little trick and by the end of the session all I had to do was put my hand near the neck strap and Arch would come back to me and just make my body go ridged and hed stop.
Just by slowing my rising and riding higher, it slowed Arch down and helped him to relax (All on a loose rein) Although I do have to say its bloomin difficult to ride out of sink with your horse! We did abit of pushing him on along the long side and bringing him back on the short side and 10m circles in the each corner, all by using my body, position and neck strap. The result.....and much calmer, longer striding horse WITHOUT touching his mouth!!
David, I bow down to you! When I rode Arch on the Sunday, it was like riding a different horse, weve still got a long way to go, but what an improvement already. And yes, I DID text David to tell him I loved him!!!
And now Im sitting in waiting to take delivery of my new dressage saddle and I just know it will help improve us even more. (Even after making me lengthen my stirrups by 4 holes in a jumping saddle, I still couldnt get my leg in the right place!!
Thanks for reading
