Exercises for horse who finds it hard on the left rein........

[cob&onion]

My TB finds it difficult schooling on the left rein, she sorts of comes inside of the track and is hard to get her to bend around my leg, seems to bend toeard to outside alot which causes her quaters to come out - right rein shes lovely on.
Any tips or exercises to help supple her up and get her bending nicely?
Have been doing spirals and circles and lots of transitions and changes of rein.
thanks

 

[humph]

There is a swedish (at least I think she's swedish but she speaks very good english) girl called Marijke de Jong who has produced all sorts of free e-books that you can download and her absolute specialty is straightness of the horse and she predominantly uses lateral exercises both in hand and in the saddle to supple up a horse. If you google her you'll find all sorts of free stuff that'll help you.

http://academic-art-of-riding.com/

 

[longdog]

Funnily enough, my daughter's TB has the same problem. She ad her first lesson today with a trainer I respect tremendously & she had her slowing right down - trot almost at walking speed, this enabled her to find her own balance & accept the leg much more, along with transitions up & down, & over the course of just one lesson, the mare became much lighter in hand, carried herself much better & was much straighter to both reins. We also found that canter left (previously a wall of death affair & totally bent to the outside) became almost civilised. Rider is guilty of too much hand over leg, but once Scarlet was working & carrying herself, the hands miraculously improved too. Transitions on 20mcircle to make them think, counter flexion, work on the 3/4 line, all helped tremendously

HTH

 

[Zuzan]

lateral work.. there's a a really good explanation of one-sidedness in Philippe Karl's Book Twisted Truths..

 

[Feisty Mare]

Agree with all the other posters. Try using lateral work so that she has to use the inside hind leg properly which in turn will help her to bend correctly. You say you have been using spirals - have you been asking her to leg yield out from a small circle onto a larger one? As if not that's one exercise which would help.

 

[BID]

Have you had her checked out physically, my boy cant bend to the left sometimes as he has a weakness in his pelvis and I know when he has tweaked it because he really struggles on the left but as soon as he has been seen by the chiro he is fine.

 

[soulfull]

Have you had her checked out physically, my boy cant bend to the left sometimes as he has a weakness in his pelvis and I know when he has tweaked it because he really struggles on the left but as soon as he has been seen by the chiro he is fine.

Echo this 100% despite schooling my lad was still having problems bending to the right. Chiro was out yesterday and he was out in his left pelvis and right shoulder was very sore.
I was gobsmacked at how much she said he was out as it has only been a couple of months since she was here last AND to be honest other than that bending problem and he seemed to lose where to take off when jumping, he has been going REALLY REALLY well
Must say I am now really excited to see how much more he can do now though lol