Exercises to help with straightness and also strengthening through one particular side

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2awesomenatives

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Can anyone suggest some good exercises to do in hand and ridden to help with straightness. My boy is super mobile and is sensitive to the slightest touch. I need to improve his straightness without the use of too much aid......if that makes sense!
He is also weaker on his right rein and struggles with stretching through the left side of his neck. He leans on the bit and is just stiffer all round on that rein......again, any suggestions on good excercise's to help this.

He has regular physio sessions and saddle, teeth etc have been checked recently. He did improve last year but i havent done much with him over winter because of rubbish weather and planning my wedding...which took up a ridiculous amount of my time!

Im back to it now though and so will be committing myself to help him and make things more comfortable for him :-)
 
Slow Walk Work group on FB, it's nearly always about fixing the fundamentals and hardly ever about directly fixing the apparent issue. It was a four week programme and all four weeks are covered in the featured posts section. Watch out in there for posts from the creator, Diana Waters, and a lovely customer of mine, Pauline McPherson who has posted at length about her learnings and experience.
 
A good exercise I saw on HandC TV with Cameron Beer, was to place two poles parallel to each other lengthways on the long side at one end and then the same at the other end so you come round the corner and go through the narrow channel then keep straight until you come to the other narrow channel. He then had them doing it in canter as preparation for staying straight to a jump. Obviously make the channel as narrow as you feel comfortable with.
 
Please don’t take this the wrong way, are you sure your horse leans on one rein or is it you hold the rein stronger in that side? My right hand is much firmer than my left, which coincides with the side my horse doesn’t let go of the bit as easily. Same with bend, i don’t find my ribs are as mobile to the left, same as my horse….. if he’s a sensitive sort , mine is an Arab, then they often mirror you. I have found pilates for me, very helpful in bringing awareness. But moving the horse through his ribs, shoulders and asking for steps under his body all lead to mobility, you don’t need fancy patterns as such
 
Identityincrisis said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way, are you sure your horse leans on one rein or is it you hold the rein stronger in that side? My right hand is much firmer than my left, which coincides with the side my horse doesn’t let go of the bit as easily. Same with bend, i don’t find my ribs are as mobile to the left, same as my horse….. if he’s a sensitive sort , mine is an Arab, then they often mirror you. I have found pilates for me, very helpful in bringing awareness. But moving the horse through his ribs, shoulders and asking for steps under his body all lead to mobility, you don’t need fancy patterns as such
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I was thinking of this and 100% agree.

OP, are you straight, is your horse straight? I have also found Pilates really helpful, not only from a functional stretchy perspective but also an 'am I sitting straight, weight evenly spread, neck and shoulders not doing too much etc' one as well, not just riding but sitting at my desk and driving. My horse was a bit grabby on the left rein, which coincidentally is the rein I found myself holding onto more. Have worked v hard at being more even in the reins recently, keeping the neck/shoulder/body/quarters straighter (horse and me!) and it is paying off now, I can feel a big difference. Also had my saddle reflocked recently, which I think has helped overall as well.
 
I have also had many lessons on a simulator , i’m lucky my instructor invested in one, and that was very useful at showing my wonkiness in the days before I really started to focus on myself
 
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