Groundwork exercises for improving topline while waiting for our saddle

Arkmiido

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I have a homebred Hanoverian x ISH who is rising 5 - she was backed very lightly as a 3yo, but then had to have time off because she managed to sever part of her tail bone, then restarted and hacked out last spring, then we had to stop again due to numerous saddle fitting disasters. We are now on our 4th saddle which isn't available yet, and Kimmy has mostly not been ridden throughout this last year :(:( which has been gutting but in some ways, probably good as I think she's still growing physically and mentally. She lunges in all 3 paces, works in a lovely outline in a pessoa (for short bursts), without the pessoa she looks like a beach donkey on the lunge... but long lines either as double lunging or directly from behind when she will work in an outline and is very soft. She will leg yield impressively on both reins in hand or on the long lines (working along the fence line) and goes for walks out or on long lines, and is unflappable in traffic. We also do polework and (little) jumping in hand. She has also become very proficient at the Richard Maxwell style yielding of quarters and shoulders, and working with flexion on a circle.

She still has a bit of a weedy neck and quarters, and looks more like a 3yo, and I'm just wondering what else to do with her on the ground that will both help her build muscle and balance, and be additional education for her before I get back on and continue her ridden education... Any suggestions of books/youtube links or specific exercises would be appreciated. I'm planning on keeping her forever, so I'm not to worried at the speed she goes at as hopefully she'll have a long and happy (and sound!) ridden career.
 
is she sane enough to ride bareback? if so i'd work her like that in walk first, stretching forwards downwards to the hand, lots of leg yielding, flexing on smallish circles pushing out to bigger ones, maybe a bit of turn on the forehand to teach her to engage inside hindleg across. there are lots of things you can do to loosen them up in walk, while you're waiting for a saddle.
 
Yeah I guess I could ride her bareback!? She's fairly sane - Kerilli, she's my Eugano baby :cool: so she's pretty special, and gives me a lovely feeling.
She has her petulant moments like any horse, but I could always give it a go, I'd be pretty happy as I guess we'd just be focusing on walk at the moment, and it would be interesting to see how what I've taught her on the ground about yielding her quarters translates to my leg aids without being able to use body language.. Maybe I shall throw a willing young victim up there instead so I can keep giving her the cues from the ground initially.
Although I'd have to work out how to haul myself up there, given most of my recent bareback experience is with 11.2 driving ponies :confused::confused:
tigers_eye - I don't subscribe to horse hero (yet) but was thinking about it - is it worth it then, you reckon? I was actually looking at the site today!
 
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