Improving accuracy when schooling your Horse - By: Tammy Patterson

When wanting to concentrate on lateral work with your horse and positively progress together, the horse will need to become accurate to your aids as soon as they are given. Accuracy when riding transitions come from having a horse obedient to your leg, seat and hands. Leg aids need to be given clearly and concisely, if the horses is sluggish off your leg, come back from the transition and repeat it until the horse answers more promptly. Without this repetition the horse will not learn and you will have nothing to reinforce. Without riding for an improvement you are telling your horse that sluggishness off your aids and laziness is acceptable. This is a very rewarding and effective method of training together as the horse has no other way of knowing how to perform the task you want unless you explain and teach him.

As you and your horse develop your schooling techniques together you will learn how long your horse needs to prepare for transitions, this is a very useful tool for you, in order for you to know when to ask the aid to get the result you want. This will help with accuracy when performing accurate transitions to schooling markers.

Another area of accuracy is learning to ride the required movements correctly. Visualising them or drawing them out so you have a clear image in your head of the line you want to follow when on the horse is a good tool. Picturing the movements of a circle for example; a 10meter circle in a school will fit into a quarter of the arena touching the sides and middle lines, will give you targets to ride for. Whatever shape or movement you need to ride is more likely to be the correct size and shape if you can visualise where the horses feet need to travel.

When learning a dressage test, scale drawings of each movement can act as a fantastic way to visualise, perform and learn the test.

About the Author

Tammy is a passionate equine rider who trys to promote the best ways to be treating horses. Tammy works part time for a company who specialise in equine clothing as well as Malvern Ladies Bush Coat, Eureka Jacket & Cotswold jacket in the UK. For more info, read our equine articles

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