Romulus now is almost 3 years old. He is just over 170 cm towering over me with his big withers and long neck. He has been absolute delight to work with and now is time to mount him and initiate riding. I started preparing him for that pretty much since he came to me two and a half years ago as a weanling. All my work was tailored to the fact that I am raising a future riding horse. - He lunges really well - walk, trot, canter, without side-reins and with them. Also, I drive him to the field and lunge him there. - His work in hand progressed to leg-yields, shoulder-in, turns on the forehand ..read more

History In June of 2022 Santo started showing signs of shortness of stride in left hind. The vet's investigation showed positive response in upper joints flexion but with some swelling and heat present it was pointing to the left stifle. After x-rays and ultrasound the vet decided to inject the joint with a standard cocktail of steroids + HA. She said after 3 days of rest continue training as usual. We showed in July and August riding Intermediare II, with a highlight score of 60% at EC Gold Level. I did feel that collected work was hard for him but thought it is very high level and it is expe ..read more

Nobody argues that human children and adults don't know everything, must learn and it is important to teach effectively. Surprisingly, same ideas are not necessarily applied to horse training which leads to false concepts, instant "trainer celebrities", confusion and unhappy horses. Studying the LHTL course by Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski (Coursera) I was amazed how the simple and effective techniques are relevant to not only humans but horses too. People often afraid to train their horses because they think that you must posses some magical qualities and often watching demonstration ..read more

It has been almost 2 years since Romulus became a part of my family. He has grown into a tall and handsome youngster, 165 cm to be exact! :) With his long neck I am very happy I taught him to drop the head down, otherwise, he can be out of reach. So far his life has been simple. Gradually he has been habituated to coming into barn, standing tied, being groomed, feet picked and trimmed, leading, saddled, trailering, lunging, poles, bridling, double-lunging, driving and work in hand. And the introduction followed the list described. All of this has been taught to him over those almost two years ..read more

In the first part we discussed necessary qualities of a rider to handle spooks/disobediences. In this part we will talk about a few things it is important to teach to your horse in order to make it easier to handle spooks, bolts, etc. A few common sense rules are: - The better your horse is trained the easier it is to handle spooks and unruly behavior. The better and more reliable your horse listens to your aids the better chance he will do it in a difficult moment. - The more you gradually expose your horse to unusual, frightening things the better he will be and will spook less. So, do not t ..read more

Statistical analysis says that riding a horse is 20 times more dangerous then riding a motorcycle! I was shocked to hear that first time. I am sure many riders would agree. However, if you think about it, it makes sense - a motorcycle does not have a mind and will of it's own. And a horse has. Plus, the horse is a pray animal with strong survival instincts, fast reactions and powerful movements. It is easy to ride a horse in walk when he is slow, calm and steady. It gets harder in trot and even harder in canter even though the horse can still be rather slow, calm and steady. However, when the ..read more

Horse and rider in dressage is like ballroom dance partners, each responsible for it's own balance, moving together in harmony, one leads another. The horse should stand up under the rider, vertical, level and balanced, in self-carriage. The connection is like censoring system that tells the rider how the horse is doing and the aids are signals to tell the horse to change something or not to change something. The aids are not props to hold the horse, legs and reins are not devices to lean on, seat is not to physically displace the horse. A rider must stay vertical and level balancing on a movi ..read more

As a coach I have to work with riders not only on technical aspects of riding/dressage but also on my student's attitudes toward their horses, themselves, the work they are doing. Everyone knows that the right mind set can help or hinder the learning, training, competition... I am not going to go into psychological analysis but simply give you couple very common examples that stand on opposite sides of the attitude spectrum. My horse is my friend - This is extremely common set of mind with weekend and pleasure riders. Some competition riders also can end up hindered by such attitude. The probl ..read more

A few of my riders have ambitions to tackle flying changes this winter. There is a lot of information in books and articles about what level of training is required of a horse to start learning flying changes. What about a rider? What a rider must know?... If a rider has been showing Second level consistently (shoulder-in, traverse, collected gaits, walk-canter-walk transitions, counter canter) and riding the balance, straightness, connection and suppleness required for such movements her own general balance, understanding of the aids and skills are sufficient to start working toward flying ch ..read more

The basic description of the exercise is transitions on progressively smaller circles. The best benefit happens with trot-canter transitions, but also can be done with any kind of combination of gaits like walk-halt, trot-walk, canter-walk or for advanced horses trot-passage. Start on 20 m circle in working trot rising or sitting, trot the circle until your horse feels rhythmical, swinging, pushing from behind to the bit, equal in the reins and bends nicely around inside leg. Ask for the canter transition without losing line, frame, balance/connection. Canter once 20 m circle and come back t ..read more