When you ride, your horse is an extension of you. What that means is that you have control of all four feet. This warm-up exercise is going to help demonstrate that and give you an opportunity to see whether you have that or don’t have that before you get on your horse.

In your warm-ups, it’s important that you don’t just physically warm your horse up. You also want to test his mind and emotions. This exercise is great to get some of that done.

The flag is an energy tool. Sometimes you might see a drastic changIn your warm-ups, it’s important that you don’t just physically warm your horse up. You also want to test his mind and emotions. This exeIn your warm-ups, it’s important that you don’t just physically warm your horse up. You also ...

This exercise helps to combine two of our prior warm-up exercises. It helps to combine the four-corners, the sending, and also the separation with these horses a little bit. It adds some speed, agility, and some mental decisions for both you and your horse.

The word “whoa” gets used a lot. I hear people using it when their horse gets spooky, leading their horse to the wash rack, when they are riding, and etc. That word can be effective, but only if it’s not used a lot. This next exercise is going to help you with creating a “shut-off” button for you...

One thing I hear often from people is that they’re too busy to be working with their horse all the time. This exercise is something that you can do with your horse every day, even with having a busy schedule. This can help teach your horse patience, and it’s easy to do. Before getting started, ma...

This is important in keeping both you and your horse’s confidence up. This is something that most people skip, but they shouldn’t. This should be done with horses of all ages, and especially if they have had some time off. This is part of the reason why most wrecks happen on a horse.

In order to try and balance our horse out, we are going to take a circle, walk the circle, and maybe even trot a circle. Then, we are going to work on the hindquarters, front end, and back. I will be using a barrel in the arena for this. The reason for this is so you can keep track of where you a...

Let’s talk about rein position and proper handling. Being able to handle your reins properly will not only ensure a better riding experience but will also ensure that you will be able to handle your reins in a safe manner.

Learning to ride with proper leg and seat position is going to be very helpful in helping you to maintain your confidence. I’m going to give you some tips and tricks to help you stay balanced so you can have a good ride with your horse every time.

For this next exercise, we are going to work on developing a better whoa under saddle. Now again, it’s very important that we have some way to shut the horse off a little bit. With this exercise, you are going to find that you can get some of that going for you. This exercise is also going to hel...

A common problem that you are going to be faced with when riding is your horse may get a little sticky in their feet sometimes. It might not seem like much at first, but the stickier your horse is, the more un-sticky they tend to get when they do get spooked, buddy sour, or herd bound. It’s real ...

Giving your horse a purpose is going to be another vital role in helping both you and your horse to gain some confidence. I’m going to demonstrate how to line up to a gate properly and how to do it in a couple of ways. This is a good way to get the two of you together and to give both of you a job.