Good afternoon this is Will Faerber again at the Guadalajara Country Club working with Masha again on another Spanish Sport Horse. Masha has had this horse for about two years. As you can see, this horse is behind the vertical with a old break in the third vertebrae.

We are trying to get him to stretch his head and neck out, which you have seen in many of our other videos. Some people think that these Spanish horses with high necks need to be ridden with their neck high all the time, nothing could be further from the truth. Friesians especially tend to hollow their backs more easily than any other horses I’ve ever seen. We see a lot of people buy them thinking that they are great and not realizing how weak they are in the back.

When we first started this horse he was rather frantic on the lunge line, but now has become very soft and stretching into the contact.  She has had some difficulty getting him to stretch into the contact so now we are going to take him through a few movements, now that we have him working over his back. If it looks at times that he is behind the vertical, I’ve explained that to you and she will continue to try and get him longer and longer as we go.

Masha will now show us a leg yield to the left. Masha is a wonderful rider who’s parents are both dressage professionals. Her father was on the Russian Olympic team and is still a professional trainer. After that lovely leg yield we come back to the deep stretch trying to get that break out of his neck.

classical foundation dressage Guadalajara leg yield Mexico olympics San Diego horse training Will Faerber