This is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and we are looking at Sheila Montera on Gabilon. Gabilon is another one that started a few years back. He is a quarter horse/thoroughbred mix that has had a lot of health problems and stiffness problems, but Sheila has been working him over his back and now he is starting to swing and have a big active stride. We are showing you videos like these to show you what we are doing.

Sheila is another student who only rides with me every few months when she can or when I can get to her, and she has done a very good job of doing this all on her own in between lessons getting the horse to stretch and develop beautifully. Sheila demonstrates a working trot for us, bringing him up without losing the back only as high as he can without losing the back and keeping him working over the topline. He got a little high there so he lost the rhythm. So with a horse like this, we have to let him drop back down. His head and neck came a little too high for his level of development so he wasn’t able to keep his back swinging so she gets him forward again, back into the stretch and finds her working trot. Every day every horse has a different working trot as it develops its topline.

Now Sheila demonstrates lengthening down the long side keeping him over his back in the lengthening, and now we start to see him swing. She then stretches him on the circle. Notice how every time she loses the rhythm she comes back to that stretch again, finds his topline and then goes on to the next thing.  As she comes around again she will once again lengthen on the long side.  He gets a little hollow on that one and loses his back so she gets him back into the stretch again, then finds his working trot deep into the stretch swinging and active. Beautiful! Now from that frame she goes large again lengthening on the long side. This time he stays better over his back for her, very nice!

You can see how nicely you can begin to make horses move that you wouldn’t have thought would’ve  been such good movers. This one is developing beautifully! Thank you so much for your demonstration Sheila! Once again, this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride. We will see you next time!

classical foundation Clinic lengthening rhythm San Diego horse training stretch stretching topline trot Will Faerber working trot