This is Will Faerber from Art2Ride, and we are in Irvine Park today giving a clinic.

My wife is riding a horse named Kyro, who started working with us in a clinic only a few short weeks ago. He is a draft cross, who I think when he started with us in the first clinic, had never been stretched and looked like a very shortened draft horse. This is a perfect example of when we sometimes find horses in interesting places and they surprise us!

Most people are often surprised by how well their horses can move. These horses that they thought would never be capable of doing dressage, and yet once they see them begin to light up their toplines and move correctly through the back, they see how differently they can look.

This horse looked very hollow-backed, as you can see in the video behind the saddle there, he has quite a sunken back there, almost what you would call sway back.  So, it’s going to take a little bit of work for that muscling (or lack of muscle) to come back there and develop across his topline. But see how by just allowing the horse to find it’s topline by finding that balance point, that is the point at which she can stretch into the contact like this and find her true stride, what a beautiful lovely moving horse this can be!

We see so many horses that could be so much better and could be doing so much more for people. Once again, it’s that idea, you don’t need a million dollar horse to do dressage, dressage is for every horse and it will improve every horse!

balance point classical foundation dressage Educating The Rider's Eye hollow back Karen Loshbaugh San Diego horse training stretching stride sway back topline Will Faerber