Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today we are lunging Miracle for the first time in an actual ring. We lunged him two days in a round pen with a wall to help us out a little bit.

Today when we brought him out, he was a little fractious when we started, but it only took him about five minutes to settle down. Notice we don’t have any tack on him whatsoever and we are just lunging him in a halter. I just want him to get the idea of going around in a circle. Over the next few weeks, we will start adding tack: surcingle and then a saddle. Of course we will not ride the horse until he has quieted his mouth. We will start with the bridle next time.

As you can see in the video, …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I want to introduce you to a rescue horse. This is Miracle.

My student Abigail in Las Vegas found this horse that belonged to a man who had him tied to a post and fed him unmercifully. He was skin and bones and had cuts all over his body. He was two years old then and is now four. She bought him from the man, so that she could rescue him and prevent anything else that man would do to him. He has had a little bit of light work over there, but she sent him to us so that we could help him out.
As we pan around and look at Miracle, you can see that he has no topline whatsoever. He isn’t in the bad shape that he was in …

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber discusses the video sent in by Tytti and gives suggestions for further improvement.

Hello this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today we are having a look at Perhaps. Perhaps is the first horse that we started video taping with about 10 years ago. Perhaps started out as a difficult horse. Perhaps is now 18 years old and my wife showed her through I1 successfully and has been schooled through Grand Prix. She is now starting to teach some of our students and is a wonderful school master!

Today we are taking a look at a new horse that started with us a couple of weeks ago, Rocky. He was very hollow and very stiff through the neck, but once we were able to unlock his neck and get him stretching, his stride got longer and started to swing. For him, this is excellent! Often horses can move much better than people think they can once they start working over their backs and are allowed to work correctly.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride discusses the video sent in by Victoria and gives suggestions for further improvement.

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to give you an update on Contigo who we have featured in previous videos such as the Piaffe. Contigo is 21 years old now and we started rehabbing him at 16. About 6 months ago, Contigo was in his stall almost paralyzed and couldn’t lift his head off the ground. Kristen has done an amazing job rehabbing him!

Contigo had an old break in his neck where he had previously been draw-reined to death, which was treated by a veterinarian and a chiropractor. But look at this horse now. He had never been ridden much until he was 16 years old because he was always unsound in his feet. Now he is 21 years old and is doing absolutely beautifully! We are sure he has many many years ahead of …

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber discusses the video sent in by Jannette and makes suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride discusses the video sent in by Jannette and gives suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride discusses the video sent in by Lisa and gives suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego horse trainer Will Faerber discusses the video sent in by Jana and gives suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride discusses the video sent in by Lindsey and makes suggestions for further improvement.

Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Meg and makes suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber discusses the video sent in by Meg and gives suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Tytti and makes suggestions for further improvement.

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to share a very special moment with you.In the video, we are showing Bailador, which you have watched come along for a while now. Bailador had extreme mental and physical problems. He was the horse that we showed you that had huge holes in his back. Today is very special because it is the first day that he has ever connected across his back!

It has taken Bailador a year and a half to get to this point. Notice how his neck no longer has a break in it and he is able to bring his neck up for the first time. I’ve literally had to ride this horse with his nose to the ground for the past year and a half because he just could not raise his head, …

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Angie and makes suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Victoria and makes suggestions for further improvement.

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to answer a question that came into us. A beginner rider wanted to know what kind of exercises he could do to improve his riding.

I have found that the elliptical machine is the best machine type exercise that there is. It is very low impact on your knees and also allows you to imitate how you would be on a horse. Be sure to keep your shoulders up and your abdomen engaged. The biggest thing that it can help with is your balance, because you aren’t holding on. Holding on to the bars and hunching over won’t do you any good. Be sure to keep your knees and your hips relaxed. So I highly recommend the elliptical trainer. I use it three times a week. It will do more …

Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Lindsey and makes suggestions for further improvement.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Tytti and makes suggestions for further improvement.

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride wishing you all a Happy New Year’s! I am here today with Ginny Walker and her horse Cordel whom you’ve seen in previous videos about correcting over-flexion.

Cordel has just spent three months with us here and I wanted to show you how lovely he is moving now. If you remember from the earlier videos that we took of this horse, he was very over-bent in the neck and curling back and you could clearly see the break in his neck as he traveled. Look how easily he is moving through and stretching forward. As you can see in the video, it doesn’t always go perfect. After the second try he is easily moving through with the contact of the bridle and becoming very light. This is a very big horse by the way, …

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with my good buddy Legolas. I wanted to refer you to a site that I recommend all of you look at. The website is: www.sustainabledressage.net .

This website is a wonderful work of love which someone has put together with devotion to correct training. The website is full of great articles explaining all the things that you see us discussing in our videos, such as getting a horse to work over it’s back, how all the muscles in the neck and back of the horse work together or not together. She also shows several examples of good and bad development.

Once again, the website is: www.sustainabledressage.net and I highly recommend you take a look at it. She is continually building the site up all the time. This is Will Faerber from …

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride here with Amber Matusek and her horse Legolas. Today we are going to work a little on lengthening.

Now that we have the horse stabilized in the bridle and she is able to sit to the trot quite nicely without losing his back, we can lengthen in the trot. With a young horse, it is a good idea to rise a couple of strides after the sitting trot and then ask him to lengthen. Look how beautiful he lengthens his stride! Look how he flowed out and his neck got a little bit longer. In the sitting trot, she reaches up and the poll stays up. This was a horse that was very badly broken in the neck, and we are just getting to the point where we can do this without him breaking …

Hello this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today we are going to have a lesson about how to go over trotting poles. As you can see in the video, the horse goes over the poles with absolutely no change in rhythm or frame. We are doing this in a complete stretch, in a good working trot and swinging over his back. Demonstrating on the horse today is my associate trainer Amber Matusek. Look how she keeps him in the same frame all the time. As the horse is stretching down, notice Amber is stretching up and not interfering with him by leaning forward. A lot of people will lean forward in the stretch, but this will throw the horse onto it’s forehand. He stepped on that last pole, so we are going to ask him to open up his …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with Amber, our associate trainer. Amber moved down here to join us about a month ago. This is a horse that I discovered at a clinic and Amber was fortunate enough to buy it.

He is five years old and is beautifully stretching into the contact. Look at how consistently this horse is floating over the ground. Amber will now bring him up and show us his working trot. This horse started out a little broken in the neck, but she has gotten him through now. Notice how there was no change in his gate during the transition. The only thing that changed was his neck coming into a different position. Also notice how the horse’s neck went out and down when going back into the stretch. When we …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to introduce you to Cher who is a two year old that is owned by Carrie Underwood. Cher was raised and bred here at our barn. We started giving her lunge lessons about two weeks ago. Notice how I am lunging her with just a simple cavesson with no bit in her mouth and no tack on her back yet. I want to make sure the horse moves correctly first before adding any kind of constriction, like a girth.

What I wanted to show you was, when a horse is allowed to, a horse will stretch on it’s own because it is natural for them. Today is actually the first day that she really stretched over her entire topline. So I want to see if I can show you …

Today we are going to give you another example of developing the horse’s top line and finding that point of balance. That is, how high we can bring the horse’s head and neck once we have engaged his back.

This is an 18 year old stallion who was never able to be trained due to some feet infections, so he only started working at the age of 16! So it took quite a while to develop his back, he did a lot of stretch work. We are just now beginning to bring him back up.

My wife Karen, who you see riding in the video, is going to get him in a nice deep stretch. This horse also has a problem because he had been overbitted in the past and always hung his tongue out the side of his mouth. We see …