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 …

So today, we are talking about introducing the young horse to the sitting trot.

The biggest mistake that most people make with this, is they sit too long. Young horse’s backs take quite a while to form, so if you just drop your stirrups (as so many people do), you will probably end up hollowing the back of the horse, because the horse won’t be able to sustain it.

So, when your first beginning the sitting trot on a horse, what you want to do is get them into the stretch, and then only sit in the stretch. This teaches the rider independence as well. My student Sarah in this video, is working with a horse that has only had a few weeks of dressage training, and is learning to stretch. To get him back in place, she waits a moment till she …