San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride gets Salinera to connect in the working trot for the first time.

Mr. Faerber shows you what to look for as your horse’s back develops.

San Diego horse trainer Will Faerber gives an update on the rescue horse, Miracle.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride gives an update on the horse Miracle.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride gives you an update on the rescue horse Miracle.

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber gives an update on the rescue horse Miracle and discusses mounting.

Hello this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today we are doing an update on the rescue horse Miracle. Miracle has been here with us for about six weeks now, and he has gone from being a nervous uptight horse to standing in the cross ties absolutely beautifully.

We started introducing the saddle to him just this week and he is coming out and stretching out into the contact quite nicely and getting over his back, just like we want him to do. If you look, his coat and whole body has improved already.

The way we work with these young horses is to take them directly out to the arena and never make them stand still in the cross ties until after working, that is why he stands so nicely in the cross ties now. Now he stands perfectly in the …

Hello this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I am giving you an update on the rescued horse, Miracle. It’s about two weeks from our first video where we were just lunging him around in a bridle and just getting him to go around us. Now we are introducing the surcingle with some long side reins so he has something to contact his mouth and get used to carrying a little bit. He is beginning to go around much nicer now and becoming much more civilized in the barn and stable.

When we work young horses like this, especially ones that are unpredictable, the last thing we expect them to do is stand in cross ties. We take them right out of the pen and directly to where they are going to work and then when they are finished working …

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 …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to give you an update on Amber and Legolas.

Legolas is just beginning to come into a new frame and is beginning to develop collection. As you can see in the video, he is able to stay up in the bridle and is not breaking over in the third vertebrae and is thrusting much deeper. Go back and compare earlier videos of Legolas and you will see that he was going a lot faster in his footfalls but without nearly the depth of suspension that we see now, that is the depth of compression of the hind legs. No matter how much we ask the horse to collect, you always need to come back to the full length of the stride.

Amber demonstrates a complete working trot where he is …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to give you an update on the horse Bailador. In the video we showed you of him when we first started about a year ago, he was hollow and had severe holes throughout his back. We wanted to give you an update on his progress.

Look how nicely he has come up in the withers, when before it was very dropped. In the video you can see that this area is now completely flat, when before he had holes very deep into his back and a total indentation where the old saddle used to sit. In only a year’s time, we were able to completely get rid of that. Also, his neck has thickened up across the topline after starting with quite a u-neck. He was also broken at …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with Dave Murphy giving you an update. Dave has been working his horse for about a year and a half now and she is coming along beautifully!

If you saw our previous videos of this horse in the beginning of her training, she was a very spooky horse and she was very difficult to handle. See the difference now? She comes out and has a nice stretch in the walk. She has a lovely four-beat walk now that is swinging over her back. There is no tension and you can clearly see how well she has begun to fill out behind the saddle and in her neck and you can see the whole topline! She is much more able to carry Dave’s weight now. She is also not freaking …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with Kristen Balch and her horse Contigo. We are here today to talk about how to begin the piaffe.

We have done a couple months of piaffe on the ground and we have got him doing it pretty nicely, so now we will introduce the weight of the rider. You do not want to do this until the horse is clearly moving the diagonal pairs, then you can begin to add the weight of the rider. In the piaffe, the rider is going to stretch herself up, lightening the saddle, and restrain her back. In other words, she will not have the freedom that you normally have in the back to help the horse move forward. So she is going to restrain in the back a little bit and …

San Diego Horse Trainer, Will Faerber, educates the rider’s eye.

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride with my good buddy Contigo. About a week and a half ago we showed you how to work a horse in piaffe, so now we are going to continue that.

When starting a horse in piaffe, I tend to do this every other day or so once I have started a horse in it. I want to remind you of the prerequisites to working a horse in piaffe and they are: the horse is correctly working over his back and that you as a rider have developed the ability to ride on the weight of the rein (that is you are able to release to the weight of the rein). Once the horse has developed enough topline to begin this, he must work in the weight of the rein, otherwise if you start …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride here in Poway with Laura Sakakeeny, who you have seen once before. I wanted to give you a little update on her and also show you how beautifully her horse is now going.

Interesting thing with this horse today is that she has been able to sit to the canter for the first time and he is beautifully working over his back! This was another horse that was a little broken over in the neck, but now that is straightening out beautifully and we can hardly see that at all. We are very happy to say that Laura just went to her first horse show with this horse doing dressage and did very very well!

After we do a little work, we always come right back to the stretch. We remind and refresh the …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here in Poway bringing you an update on Judith Bailey, who we haven’t seen in about a month.

I wanted you to see her now and see how well this horse is trotting compared to our last video. Look at the difference in his trot! Look how clearly he is swinging over his back, beautiful stride! This is a 71 year old beginner rider doing all this beautifully! If she can do it, so can you! Look at this lovely little horse, swinging actively and underneath himself, rhythmic and over his back! Absolutely fantastic Judith!

Once again, this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and thank you for joining us and we will see you next time!

Good afternoon, this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride here at Sycamore Trails with Bobbie Hanson and her horse. Bobbie has been working with us once a week for the past six months. Her horse has gone from an unmanageable lunatic to what we see here today!

A few short months ago any little thing would have been enough to send this horse into a fit, but now he comes out nicely with his belly pulling up and working great over his back for Bobbie. Look how lovely and consistent he is beginning to be. If you compare this video with the one we did a few months ago, you will see that he is much more developed across his topline, the hole behind the saddle has disappeared for the most part and his neck is looking beautiful.

Once again, this is Will Faerber from …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride teaching a clinic at Peppertree Farms in Poway, CA. I am here with Judith Bailey who is a beginner and has ridden in three clinics with me so far. In that short period of time, she has been able to get her horse stretching into the contact and moving and swinging over it’s back. We are very proud of her!

The point of me showing this is you can see with even a beginner, once you understand these concepts, you can begin stretching your horses and getting them working over their backs so they will develop correctly. Not only does it develop the horse correctly, it develops the rider correctly as well because the rider cannot balance against the reins. It teaches the rider to stretch up and get into the right position …

Good afternoon this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride here with my lovely wife Karen Loshbaugh to wish you all a very merry Christmas! We are out here today with Bailador, who we introduced you to a few times earlier. Leslie experienced working over his back yesterday, and today Karen will be working him.

As you can see in the video, he has really begun to swing over his back. Bailador is a very big horse, 17.3 or so, and like we see with so many other horses his size, they have been shut down. They have never really been allowed to go in their full gaits because usually someone gets on them that are afraid of the size of the gait and how big the wave is. This horse has a big push through it’s back. So when you go out …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride here with Frauke Murphy continuing their training. Frauke has been working with this horse for about a month now getting her to stretch on the lunge line and doing the same thing on it’s back, and I wanted you to see how nicely she has developed since then.

When we look at Frauke we can see that she has a very nice leg position, but she needs to just stretch her shoulders back. This will happen over time, this is only her third lesson with me. She will begin to get those things straightened out as she gets her horse straightened out. Every time her horse starts to come up, she needs to be sure that when she softens her a little bit that her shoulders don’t come over with it.

While this horse …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride working here with Frauke Murphy for her and her horse’s first lesson with us. I taped a little bit of when we began on the lunge line so you can see what we started with, which you can find under our videos.

This is a horse that has done very well on the western circuit and has had about ten years of training. What we noticed is while she is very obedient, she is working very hollow and pulling her neck over and cranking over in the third vertebrae and not seeking the bit, which is what we see now. They have done a very good job of teaching her how to be a nice quiet horse, but now she will learn how to work over her back and the ride she will give …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with Leslie Johnson and her horse Bailador. We introduced you to Bailador about a week ago, and then it rained for an entire week, so this is only the second day we are able to work after that rain. This is the first time Leslie has been able to ride him getting him into the stretch.

We are looking at what a few days of stretching has done for this horse, after teaching him how to lunge correctly which you saw in the previous video. Now Leslie is learning to get him working over his back herself. When he comes up, she sends him forward with her legs before she does anything with her hands, so that it comes from behind. We’ve been discussing the idea of people riding …

Hi this is Will Faerber and Karen Loshbaugh from Art2Ride here with our horse Zoolander. Today we are going to start our Q&A sessions on video. We have been answering a lot of questions from people who view our videos around the world by typing them out and I thought it would be much more informative if we had a dialogue about the question itself.

The first question is: How do you get the horse on the bit? I think for a lot of people it is really confusing and I remember going through this stage too. How much pressure do you have? Should it be the weight of the rein? Should it be 20lbs of pressure? So the basic question is: How do you get a horse on the bridle? What you have to understand is what has to take …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with my wife Karen and our project horse Zoolander. Zoolander is developing quite nicely across the topline and stretching into the contact, so today we are going to show you what it’s like to bring the horse up and find how high we can develop the working trot before the horse drops it’s back.

We find the horse’s position in the stretch and then all you have to do is simply bring the poll up as high as you can without the horse losing it’s back, that is what the rider’s goal is. This will tell you what the horse is ready to do because it will drop it’s back if you bring it up too high. Then we are going to try a little sitting trot to see …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today we are giving you an update on Zoolander. Zoolander is our rescue horse that had been given to us because his owner was convinced that he was dangerous. What we discovered was that the horse was basically running away from pain: his saddle was killing him, his back was killing him and his feet were in terrible shape. That is the biggest thing that we have had to deal with for the last three months that we have had him is just getting his feet to the point where he is sound enough and comfortable enough on his feet to be able to be worked. You can find a video about our horseshoer Kenny Lyon and getting Zoolander straightened out in our videos.

Today we are going to show you where …

Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride continues his discussion on how to recognize back development with Dr Adrianna Moore DVM from an equine chiropractor’s point of view.

Good morning, this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with Jodi Anderson and her horse Casanova. We had a question come in a couple days ago from someone who is working their horse and developing and they wanted to know how to recognize if the horse is developing it’s topline.

It is quite simple because you will see the topline change. By topline I mean the point in the middle of the horse’s ears all the way back to it’s tail. If you look at the horse in the video, you can see how the top of his neck muscles are lit up and the bottom of his neck muscles look very soft, but he’s reaching out from the shoulder. Look how evenly his diagonal pairs are moving (the outside hind leg with the inside foreleg), that is …

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 …

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with Dave Murphy and he is lunging his horse Zoe. We have had quite a few questions come in on the internet asking about lunging and how to start their horses, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. You can watch Dave who is still learning himself and we can talk about what he is doing right and what he is doing wrong.

As I have stated before in some of my answers to some of you, the most important thing you have to establish when you are lunging a horse is the horse staying out at the end of the line. Don’t worry about if the horse is trotting or walking and especially whoa. Most people worry about whoa, when in fact you need to worry about …

This is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here today with Dave Murphy and his horse Zoey. Dave started with me a few months back because both of his horses had become very very nervous (they are Arabs) and a little uncontrollable. We have an earlier video where we were in the first stages of lunging his horses and he has done that process very nicely and is now beginning to ride them.

When we started training Zoey the first time I saw Dave, every car that went by and every bird that flew out of a bush would send her into a fit of histeria, so she has come a long long way and is starting to work very nicely! As you can see in the video she has a nice working walk and he shows us a stretch …

What I would like to start off with is a little thing I call, what are we trying to do? Which is something I ask people all the time who are riding horses. What are you trying to do? and what are you trying to accomplish? I am amazed at how many people can’t answer that question. Another one I get in dressage is, what is collection? I am amazed at how many people can’t answer that question as well, especially when they are supposed to be a dressage rider.

What we are going to start out with today is trying to learn what working gaits are. Working gaits mean the point at which you are working through the back and the horse is working it’s topline. The point at which you are working the topline is where you are in …

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 …