From: Arlene
Dear Jessica, thank you for all the time and effort you put into horse sense, I don't know what I would do without it! I learn something from every week's mailing. Now at last I have a question for you. I have a young gelding (appendix QH if that makes any difference) and I have been working him on the lunge line for about four months now. At this point I am doing very short lunge line periods and spending more time riding. He is a well built horse and very strong, so although he is only three I don't think I am hurting him by riding him for twenty minutes every afternoon (I put him on the lunge line for ten minutes first). I know that my lunge line work is correct because I learned it from someone who learned it from you Arlene
Leg-yield is something you can teach your horse quite early in his mounted work. It's very good for him to learn to move away from your leg when you ask. This lesson will do him a lot of good, and help in his later training, so don't hesitate to start teaching leg-yield just as soon as your horse achieves balance at walk and trot. As for how to do it -- that's easy. Here's what you can do to teach him leg-yielding to the right. Start walking around the arena, on the rail, tracking right. Walk up one long side and across the short side -- but then, instead of going all the way to the next long side, turn early and come down the quarterline instead. Walk your horse straight down that quarterline, parallel to the wall. Then just tip his nose very slightly to the inside, leaving his body straight, and use your left leg at or just barely behind the girth to ask him to move over to the right. Be sure that your arms are still following his head movements at the walk, stay tall in the saddle, and give him time to respond to each leg squeeze. Horses are very fond of moving along the arena walls, so it's quite easy to ride them on a straight line parallel and near to a wall, and then teach them to leg-yield toward the wall. To teach him to leg-yield to tthe left, just reverse the procedure: track left around the arena and use your right leg to shift him toward the wall on his left side. If your horse has difficulty understanding this, double- and triple- check your own position. Sometimes when a rider uses her left leg energetically to ask a horse to move to the right, she inadvertently collapses over her left hip, pushing her body weight to the left. When that happens, the rider's leg is telling the horse to move to the right -- but the rider's BODY is teling the horse to move to the left. The result is a confused horse who has no idea what the rider wants, and a frustrated rider who doesn't understand why her horse isn't responding to the leg aid. If you ARE sitting tall and straight, and your horse just needs a little extra help, you can help him by shifting your weight slightly toward the wall. After a time, he won't need the extra help! Jessica
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Hi Arlene, and thank you. ;-) It sounds to me as though you are doing everything right with your horse -- good for you!
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