Preparing your Horse for Collection - Developing Self-carriage in Hand.

Prior to having the ability to collect the horse must become balanced and develop physical strength for self-carriage. Too often humans discourage correct development by physically disturbing the horse’s balance. They push, pull, and poke which causes the horse to brace, develop asymmetrically, hinders its correct biomechanical development, inhibits training progress, and slows physical development. My course will explain how to avoid this and how to work towards self-carriage/collection by asking on the lead for your horse to first move with you and then to move in any direction you ask while remaining in a balanced posture. Working with your horse this way will benefit them physically and mentally and improve the bond you have with your horse. It will benefit you as a rider/handler in that you will have to become more self-aware in general, more aware of your horse, more aware of how you influence your horse and develop clearer intentions when working with your horse. This is not a novel training concept - it is in both French classical dressage and the Californio Bridle tradition.

" ...French Classical Dressage is based on the principles developed by Francois Robichon de la Gueriniere, which emphasize lightness and purity. The horse is treated as a partner and the movements are given by, not forced from him. The rider allows the horse to perform without interfering with him. Only then can a true connection form between horse and rider."
                                                                                                                                           - from Tuskey Dressage

For several years I have been playing with developing collection at liberty by allowing the horse to find and maintain its balance in movement and let the horse explore how to move and use its body. A bit to my surprise I found this to be an effective training approach. With two different horses, I was able to see them both become more centered and stronger and eventually offer truly collected movements such as school halt, passage, pesade, and piaffe. How was this possible without tack? Without a human to push and pull the horse into the proper position and hold them or drive them?

In evaluating how and why this training approach proved effective, I understood that the biggest reason is that often, human direction disrupts the horse's balance, leading the horse to counterbalance, brace, develop asymmetrically, develop more slowly physically, and be more prone to being uncomfortable or sore and resistant to work.

This seems self-evident once you consider the physics involved in a human working in hand or riding a horse. A horse's balance is very sensitive, it takes little movement (use of the aids - body, weight, hands, legs) to change a horse's balance. Many people aren't aware of how much they influence a horse with their aids. As a result, we see many (if not most) horses being over-ridden and over-handled. You see people using their entire arm to turn, the weight of their body to stop, and leaning out of center in hopes that this will "help" their horse to understand what they are asking the horse to do.

Again, looking at it this way will seem is obvious this will not "help" the horse; rather, it will hinder the horse's ability to correctly develop, not to mention making the horse dull to the aids, inflicting pain, and leading to significant training and/or physical issues.

In this course, we will discuss self-carriage and working towards collection, the significance of balance, what you might need to change in how you interact with your horse, equipment, and exercises to practice. All of this is intended to help your horse develop self-carriage and lay a foundation for collected work. We will work with the horse on the lead. I hope to do another course that will explain how to do this at liberty.

This course is not physically demanding. Any horse human pair that is sound enough to work at walk and/or trot will benefit. Beyond the physical benefit for your horse, your connection, communication, and partnership will improve. If you ride your horse, the physical and communicative benefits will carry over to your mounted work.

This course is fun for both horses and humans. It is not ultra-scholarly or intense. Work through it at your own pace. There are currently 84 lessons, with more to be added. While not ultra scholarly, there is really important, seldom discussed information that is shared.

I am happy to look at video and discuss you and your horse. You send the link to the video and we watch together while talking on the phone or messenger at no extra cost to course members.

$175.00 USD