Imagine that when you pick up the reins, your arms don’t belong to you anymore. They’re an extension of the rein, and they belong to your horse.

Here’s an exercise to help give you the feeling of an elastic contact in the canter. You can even practice this exercise in the halt first to get some muscle memory.
• Get up into a two-point position.
• Pretend you’re a jockey galloping down a track with your hands pushing your horse’s neck forward every stride.
• While doing that, notice how your elbows open and close with every stride.
• Then sit back down, and keep your elbows opening and closing in the same way.

For more info on the Happy Horse Course, go to: www.janesavoie.com/happyhorse/

This tip is excerpted from The Happy Horse Course. For more info on how to train a happy horse, go to: www.janesavoie.com/happyhorse/

Try this exercise at home first. You might be surprised by the reaction you get. So you don’t want to do it for the first time at a horse show.

• Take your legs off your horse’s sides.
• Move them back an inch or two.
• Place them back on his sides lightly.

This tip is excerpted from The Happy Horse Course. For more info on how to train a happy horse, go to: www.janesavoie.com/happyhorse/

1. Is he going too fast or too slowly?
2. Is his neck too high or too low?
3. Is his frame too open or too closed?
4. Am I asking too much?

If you’re not sure what the problem is, adjust one of the 4 things above to see if that helps your dressage horse.

Few horses are ambidextrous—meaning they can bend as easily to the right as to the left. So your goal is to make your horse’s soft side more “stiff” and his stiff side more “soft” and bendable.

How Do I Make the Stiff Side “Softer”?
Dressage riders in particular tend to think that the stiff side is the “bad” side because it feels harder for them to bend their horses when that side is on the inside. But you need to think outside the box. The stiff side is not the problem. Your dressage horse feels stiff to the right because the muscles on the left side of his body are shortened and contracted.

The solution to this problem is to stretch those shortened muscles on the left side by riding your horse with too much bend when you track to the right. In schooling, you’ll live in “right bend” until you feel the muscles on his left side elongate. (You’ll know those muscles are stretching because it’ll feel easier to bend your horse to the right.)

So, let’s track to the right—the stiff (hard, strong) side. The main reason your dressage horse feels stiff to the right is because the muscles on his left side are shortened and contracted. These shortened muscles limit how much he can stretch his left side and bend around your right leg.

Here’s an exercise to gently stretch and elongate the muscles on the left side (the hollow side) of your dressage horse’s body.

If your horse is really stiff, do the exercise in the walk.

• Go on a large circle to the right.
• Pick a point somewhere along the arc of the circle, and turn onto a 6-meter circle.
• While on the small circle, think about your bending aids. (Put your weight on your right seat bone, keep your right leg on girth, place your left leg behind girth, flex your horse to the right as if you’re turning a key in a lock with your right wrist, and support with your left hand.)
• Ride the 6-meter circle a couple of times until your horse’s body conforms to its arc.

• Once he’s bending, keep applying the 6-meter bending aids, but blend back onto the 20-meter circle.
• If it gets difficult for your horse to stay bent this much to the right, blend back onto a 6-meter circle. The idea is to ride the 20-meter circle with a 6-meter bend.
• Once you can do this on a circle, try riding straight down the long side with your horse bent as if he’s on the arc of a 6-meter circle. (The feeling is a bit like doing shoulder-in in front and haunches-in behind at the same time.)

When you go down the long side, bend your horse to the right from nose to tail as if he’s on the arc of a circle. Be sure you bend him behind your leg as well as in his neck.

How Do I Make the Hollow Side “Stiffer”?
The flip side of this “stiff to the right” issue is that your dressage horse will be hollow or soft to the left. You might think his soft side is his “good” side because he feels easier to bend, but the hollow side of your horse needs help as well.

On the hollow side, your horse doesn’t have true bend-equal from poll to tail. He usually overbends the neck to the inside and places his inside hind leg to the inside of his line of travel. By doing so, he can avoid bending the joints of his inside hind (engagement), and he also doesn’t carry as much weight on it. As a result, that leg gets weaker, and your horse develops unevenly.

My solution for this problem is to ride your dressage horse without any bend at all when the stiff side is on the outside and the hollow side is on the inside. Keep your horse as straight as he is on the long side even when you go through corners and circles. Think that his body is like a bus that can’t bend on turns.

Let’s say your dressage horse is hollow (soft, weak) on his left side. When circling to the left, ride without any bend at all. Keep his body as straight as a bus.

• To get a perception of straightness, halt somewhere on the long side. Make your horse’s body parallel to the long side all the way from poll to tail.
• Also, ride him either with no flexion (His chin is lined up with center of his chest.) or in counter-flexion (-1). In counter-flexion, his face will be 1 inch to the right.
• Ride through corners and circles with no bend through his body and in counter-flexion at his poll. If you ride in this position, your horse’s left hind leg will step underneath his body.
• This will make that leg stronger over time. (This exercise is only for schooling– not for horse shows.)

If you use this philosophy of doing the opposite of what your dressage horse would do on his own, and it’ll be easy to get him to bend on his stiff side. You’ll also find that you rarely get stuck solving training issues. Invite your horse to do the opposite of what he chooses until it becomes easy for him. Once that happens, settle back into a happy medium.Click on suppling the stiff horse for more help for you stiff horse

Sit in a chair and do the following exercise for muscle memory:

1. Sit up straight with shoulders over hips.

2. Lean back about 4-5 inches

3. Come back up to the vertical.

4. Do this in the rhythm/tempo of the canter.

5. Notice how as your upper body comes back, your hip angle opens.

6. Close your eyes as you do it, and memorize this feeling of the hips opening and the upper body rocking backwards.

Now try these “backward rocks” for real on your horse, but mimic the feeling you had through your body when you were sitting on your chair.

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Do you ever feel like your dressage horse’s shoulders are so stiff and stuck that not only is it hard to turn him, but his hindquarters are disconnected from his front end?

If your horse’s shoulders are stuck, it’s like having a kink in a water hose. The energy can’t flow from behind, over the back, into your hands where it can then be recycled back to the hind legs.

Here are two shoulder suppling exercises for you to try with your stiff horse.

1. Make a 20-meter box with 4 corners in the walk.

•  To give you more control of your dressage horse’s shoulders, do the exercise in counter flexion. (That is, you’ll just barely see his outside eye or nostril.)

•  If you’re going to the left, ask for right counter flexion with your right wrist. Stay in counter flexion during the entire exercise.

•  At the first corner, bring both hands to the left to swivel your horse’s shoulders around the corner.

•  Then, soften the contact without letting the reins get loopy.

•  After the corner, walk straight ahead in counter-flexion.

•  At the next corner, bring both hands to the left again.

•  Do this in all four corners.

•  As your horse’s shoulders become more supple, it’ll get easier to spin his

shoulders around the turn without meeting resistance.

•  You can tell there’s no resistance when the weight in your hands stays the same as you swivel your horse’s shoulders around the corner.

2. Ride down the long side of the ring, and move your dressage horse’s shoulders slightly to the left and right.

•  Walk down the long side of arena.

•  Flex your horse at the poll opposite the direction you’ll be moving his shoulders. For example, when riding to the left, ask for a counter flexion to the right by turning your right wrist. Then, take both hands to left to slide your horse’s shoulders over. Move the shoulders over only 1-2 inches.

•  Now change to a correct flexion by turning your left wrist.

•  Move both arms to the right to pop the shoulders back out to the track.

•  Smoothly and fluidly move the shoulders back and forth as you work your way down the long side.

Click on supple my horse, for more suppling exercises for your dressage horse

Here are some tips to help you learn to feel when your horse’s hind leg is on the ground:
1. As you ride your horse at a walk, close your eyes. Focus on, let’s say, your inside seatbone. Some
people describe the feeling as their seatbone being higher. Others describe it as feeling like it’s being
pushed forward. Each time you feel your seatbone being pushed forward or higher, say the word
“Now.” As your horse walks, you’ll be saying “Now, now, now….” That way you can get into the timing and rhythm of
when that hind leg is on the ground.

2. Ask a friend to call out “Now” each time a certain hind foot is on the ground. Coordinate what your
friend says with the feeling under your seat.

3. If you’re working alone, sneak a peek at your horse’s shadow or a mirror if you have one. Check
that you’re feeling the right thing by calling out the footfall and looking at the shadow or mirror to see
if you’re right.

4. Watch other horses and riders and notice where both the horse’s hip and the rider’s hip are when a
particular hind leg is on the ground. When the horse’s hip is high, his corresponding hind foot is on the ground. His hip drops as his foot is in the air.

5. Teach yourself how to feel when the inside hind leg is on the ground in the canter by watching your
horse’s mane. It flips up during the second beat of the canter when the inside hind leg is on the ground.
Say “Now” each time you see it flip up. Then you can coordinate what you’re seeing and the word
“Now” with what you’re feeling under your seat.

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In this article, I’ll give you two quick tips to help you sit up straight and in balance.

1. Many riders lean behind the vertical (especially in trot extensions!) because they think they’re driving their dressage horses more forward.

The problem with leaning back, however, is that you end up pushing your horse’s back down, and he becomes hollow and disconnected.

So if you tend to lean back, here’s a quick tip to give you some muscle memory for keeping your upper body straight.

While you’re standing on the ground, lean back and ask a friend to put the palm of her hand between your shoulder blades. Ask her to gently push your upper body forward until your shoulders are above your hips.

Repeat this several times. Close your eyes as you’re being pushed forward so you can really memorize the feeling of bringing your upper body over your hips.

Then when you’re riding your horse, visualize your friend is gently pushing your upper body forward so you can sit up straight.

2. Now let’s look at the opposite scenario—leaning too far forward. For this exercise, focus on your hip angles. If you’re leaning in front of the vertical, your hip angles are too closed.

So while you’re sitting on your horse in the halt or walk, lean about 10 inches behind the vertical, then sit upright so your shoulders are over your hips.

Do this several times. As you lean back, focus on how your hip angles open. You can even close your eyes to really concentrate on how it feels to open your hips.

Then when you’re riding, if you start to tip too far forward, visualize leaning back. The exercise you’ve done at the halt and walk will give you the muscle memory to find the happy medium and sit up straight.

Click here for more dressage position tips.