Teach your horse to turn
Every rider wants smooth, round circles. But if your horse falls in or out, the problem isn’t disobedience, it’s your horse's natural asymmetry. That's why you need to teach your horse to turn.
You see, the natural asymmetry of the horse doesn't make circles easy.
Most horses are bend to one side in the body, so if they are, for example, right bended, it's difficult to turn to the left. And if they are left bended, it's difficult for them to turn to the right.
Instead of turning left- and right-bended horses choose to fall or lean. They choose to lean on the inside shoulder or fall over the outside shoulder.
In this video, I share what happened with my right-bended horse Maestro, and what mistake I made:
The circle is the hardest exercise
Most riders think circles are easy, but it’s one of the hardest exercises a horse can perform because of their natural asymmetry.
If are not aware of our horse's natural asymmetry, our horse will fall on the inside shoulder.
Let's have a closer look at what happened with my right-bended horse Maestro.
Falling on the inside shoulder
Therefore he either refused to turn or he fell in to the left like a motor cycle.
The reason why it was so difficult to ride a nice round circle both on the right as on the left rein, was his natural asymmetry..
When the natural lateral bend in the body is for example a right bend, as with Maestro, it’s especially difficult to make a circle to the left, because of the short muscles on the right side.
Falling over the outside shoulder
As a result of this natural asymmetry in his body and limbs, his center of mass shifted (the red dot) towards his left front leg.
When we started to trot and canter on the circle to the right the centrifugal forces came in.
As a result, his tendency was to make the circle to the right bigger and bigger.
With Straightness Training, Maestro’s body and limbs developped symmetrically.
With more equal use of his body and limbs he learned to keep his center of mass in the middle and to step under this center of mass with his inside hind leg.
With this supportive hind leg he could not only carry himself in a better way, but he could also carry me in a healthy way.
Conclusion
Moving on a circle is one of the most difficult things for a horse but also one of the most important things to teach to a horse: to bend his body to both sides and to teach a horse to turn.
Remember: there’s a huge difference between ‘falling’ and ‘turning’.
Only when a horse can give you the bend to the opposite side of his natural asymmetry, he will be able to make nice round circles.
And only when a horse can keep his center of mass in the right position and support himself with his inside hind leg, he will be able to turn and keep his balance on nice round circles.
Solution: Teach your horse to turn
To teach your horse to turn, we need Straightness Training.
I've been doing Straightness Training for a long time and now you can learn from the mistakes I made along the way, to fast-track yourself to your riding goals.
If you want to take the first STep and avoid the 5 biggest mistakes, just join my free Masterclass: