 Hey guys, so this has been a really, really requested video to kind of do a video on how I get my horses to work out and just like improve on the flat and everything. So it's kind of like not really able to be condensed into just one video, you know, like it's a continuous kind of process. But this is how I just like kind of get started on it and stuff. So to do the video, I in the video I'm going to be showing you how I do it on Cal here because he is only three years old. And if you can do it then anyone can do it. And I think there was much point in Cal like showing you what I do on well back because honestly you just say on her and anyone can just like work her and like and outlying she does does it kind of herself out. But with Cal obviously he's still learning so it will not be perfect but this is just the process on how we would get him to say well backstage. So he isn't even written in the arena like not even ten times. He is quite agreeing so you're just going to have to bear with me. And I'll just kind of do a voice over on how I like talk through what I'm doing and why hopefully I know why I'm doing it. Good boy. So you can see Cal is very excited about this. Thank you. He actually hasn't been written in like a month. I just kind of brought him into writing for this video so he might also be very fresh we'll see. He's also quite a lazy to be youngster so I use a schooling whip on him which is the long whip so I can just like kind of tap him behind the saddle because for me a little whip that just taps on the shoulder and it doesn't make logical sense. Like if you hit a horse on the shoulder when you're standing there like I pushed him on the shoulder he'd move away like to sideways but if you tap him the ass he'd run forwards. So if you just like use the whip on their shoulder especially young horses like an old horse would kind of understand okay that means go forward but young horse like that doesn't really make sense to them I don't think anyway so that's why I just a little tap behind the saddle I think makes a lot more sense for them and they understand it a bit better. So that's why I just use that on him because before you can do any sort of like messin' with their head or anything they must be going forward that is the key if they're not going forward if they're not going forward they're not going to ride nicely they're not going to work themselves properly and they're not going to track up and use their back and back into everything so so yeah I'm going to jump right on into the video and I hope you enjoy it and maybe learn so yeah I'll see you in a bit. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to answer them but disclaimer like I am not an expert this is just how I have been taught and how I do it so if you don't agree then that's grand and yeah you look good hey guys so before I get started I just want to say that in these clips Karl is definitely behind the leg and not moving as forward as he should be but that's because this is actually our second time doing this whole video because the first time I did it he the camera wasn't recording so he is quite tired in this clip in these clips he's not fit at all as I was saying he hasn't been ridden in a while so yeah that's just why try just imagine why I'm doing here but with a bit more in polish and because he's pretty lazy in these videos so once you've warmed them up a bit of walk and trot just nothing too intense I start teaching them what it means to move away from my leg so you teach this by leg yielding a good way to a good place to start teaching a leg yield is starting just off the track and then moving them to the track because horses will usually like to stay by the track they're kind of going to be here to horse the track anyway so you've got to use your inside leg to push the horse over to the fence so you should try and feel their hind legs cross over so do you think you might have to bring your inside leg a bit further back to kind of tell them that you want to move their hind end over just kind of feel how your horse does it and make sure that when they do take a few sideways steps that you take the pressure off and give them a pat and show them that that is the correct thing to do that's what you're asking them to do make sure you repeat this on both reins you know you don't want a one-sided horse that only goes sideways one way so teaching a horse to move sideways off your leg is really good for bending but it's also really good for straightness so if you feel like your horse is always bent more to the right or something then you can use your left inside then you can use your left leg to straighten them out I just find it's really really handy to teach them this early on and it just really it's just a really useful tool to have so then once they kind of know that I'll get them walking and trotting out a circle I usually work on the walk until I'm happy with that and then I move into trot and then when I happen to trot I move into canter I kind of work at like progress that like that so that you're not you know going straight into the canter and when your trot isn't actually like up to standard so here I'm trotting on the circle and what you want to do is use your inside leg and inside hand to get them to bend their neck to the inside a little bit you you have to make sure you keep some outside rain and outside leg though so they don't just you know fall out and trot sideways you know you just want a little bend in the neck but if you didn't teach your horse to move away from your inside leg and you just you know pulled with your inside rain they just turn but keeping your inside leg on means that they'll just bend their neck so their body should stay straight and just a little bend in their neck and when they do bend they will usually soften downwards and it's when they do this that you need to give your inside rain as a reward if they work nice and softly and stuff but you just keep the pressure then they're not like then there's no reward there's no release of contact or pressure and they don't realize you're they're doing something right so you have to be really clear especially the start that they're doing something that you want sometimes I see riders doing this and they don't always give when the horse is soft and that's just normal when you're getting started or whatever if you you might just you might not be able to feel that the horse has gone soft or anything you just need to really concentrate and think about how the horse is moving and what feel you're getting it's just a kind of feel that you do develop over time but you know you can you start constantly thinking about it you'll develop it lot quicker and when you're giving the contact when they go soft you should only give the inside rain because if you give both your rains you're just kind of throwing away the contact you need like a horse should work on the contact so you want some outside rain still on so they're you're supporting them and they still have soft pressure on their mouth and they know that but the inside rain still tells them that they were good and that it's a reward so I always start in a circle but once they're going on the circle then I start going kind of a bigger circle and some straight lines and once they get more developed then you can start doing counterbend so you bend to the inside and then you might bend to the outside and ask for the same soft contact and then you might go straight and when you're going straight then you need to ask with both your rains it shouldn't be one rain or the other and also you should not kind of saw on their mouth that doesn't work it's kind of a short term fix if your horse is really if you have a horse that's really dead in the mouth and stuff you can just like so we would just like kind of see saw on their mouth and they go a bit softer but it's not like a long term solution it's not the correct way to do it you need to get them working through the body and correctly first before you start like you know just tugging on their mouth so you guys should definitely check out a video on how to leg yield because I'm not like trained and dressage properly or anything so I don't want to give you how I do it and that's not actually the correct way to do it or anything so yeah definitely go and check out like a good video from a dressage trainer or something on the correct cues and everything I just kind of go with what feels good and it works for me but obviously I can't really like teach that so yeah thanks for watching guys I hope you kind of maybe got something out of this and if you have any questions leave them down below but again I'm no expert so this is just kind of my take on and what I do and in the video like Cal is very rough around the edges he's not working correctly all the time or perfectly but that's kind of the point of this video I could have just hopped up and well back and showed you me just trolling around and her trolling around really lovely and everything but that's not realistic you know not everywhere it's just gonna ride like that so that's why I want to show you Cal so yes appreciate that he is only three years old and has only been written a handful of times so of course he's not going to be working correctly all the time so yeah subscribe if you want to see more of these kind of videos and I'll see you next time bye