 Hey dressage riding superstars are welcome to dressage mastery TV. My name is Jennifer Rouseoff and I'm a girl on three dressage rider and this is my Grand Prix dressage horse, Ebony Park Arba. Today we have a question from the gorgeous Samaritan who is a member of dressage mastery academy. She has the best question. I'm so excited to answer it for her and the question is how do I get my horse on the boot on the beat without pulling? And I think that's a question that a lot of people have because we all know we want the horse to put its head down and I know I did at pony club when I first started riding I was like okay well the first time I got a horse on the beat was me no joke like don't laugh at me I stuck an adhesive apple on my whip and would would do that so the horse would curl his neck for the apple and I would take photos just to be neck and I'd be like look look we have nice and curved his neck is no joke that's that's what me and my girlfriend did and then I learned a little bit more and I'm like oh to get a horse on the beat who's done the seisaw? Arba's like what are you doing them? And then you go yeah yeah the horse is on the beat the horse is on the beat the horse is on the beat who's done that and yes you can there are tricks you can do to get the horse to curl his neck but as we know as dressage rider is just because the horse has his head curled or his head bent or he's tucking his pretty little head in that does not mean he's a dressage horse that does not mean he's on the beat that does not mean he's through that does not not mean that he's traveling the way he needs to travel to me I never care about the head doesn't matter what the head is doing I care about what the hind legs are doing because if I get behind legs doing the right thing the back will do the right thing and by the back doing the right thing I mean the back will lift in the back full so if the back lifting it's already curling and if the back is up and the back is grand the head has to come around so don't worry so much about the head worry about the hind legs now how does that work so as you as Simone was saying she just feels like this is all she can see she can only see the head so she feels like she needs to pull so I'll just go out onto the arena and if we're not using leg so I'll put your head up if if I was going around with this head in the air and I just start pulling I'm really over emphasising it see how he's just heads way in the air just go what are you doing um so the answer is to ride legs into hand and you have to do it in a very certain way so if I just start using my legs he's trotting now I don't want him to trot I want him to lift his back engage his hind legs and obviously then come on the bit and make his neck all look pretty to do that I'm going to use a little bit of leg and then I'm going to half-hole it in the outside drain and a little bend to the inside if I have to and then his head's going to go down now horses are not computers they don't just oh the horse's head is down that's locked and loaded let's do nothing if I do nothing he's going to come off the bit so I have to keep working on it just with very very light half-holt with my seat my stomach my legs and my hand just light adjustments to keep him there to keep him on the bit same if I'm going to do a trot transition if I just do nothing and ask for trot that's a yucky trot transition on the forehand and not how I want it so I need to work through the trot transition so I'm going to keep half-holting with the outside drain use my seat I don't know if you saw that I'm ever been away from the camera hang on so half-holt use my outside drain and my seat and then I have a nice trot transition where he keeps his head where he needs to keep his head but most importantly the one legs are active his back is where they don't need it needs to be so I can sit if that back is not engaged in their heads up it's really hard to do a sitting trot and then in the walk transition I still have to half-holt that outside drain and use my legs so in to answer your questions Simone how do I get my horse on the bit without pulling don't pull you want to use very light half-holts so if you zoom into my hand you'll see this is me doing nothing with my hand this is me doing a half-holt this is me talking to the horse and sometimes they'll be stronger and sometimes they'll be lighter you won't even see them but remember this is the horse's mouth he can feel anything I do if I tighten my lower finger by a millimetre he will feel that that contact will be felt it also assumes that you have a contact you obviously can't have a loop in the rain because if you do stuff but there's a loop the horse won't feel it so you've got to have a contact but then you can lightly use the contact so he's not on the bit right now I can just use my reins really lightly how hard breath so practice in halt practice in walk then practice in chot and canta and enjoy if you liked this video and you'd like to know more I've got a whole module on half-holt seat contact getting the horse on the bit and everything you need to know about dressage so check out dressagemastery.com and I look forward to having you in the program have a super day and I'll see you guys next week bye