How to Turn your Horse?!

all right hello everyone today we are talking about how to turn your horse and this seems like a very simple thing but it's actually really hard to do well if you think about it i mean horses in the pasture they're just used to doing whatever they want and then suddenly we get on them and we want them to go where we want them to go as opposed to where they want to go so that's kind of an adjustment for them and it's important that you really understand the correct turning aids and that you avoid some of the common pitfalls in turning so we're going to talk about that today be sure to give me a thumbs up and check out in the description be sure you're on my email list and subscribe to the channel so that you get notified when i post a new video every wednesday uh this is aussie today and we're going to talk about turning so what are the correct aids to turn your horse so basically simply put if i'm walking down the rail and i want to turn him to the left my outside aids are my turning eights so my right rein and my right leg are gonna close and that's going to get his shoulders to turn so there he did a 90 degree turn it's really important when you turn your horse that your outside rain stays on the outside of the neck and your inside rain stays on the inside so if you want to turn to the left you can use an opening rain aid with your left hand where your left rein comes away from the horse's neck and that kind of opens the door for your horse's shoulders to turn to the left so i'm going to open my left rein close my right ring and leg and there he turns good boy and then same thing to the right so if i'm going to turn to the right i'm closing my left rein and leg i'm opening my right rein and he turns to the right so let me show you at the trot so if you're having trouble with turning a really good exercise is to do square turns where you turn 90 degrees and go straight because sometimes if you try to ride circles it feels like you're constantly trying to turn and your horse is never turning so i'm going to make a square where i'm going to turn and go straight i'm going to turn and go straight so i'm really clear about asking my horse to turn 90 degrees and then releasing the turning aids and going straight so my aids for turning are outside rain and leg and a little bit of opening rain on the inside so half out left rain close my left leg turn and my right rein opens the door for him to turn to the right some of the most common mistakes that i see in turns is riders that lean like this so they want to turn and they like lean to the inside so don't do this you know your horse you should stay vertical above your horse like there's a string pulling your head up to the sky you do not need to lean you're not riding a bicycle one of the let me change direction just for my horse's sake so one of the other really common mistakes that i see is people since you guys are so used to driving cars is that you do what i call steering wheel turns where say you want to turn to the left and you go like this to turn to the left so that's like a steering wheel your left hand goes down your right hand comes up and that's really not a good way to turn your horse so when you're turning your horse your hand should stay on a level playing field like my hands are on a plane they're not going like that they're staying level and again as i'm turning here to the right it's my right rein and my right leg that turns my horse my left rein can be an opening rainade and come a little bit away from the horse's neck there good boy good boy so it's really important to remember the importance of your outside leg in a turn so if i'm going to turn to the left my right leg is going to help to support that turn and you can actually use your upper inner thigh a lot um as well as your lower leg a little behind the girth so let me get turned sideways so i can show you so if i'm going to make a turn to the left or a circle to the left my right leg is in guarding position so what that means is that my outside leg is just a little behind the girth you do not want to try to turn to the left with your leg up here because in this situation the horse's hind in is going to fall out so your leg is in guarding position to keep the hind in from falling out and then your upper inner thigh so like my upper leg i kind of push that into the saddle as well as having my outside rein here on the outside of the horse's neck to get my horse to turn now it's really important whenever you're turning that you do not use an indirect rain aid so an indirect rain aid is when your rain crosses the horse's neck so it's like neck raining and in dressage we don't do neck raining to turn our horses because it throws your horse off balance so whenever you turn it's really important that your outside hand stays on the outside of the horse's neck and you use your leg to help get them to turn so if i'm let's see if i'm trotting again i would never use this kind of a rain aid where my hand goes over his neck like this to turn because what that does is it counter bends him and it puts him on his inside front leg and and that's going to cause your horse soundness issues and balance issues so my outside hand stays on the outside of the neck it your outside hand can go near the horse's neck but it should never cross over the horse's neck so if i'm turning like i'm on a left-hand circle here my outside hand is right near the withers but it is not going across his neck so same thing at the canner it's really important that i always think of it as your left hand stays on the left side of the neck your right hand stays on the right side of the neck i used to describe it as imagine that your horse's mane is a fence your left hand has to stay in the left pasture your right hand has to stay in the right pasture and your hands don't get to jump over the fence and go into the other hand's pasture so we want our hands to stay segregated pastures good boy and again if you're having trouble steering at the canner i recommend turning and going a few steps straight turning and going a few steps straight sometimes that's easier than trying to ride a circle because you can actually say okay get my horse to turn good boy you turn get him to turn good boy you turn so you can teach your horse better that way the turning aids when you kind of are thinking of riding a square good boy turn good boy good boy good boy ozzy so i hope that this video gave you guys some ideas about turning your horse and just remember whenever you turn really stay straight above your horse you should never lean to the side and your hand should stay on the same plane with your left hand on the left and your right hand on the right so you're never doing a steering wheel or a bicycle turn when you're riding a horse so that's it for today thank you for watching good boy ozzy you

Channel: Amelia Newcomb Dressage

Views: 54,892

Keywords: dressage, horses, equestrian, training, turning, how to turn, circle, how to ride a circle, outside leg, indirect rein, opening rein, how to turn a horse, neck reining, dressage training, how to steer a horse, how to control a horse, the turning aids, how to ride a corner, guarding leg

Id: hE-IEFuRdTE

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 14 2021