Navigating horse trail obstacles – benefits of focusing on your horse’s footwork? Lateral skills to improve other horse activities such as positioning for lead departures or opening a gate from horseback.

Navigating trail obstacles – Control the feet and you control the horse. ’ve found it to be true – the key to the horse’s mind is, in a sense, through his feet. I include some obstacle work in most riding lessons I teach. Riders reap the benefits of guiding their horses’ steps sideways, backward and forward for use in their other horse activities

Obstacle riding disciplines – Working Equitation, Mountain Trail, Show Trail, Ranch trail, Extreme Cowboy.  The appeal of riding over obstacles? A change and challenge from dressage circles or the western pleasure rail. Others are opting out of jumping for a less risky challenge.

The rest of this article I wrote for Canadian Horse Journals is available on their site https://www.horsejournals.com/riding-training/rider-development/psychology/when-things-go-wrong-show-ring

But he never does that at home!” When my horse responds to a cue “most of the time”, he hasn’t quite learned it. A busy horse show atmosphere is sensory overload for a green horse. By August, judges have sadly DQ’d a scorecard full of horses not “quite” ready for the ring. Summer school stinks