Maintaining your horses balance

My horse is a big guy and the place he feels most comfortable is when he shows off his big floaty trot.

That's all well and good when it looks appealing to the eye, and it feels big and fun to sit on, but when you're under the watchful eye of Brett Parbery there's only so many strides of 'nice floaty trot' you can take!

Every-time I'm in the saddle, Brett is always making sure I keep my horse 'in the box'. His tendency to be big and long in his movement means that his balance is all over the place. Every stride, every line, I need to make sure he is underneath me, in a rhythm, in a balance and stays in that ‘box' as I move him around the arena. 

Once that balance is consistent, Brett then gets me to ride the balance. Ride transitions within the pace, test the reactions from my aids, add more impulsion in his paces through the transitions. This ultimately gets him to engage the energy in his hind legs so that he is able to come underneath himself and be small but quick! Taking smaller steps while maintaining impulsion, instead of taking the energy forward where he then gets long and flat. 

Thanks to Brett I have a constant ringing in my brain of this process every stride. It is a blessing in disguise because this is something I'll be doing all the way to Grand Prix! 

It just goes to show how the natural paces your horse has doesn’t effect their potential to be trained into a certain way of going. Every horse can be trained, it is just about patience and having good guidance, like I have from Brett, to get the best out of my horse.