Dec. 2017

Balanced Turn a Tool for all Levels of Horsemanship

A balanced turn something everyone can work on at every level and challenges for every level of riding. 
The Balanced turn is a thing of beauty the horses head is tipped to wear you can see their eye ( asking for his eye) His nose leading the direction with out being over flexed, the neck gently curved into the turn with the shoulder and ribs seamlessly fallowing in a gentle C shape finished with the quarters where the inside leg take a deep step in allowing to a smooth bilateral move.

The way to a great turn is to start with the fundamentals and work through wide gentle curves and working tighter and asking for more flexion, deeper leg yielding on the quarter more shoulder lead.

For our beginner horse and rider teams, try looking into your turn, and giving just a slight behind the girth pressure with your inner leg pressing the ribs away from you (into the turn) making the beginning of the C shape and guiding with both your knees like inside and outside you are guiding your horse between two rudders and he just needs to stay in between.

Those of you who feel comfortable doing so can lengthen or drop your reins and try to guide your horse into some gentle curves with just your seat, body position and legs. You may be surprised how well you do as a team.

For those of you in an upper intermediate and advanced training with your horse if you find your horse stiff in the neck or dipping in on the shoulder work on shoulder in exorcises to help build muscle and flexion in the shoulder through poll remember to start easy just a few steps at a time give the nose back to them then switch to the other side. 
This is not a lengthy exorcise just a meant to help your horse understand the 4 sections of his body. Half passing and side passing can help with building up your horses shoulders and improve their leg reach. Remember to pass equally on each leading leg so your horse has even muscle strength in both leads. Also start asking for a greater leg yield behind the girth. All the shoulder in and side passing will start to make sense when you realize that in a tighter turn you are leading in with the nose, the shoulder then leads though the turn ( shoulder in) and side passing at the deepest point of flexion around the turn to keep balanced and not dropping the shoulder in too much risking a skid at higher gaits.

So this is all mumble and jumble unless you can see it right. okay here is a student at home trainer and her horse who are working at the intermediate level and progressing well.

So what is this horse Dakota showing here? His nose is leading into a slow curve, his neck is fallowing that same line from the poll but no over flexed, His ribs are flexing around his riders leg and his flank rolls nicely into his quarters with an inside leg that is stretched deeply under his body to power his through. What dose this team need to work on to keep advancing? Dakota needs to get his shoulders moving out a bit more I would like to see his front feet stretching out for a bit more ground.

So what about Dakota's rider? The most important thing I see is that his nose is pointed along the same line as she is looking if you could draw a dot on the horizon and a line from her eyes and his nose they would converge on the same spot. also she is asking for his turn balanced on his back her body position guiding his shoulders and ribs not just pulling on his nose. All in all they are doing well as a new team and will have a stunning presence in saddle soon as a team. This is the beginning of a good turn as a team.