This classroom session explains the concepts involved in helping your horse to be mentally relaxed and balanced. Horses that are not able to fully connect mentally will have behavioural issues and physical holding patterns that continue to create problems in your riding. Understanding how a horse thinks and learns is an important part of creating connection. These are the beginning pieces of the puzzle on which our horsemanship needs to be built. A classroom presentation will explain these concepts. This will be followed by a discussion on the material, as well as various problems and situations students have encountered in their horsemanship.

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This workshop can be followed up with the Balanced Horse Clinic to work through these concepts and mental balance exercises with you and your horse.

Building on the concepts learned in the Balanced Horse Workshop, students and their horses will progress through groundwork exercises which find the problem areas in the horse’s mental outlook and help them to become more relaxed and balanced, both mentally and physically. Putting these beginning pieces in place can bring clarity to you and your horse and will help to solidify other work that you have done with your horse.

This Clinic is intended to follow the Balanced Horse Workshop as presented in the classroom setting.

In this classroom presentation, students will learn about the concepts involved in correct rider biomechanics. Small things like how you use your body, in turns, where your weight is concentrated and what muscles you use for certain tasks can make big changes for both the horse and rider’s balance and comfort. Student participation includes using equipment to simulate riding situations to better correct rider biomechanics and understand how they affect the horse. 

This classroom presentation helps students to understand contact and lateral work. Understanding “feel” in the reins and the true concept of “on the bit “ can be hard to perfect while on the horse.  Further exploring these concepts in a workshop setting can be very helpful. Rider position in lateral movements can facilitate ease of movement and understanding for the horse. Experimenting with this can help you make changes when in the saddle. Student participation includes using equipment to simulate correct feel and rider biomechanics in both rein contact and lateral work.

These clinics are intended to follow the Rider Discovery Workshops and put the concepts into practice while you are mounted on your horse. Small adjustments to rider biomechanics can make a big difference to your stability and balance, which will make your horse's job much easier and more rewarding.