Dressage Fundamentals
Create your dream horse... one day at a time. With a correct foundation, a horse becomes a safer, more enjoyable partner, a more beautiful athlete, and more comfortable in his own body. From this beginning, it's up to you if you want to continue up the levels in dressage, or do hunters, jumpers, eventing, trail riding, or anything else! You'll find lots of ideas here to get you started or help you if you've reached a training challenge.
I'll also share exercises and tips to help you improve your riding. The stronger, steadier, and more balanced you are in the saddle, the more effectively you can communicate with your horse using subtle aids. You'll both appreciate this! You'll also feel more confident and be in a better position to handle things should the unexpected occur.
My specialty is in retraining ex-racehorses, but these principles apply to horses of all breeds and backgrounds and are based on classical dressage and biomechanics.
Below, you'll find a list of the most recent articles, or you can view a list of All Articles Here
Most Popular Posts
Dressage with Off-Breeds: The Failure Trap to Avoid
How to Ride Like a Trainer: Taking Responsibility and Finding Empowerment
The Trick to Stretchy Trot and Topline Building
How Your Half Pad Can Make or Break Your Ride
So many of us use them, and for so many different reasons. Whether you choose your half pad for the softness that offers extra cushion for our horses’ backs, the pretty colors that contrast our saddle pad so beautifully, or the inserts that offer extra shock absorption or the ability to shim up the saddle… half pads are becoming almost as much of an art and science as saddle fitting! This is good news and bad news. On the one hand, buying a half pad is a much smaller investment than buying a new saddle, and for the almost-fits-perfectly saddle,…
Getting Control of Your Horse’s Shoulders with the Leg Yield Hexagon
Leg yielding can be such a useful exercise, but one of the most common things that goes wrong is the horse falling over his outside shoulder instead of stepping across his body with his inside hind leg. Here’s a simple exercise to help improve the quality of the leg yield you are getting and give you control over your horse’s shoulders by encouraging him to hold himself up instead of falling on the forehand. To begin, if you need to review what a leg yield is or how to do it, you can read about it here. The other easy…
A Tool For Times Your Horse Makes You Nervous
My sixteen year old student did something the other day that I just loved. It was an easy and very effective way of working through the type of resistance from her horse that often makes her nervous. It’s a tool everyone can use anytime they need it. They had taken a little walk break, and she was supposed to be getting him back into a trot and onto a circle so we could work on her right lead canter transition, which can be a little sticky. Maybe there was already some hesitation in the back of her mind just knowing…
Proof the Horse Does NOT Do All the Work
How many times have you been told horseback riding is not exercise, all you do is just sit there while the horse does all the work? Our sore legs and abs after a good lesson tell us otherwise, but it’s hard to help someone understand that without putting them on a horse. And I’ve never had a way to compare just how hard I worked when riding to other types of workouts, like running or biking. Now with my Fitbit I can easily track just how hard I’m working while I’m riding, and track my rides over the course of…
Video Analysis of My Ride and How to Make This Tool Work for You
This video I took to establish a baseline on where my horse and I are at riding different movements. There are plenty of mistakes, but I wanted to share it to discuss those mistakes for learning purposes, and to show how to use video as a powerful tool to improve your riding. Hopefully this doesn’t get taken out of context! The horse in this video is my 10 year old off track thoroughbred, Remy (Jockey Club registered as Mr. Painter). I’ve had him since he was 4. He raced a few times but was too slow, and retired young and sound,…
How I Focused My Look-y Horse To Get Good Work Instead of Spooks
It was one of *those* nights – early spring, nearing dusk, with a slightly gusty breeze… and of course, the indoor arena now had all the windows opened up after the long, cold winter. Alone in the ring, my normally quiet, sensible horse was on edge as he examined the new openings all around the ring, surprised each time he felt the wind blow INSIDE the arena, listening to previously muffled sounds that now added a constant murmur of background noise to our usually silent work space. Birds were chirping, cars were cruising passed on the road, and a train horn…
Becoming a Better Rider By Becoming a Serious Student
The best thing a rider of any level can do if she wants to make progress with her riding is to become a serious student. It doesn’t have to cost much or any money, and it can fit into your schedule where ever you can find a little time. There are opportunities for learning all around us, and especially with all the information on the internet now, it is very easy to pick up tips and integrate new ideas and information into your ride, if you’re open to learning. The trick is to balance the open-mindedness with some critical thinking…
Dressage with Off-Breeds: The Failure Trap to Avoid
You know your horse isn’t the “typical” dressage horse. Maybe his breeding is unusual, or just not what we usually see in the ring. Maybe his gaits are not beautiful by nature, or maybe he has less than perfect conformation. Maybe you are proud of this, or maybe you are self-conscious about it. Regardless, he is your chosen dressage partner and together you and he are embarking on a journey. As you go along, you will come across significant challenges, and when you do, there is a danger you need to guard against. Expected Failure We all love the fairy…
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Live outside this area? No problem! I'd be happy to travel to your barn for a day or weekend clinic focusing on your choice of traditional dressage, biomechanics, flatwork for jumping, poles and cavelletti, or Western Dressage.
For more information on training with me, please visit Rettger Dressage