Working With a Strong but Willing Mare

“The walk feels quite good so that is when I will go to the trot. If I feel that she gets a bit resistant, I will go back to the walk.

“It’s all about learning.”

“Can you see when I take the left rein? I’m not just holding it. I play a little bit with it. So taking, giving, taking, playing a little bit with it and giving.”

Listening to the Rider’s Aids

“We are looking for a shortened frame, not just a shortened neck. We want her frame a little shorter from her tail to her ears. A great way to do that is a little lengthening in the canter then bringing her back.”

“You want to hold the half-halt a little bit longer to finish the half-halt. I don’t want to do a little lengthening in canter, give one half-halt, then let go because she wouldn’t get it. You want to really finish the half-halt where you can say, ‘Right here I feel quite comfortable releasing and she stays with me and collected a few strides on her own.’”

“Within the trot, do a few transitions. Start with posting trot. Do a gentle lengthening and allow her to go. For her, you don’t need to push much. Then, sitting trot to bring her back. Even if you get a walk step that is still much better than her running through the bridle.”

“Expect lightness.”

Improving Responsiveness

“When you lengthen the canter, do just about 10-15 meters of lengthening along the rail—no longer. Then, bring her back to a collected canter. Build it up daily to go longer in the lengthening but not faster.”

“For collecting, it is a holding leg—not a pushing forward, driving leg—with support from the seat.”

“When going from trot to halt, see if you can eliminate the walk steps before she halts.”

Watch & Learn on E+

• You can watch Steffen Peters’ entire series on managing a strong mare here on EQUESTRIAN+.
• For additional videos featuring Peters’ top tips and training strategies, click here.
• From short training tips to how-to videos and insider-access to private clinics and lessons, learn more from top dressage experts on EQUESTRIAN+.

About Steffen Peters

Born in Wesel, Germany, Steffen Peters gained a solid dressage foundation in his birth country before moving to San Diego in 1985. He struck out on his own as a trainer in 1991 and become a U.S. citizen in 1992. Peters worked his way to the top level with the support of special horses and sponsors, achieving impressive results. He is a six-time Olympian who earned team silver (2021) and team bronze (1996, 2016) medals. Peters collected team silver (2018), team bronze (2006) and individual bronze (2010) at the FEI World Equestrian Games, team and individual gold at the 2011 and 2015 Pan American Games and the 2009 FEI Dressage World Cup Final title. He and his wife, Shannon, run SPeters Dressage in San Diego, California.

Here, Ashker explains how her experience as a five-star eventer helps with her upper-level Grand Prix dressage movements and vice versa. You can also watch a video of her demonstrating this concept below.

From Drop Jumps to Pirouettes and Piaffe

“In eventing, especially when coming down to the head of a lake or dropping into water, you have to create balance in your horse. You can see in the video as I prepare for my left half pirouette turn, I stay behind my horse so he can more easily lift his shoulders for the turn. And then I ride him out. We repeat it one more time. I take my time and am very patient as I continue to stay behind him to keep his shoulders lifted.

“In piaffe, it’s the same idea. You want your horse’s shoulders to lift, not his head. There’s a big difference. And in order for the horse’s shoulders to lift, his back and rear need to drop. You horse can’t do this if you’re ahead of him all the time.

“Here, I’m going to demonstrate my position. You should always be able to draw a straight line from your shoulder to your hip and down to your heel. It’s very similar to our takeoffs over some cross-country jumps because it requires us to naturally balance our horses. The jumps actually help us do this. In dressage, we obviously don’t have jumps, so we have to use our position and posture to achieve that balance.

“In the piaffe, it’s a very light aid with the hand. Then, my legs alternate to ask my horse to lift his front legs. There’s a very fine line here between throwing him out of balance with my position. I continue to stay behind his motion to allow his shoulders to lift, and I might allow him to travel just a bit to keep the steps the same.

“In summary, if you do both eventing and upper-level dressage, be proud of being an eventer. Improving your position on cross country will only make your position that much better in your dressage work, no matter your level, and it will be more supportive for your horse.”

About Laine Ashker

Five-star eventer and dressage professional Lainey Ashker has competed in numerous FEI competitions at the five-star level, including the Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials CC14* and the Defender Burghley Horse Trials CC15*. The horsewoman, who trains out of her Keystone Acres farm in Chesterfield, Virginia, also won the National Eventing Championship (Advanced Level) in 2013 aboard her long-time mount, Anthony Patch. More recently, she won her first CDI in May 2023 aboard her upper-level dressage horse, Zeppelin.

For more with Laine Ashker, click here.

This video is brought to you by Absorbine.

Watch the Horse’s Ears

“I want you to do your warm-up, thinking about exercises that you would already incorporate into your routine. But I want you to time them at the moment that her ears fixate onto something. Like a walk-trot transition or a small circle or a little extra bending or a leg-yield. I want you to do that when both of her ears lock onto something, and I want you to do it with enough intensity that both of her ears switch back to you.”

“Most of the horses who have a tendency to be a little bit looky at something will tell you way before you even realize it. You might be coming around the corner just a little on the far end and that might be the moment her ears focus on this end of the ring.”

“A mistake that I see people make is that they go right toward the scary thing. I’m all for going head on, but I really want you to think if you have her attention enough to put her in that situation and not set her up for failure.”

“The more distracted she is, the more mentally stimulating you have to be.”

Make a Change to Regain the Horse’s Attention

“For her, if the energy feels like we have to trap this anxiousness, then we might go burn off some of it. Not like we are trying to make her tired—we aren’t going to get her tired. But if we can use a little bit to where she is like “okay, I don’t feel like you are trapping this energy that I need to get out.

“Once it starts to feel soft, take that same 20-meter circle two feet toward the new object. And ask yourself if you start to lose the cadence and rhythm that you had at the far end of the ring. Don’t go any further than that point where you lose her attention.”

“Make sure that you breathe and that you encourage that too.”

Get Creative With Directing a Horse’s Movement

“This exercise tests too that if there are any sticky spots where she didn’t respond or didn’t listen.”

“She gets to have a little bit of a break over here right now, and she is willing to stand by the tarp and not be bothered by it.”

“Before when you were trying to go directly towards it and she was stuck, I simply changed it to an exercise to gain control of this shoulder and that shoulder.”

Watch & Learn on E+

• You can watch Monique Potts’ entire series on riding a distracted horse here on EQUESTRIAN+.
• For additional videos featuring Potts’ top tips and training strategies, click here.
• From short training tips to how-to videos and insider-access to private clinics and lessons, learn more from top dressage experts on EQUESTRIAN+.

About Monique Potts

Monique Potts grew up on a small farm in Erie, Colorado, and developed a deep love of horses. She learned from numerous trainers, including Buck Brannaman, who helped her recognize the importance of communication, patience and trust. Potts turned her passion into a career as a trainer, focusing on dressage, horsemanship and cow horse events. She has earned her USDF silver and bronze medals and found much success in the dressage ring.

Lateral work will make your horse more connected, engaged, supple and on your aids. Your horse will feel more pliable, agile and responsive, softening through your legs, hips and hands. Lateral work also helps you discover your horse’s weaknesses by how he compensates in his work, and you can help him improve those weaknesses with the lateral movements.

In this article, I’ll explain how to correctly ride the following lateral movements: leg-yield, shoulder-fore, shoulder-in, haunches-in, and half-pass—in that order. Then I’ll describe how you can build them into one another and transition between movements depending on how your horse feels in the moment.

Before starting lateral work, make sure your horse is on the bit, in front of your leg and in balance. I do lateral movements in my warm-up, starting with walk, then rising trot (once my horse is warmed up, I do the movements in sitting trot) and canter. Keep in mind, when practicing lateral work in the canter, don’t make the angles as sharp as you would in trot. As a rule of thumb, I aim to do each movement two times in both directions, but that depends on the individual horse and how he’s feeling that day, so it’s always up to the rider’s discretion.

Leg-Yield

Leg-yield is always the first lateral exercise I do with all my horses. It’s a great way to get your horse on your aids and to supple his whole body. You can also use it to diagnose if he is stiffer in one direction. In a leg-yield, the horse moves sideways and forward with his inside legs crossing over the front of his outside legs. He should be in alignment from nose to tail with the outside shoulder leading slightly.

If your horse is green, start by asking for the leg-yield from just to the inside of the rail and only for a few steps. If your horse is experienced, start from the quarter line or centerline and leg-yield to the rail. To ask for a leg-yield, use your inside leg at the girth to move his rib cage, shoulder and inside hind leg to the rail, while bending him a little to the inside. If your inside leg is too far back, you’ll move the haunches over but there won’t be a bend through the rib cage and his body will be out of alignment.

The biggest mistake I see in lateral work is riders often lose the shape of the horse. The horse has a harder crossing side and an easier crossing side, so the haunches either swing over or the shoulders fall to the outside, and the control of the sideways motion is lost. Think about staying in a rhythm and holding the shape by using your inside and outside aids together to help move and balance your horse. You want to keep a steady bend and connection with even steps throughout the whole movement. 

Shoulder-Fore and Shoulder-In

Once you are successful with the leg-yield, you can work on shoulder-fore, then shoulder-in. These are two of the most important movements because they are used so frequently in dressage training and can help prepare the horse for whatever movement is coming next. On almost every horse I ride, I ask for a little shoulder-fore in trot and canter to help align their body because most horses prefer to go down the long side in a slight haunches-in so they can avoid stepping under themselves with their hind legs.

In shoulder-fore, you’ll bend slightly to the inside like in the leg-yield. Your horse’s inside shoulder should be positioned just to the inside of the rail or his inside hip while traveling on three tracks—but only slightly. To ride a shoulder-fore, travel in a straight line on the rail, then squeeze his rib cage with your inside leg at the girth to move his hind leg to the rail. Encourage your horse to move his shoulders off the rail while asking for a little flexion by bringing your inside elbow back an inch and using the outside rein to keep him balanced. Your outside leg keeps the haunches from swinging out while maintaining impulsion.

From shoulder-fore, move into your shoulder-in, which is still a three-track movement but has more angle and requires more bend and strength from the hind legs. In shoulder-in, the shoulders come in even more with correct flexion to the inside, while the haunches stay on the rail. The inside front leg and outside hind leg are on their own tracks and the outside front leg and inside hind leg share the same track. Keep your inside leg on and push your horse’s inside hind leg toward the rail and up to your hand, while engaging his rib cage. At the same time, your outside leg and rein contain the outside of your horse and help with forward impulsion. I only ask for shoulder-in in the walk and trot. In the canter, it’s much harder for the horse to balance with that much angle and can train the horse’s muscles incorrectly.

The most common mistake I see in shoulder-fore and shoulder-in is the horse comes off the rail too much, so focus on preventing that with your inside leg and outside rein.

Haunches-In 

Once you have control in shoulder-in, move on to haunches-in. Haunches-in, or travers, is an amazing tool because it really helps you supple your horse’s body and gain more control. It’s also the foundation for half-pass. Haunches-in is a four-track movement, with each leg on a different track. The horse’s front end travels straight on the rail while his haunches come to the inside. His neck and jaw should also be flexed to the inside and feel supple—not forced.

Just like the other lateral movements, your inside leg stays at the girth and establishes the bend in your horse’s rib cage. Think of your inside leg as a solid post for your horse to bend around. Your outside leg comes back more than your inside leg to bring the haunches to the inside and around your inside leg. If your horse isn’t bending through his rib cage, don’t try to push your inside leg back further, keep trying to get your horse more sensitive to the leg aid with taps from your calf and heel until he responds correctly. Use your inside rein to flex him slightly to the inside while the outside rein stays steady and connected.

For a horse who’s just learning to do haunches-in, he may get confused and think that you’re asking him to canter. Keep asking him to trot and bring his haunches in while keeping his head and neck straight or a little flexed to the inside. Or, he may be struggling to do everything at once. Sometimes it can be hard for a horse to bend, or it just takes him a while to figure out how to coordinate his legs. 

If your horse is struggling, start with shoulder-out to help him better understand what you’re asking. Ask for a shoulder-out by keeping your outside leg on and the haunches in while keeping his head and neck facing the outside. Think shoulder-out, haunches-in, and that will help you establish your outside leg, which will bring the haunches in. You’ll know it’s OK to try true haunches-in when he moves off your outside leg easily. At that point, you can add the inside bend by slowly flexing the jaw to the inside by squeezing your ring finger repeatedly until he supples. Ask him to stay in that position while encouraging him forward. You may need to go back and forth between the lateral movements and being completely straight until your horse figures it out and builds strength and coordination. 

Half-Pass

Now your horse is really stretched, and you’ve built up suppleness, strength and forward momentum. He should be ready to move laterally the instant you ask, listening to both legs and hands, which means he’s ready for a shallow half-pass.

A lot of times riders overcomplicate the half-pass. For the most part, a half-pass is haunches-in on a diagonal line with varying angles. Start in shoulder-fore, then establish haunches-in and find a shallow diagonal line, keeping your horse’s shoulders on the line, while bringing the haunches to the inside of the line.

Compared to haunches-in, horses usually get wobblier in the half-pass and tend to lead too much with their front or back ends or may push their rib cages to the inside and lose the bend. Focus on your position, and sit on your inner seat bone, even though your body will want to fall to the outside of the horse to move him over. This will only lead to losing the shape and control of the movement.

For a horse learning half-pass, keep it very shallow and easy. I like to start on the quarter line with all horses because it gives you a little space to play. Think about the diagonal line going from the quarter line to the center line, so about five meters or even less, and do two to three steps of half-pass. It’s better to have a few great steps than a lot of bad ones. Once you get a few good steps, go straight for a couple of steps, then go back to moving sideways. As your horse becomes more advanced, you can increase the difficulty by making the half-pass steeper, longer and with more collection and impulsion. 

Putting It All Together 

Once you’ve practiced all the lateral movements one at a time in both the trot and canter, you can work on going from one lateral movement to another while keeping the rhythm and making the transitions between movements seamless. 

You might ask for a leg-yield, and then move into a shoulder-fore, and then a shoulder-in. If your horse isn’t really off your leg in the shoulder-in, that means he’s still pushing or falling too much against your leg, so ask for another leg-yield. Then ask for another shoulder-in. If you get an honest shoulder-in, then you can try haunches-in. If he struggles, go to shoulder-out and balance him and try haunches-in again to see if he’s improved. It’s all about building, not about getting the first step perfect. Stay patient and quiet. 

Pay attention to what side is harder for your horse and when he is unbalanced or falling in one direction so you can use another lateral movement to counteract it. For example, if your horse is in a right half-pass and is falling too much to the right, go to a shoulder-fore or shoulder-in to help correct it because it makes you put your inside leg on and use your outside rein. If he’s still falling to the right, leg-yield away from the right leg. Then repeat a right half-pass and see if he’s improved. If it’s getting harder for him, go back to something easier. You’re doing little lateral adjustments all the time to help your horse regain balance and suppleness.

I use all the lateral movements to build into upper-level movements. In the Grand Prix, I’m always moving my horse, whether forward or sideways, and my horse needs to be on my aids. If I don’t have bend in the rib cage from haunches-in, my half-passes, zigzags and pirouettes aren’t going to be correct. Or, if I don’t have the ability to create a good shoulder-fore or shoulder-in, I have no control over setting up each movement and making small adjustments in them.

By regularly working on lateral movements, you’ll learn you can access them at any time to influence your horse in the moment—even if it’s simply moving the rib cage slightly or getting the hind leg to cross over an inch.

For More:

• To watch the training video of this lesson with AnnA Buffini, click here and subscribe to EQUESTRIAN+. Use code ANNAB15 for 15% off your first month’s subscription. 
• For more top training tips with Buffini, click here.  

About AnnA Buffini

AnnA Buffini comes from a family of world-class athletes. Her mother was on the 1988 U.S. Olympic volleyball team, and her father, a native of Ireland, was a national collegiate soccer champion. AnnA initially pursued her own Olympic dreams as a gymnast but switched to dressage around age 9. In 2016, she became the first rider to win both the championship and reserve championship titles in U.S. Equestrian Federation Young Adult Brentina Cup Dressage National Championship. AnnA has competed for the U.S. in five major international Nations Cup competitions and is a two-time World Cup finalist with FRH Davinia La Douce. She runs a teaching, training and sales business based in San Diego, California. 

This article originally appeared in the summer 2025 issue of Practical Horseman.

In this video from her series on EQUESTRIAN+, Olympic dressage rider Kasey Perry-Glass helps a rider and her OTTB at training level work on helping him better use his hind end while maintaining balance, steady contact and an even tempo. After tuning up some basic aids, Perry-Glass also helps the pair improve their work at the trot and canter by addressing some common issues that sometimes arise specifically with Thoroughbreds.

Whether you’re just starting out in dressage, are working your way up the levels or could use some advice on your eventing dressage work, we hope these tips help set you and your OTTB for success.

Honing Your OTTB’s Dressage Fundamentals

“A lot of riders with Thoroughbreds who are built a little downhill tend to ride really forward, but that can often push their horses too far off their hind ends. So focus on keeping a consistent tempo with him so it’s more manageable for him to control his hind end.

“As you’re walking on a circle, take up a little bit of your outside rein to slow down his shoulders while also adding inside leg if he wants to cross behind. That way, you can adjust the speed of his front legs with your outside rein contact. This will help give him the idea of correlating your inside leg to his hind end.

“It’s really important to do lots of direction changes to practice keeping the contact the same on both sides. When he feels a bit stiff, try to push him with your inside leg and maintain that steady contact. Even if he pushes up against your hand, just say, ‘Nope, you’re going to stay here for a second.’ Then focus more on his hind end so he can settle into your hand.

“I love how you’re keeping your inside rein because a lot of people drop it too much. You have to use that inside rein to help guide him into a forward turn. Otherwise, he’ll feel a little blocked. Keep thinking forward, but push a little bit to see if you can maintain a few steps in that collection.

“Try and break through that tension he’s already giving you just to test him. If it’s going to be too much and overwhelm him, you don’t want to push it that far. But play around to see if it helps him learn to engage and bend his ribcage to the right.

“In the beginning, it’s going to feel a bit messy, but eventually you’ll be able to clean it up. Right now, you’re just focusing on finding that little bit of connection in the hind end. You can even make a fish tail of it when changing directions—anything to be creative while also getting his end moving more.

At the Trot: Lateral Work for Leg Desensitization with OTTBs

“The moment you feel a reaction like when he actually wants to bend a little bit toward the right, that’s when you should start changing direction, because it looks like he tends to be a little more hollow on the left and stiff on the right. So we need connect on the left rein.

“As you connect on the left rein, think about using your right leg to push him left and maintain a small connection on the right rein to help support your right leg. And this is going to be hard for him because he’s still trying to figure out where all his body parts are moving.

“He’ll probably want to go faster because it’s harder for him, but he doesn’t need to go any faster. So just wait it out until you feel that moment of give and that’s where you want him.

“Eventually, you want him to get desensitized to your leg, so you can encourage him with leg contact without him running away. Sometimes with Thoroughbreds they can get a little bit tense and tight when trying to understand this, especially after being racehorses. Your leg ultimately must be an aid to put his body in the proper position and not a cue to go guns blazing.

“Now, he’s become less sensitive to your leg, so you can actually think about putting your leg on with him feeling so electric. With more forward Thoroughbreds any type of lateral work you can do to get him used to your leg being on is really useful. And it also reiterates your hands, so you feel like you have a solid connection. At the trot, it’s the same idea—just feeling like your inside leg pushes him over and out of the circle.”

At the Canter: Work Through the Kinks with Your OTTB

“As you ask for the canter, keep your leg and seat down and stay connected on the right side. Keep him on a circle for the canter and be prepared that he’s probably going to try and break because this is physically hard for him as he’s building up these new muscles.

“Keep your outside rein super steady and your hands soft, and if he comes up like that, just push him back into your hand and continue to work through it. Then, give on the inside rein for just a moment. I know it feels really wonky, but it’s almost like you need to keep him cantering while you set his body up into the correct position.

“Even when he wants to get a little fussy, use that encouraging leg, but don’t change your hands. You can maintain a little bit of pressure just to have that connection, but you have to have that bit of leg and eventually he’ll start to drop down.

“These small things are great to work on to get him more aware of where his hind end is because ultimately as you’re doing all these serpentines and changes of direction, you want to be able to engage and push him over and into the bit versus having him hollow out against the bit.

“All of this can feel like super tedious stuff and people feel like they’re not progressing at all. But sometimes, especially with Thoroughbreds, even getting them to move their hind ends from the halt through light pressure is a big win because you can always build from there. When your guy wants to get a little high and is doing his racehorse turning stuff, don’t work too much in that moment because you don’t want to get him too worked. Just focus on small reiterations that will lead to long-term progress.”

For More:

• Watch the full episode of Kasey Perry-Glass working with this rider and her OTTB here.
• For more hands-on training videos and interviews with Perry-Glass, click here.
• Click here for thousands more training videos from top dressage riders and trainers on EQUESTRIAN+.
• Learn more about retraining OTTBs for a career in dressage here.

“Furst Yogi is a 7-year-old, 17.2-hand gelding who is a mellow and happy horse, but he needs to stay engaged behind while under saddle. I am his trainer, and he is confirmed at Third Level and schooling Prix St. Georges.”

My first impression after seeing this photo was: What a great picture catching this colorful and powerful moment! It’s one of those pictures you would hang inside your barn to advertise your training. Furst Yogi is trotting with engaged hind legs, good lift of the shoulders and nice self-carriage. He looks like he’s concentrating, his mouth is closed (with the curb bit at the correct angle) and he looks like he’s in a nice frame. 

Amber is sitting with an engaged, stable core and correct leg position. She looks focused and is concentrating in the direction where she and Furst Yogi are headed in the arena. While her hands are a little high and her shoulders are very slightly behind the balance line, it’s important to remember that a photo is simply one moment in a series of movement.

If Amber needed a bit more engagement and self-carriage from her horse, she may have moved her body for one step into this position and then returned to lower her hands and bring her shoulders over her hips. But the picture cannot show the next step. Also, riding a big horse that makes you look small is always a challenge. But Amber is collecting such a big horse with lightness and makes it look easy.

 Stretching Up With The Upper Body

This picture is a good example that correct training does not need strength but balance and quick coordination paired with knowledge and understanding. For the horse, correct timing of the aids is more important than how strongly they are applied. To encourage Furst Yogi to move with more activity from the hind legs, Amber is sitting with her seat bones forward and under her hip joints with her pelvis in a driving position. To avoid compressing her lower back by “tucking in” her seat, she needs to stretch up in her body at the same time. Here, she’s stretched up a bit more with the front side of her body, or frontline, but ideally, she would stretch up through her back, or backline, in the same way. 

To help with this concept of stretching up in the body, imagine the position of your shoulders when riding up or down a steep hill. Riding downhill you will lean slightly back, while your shoulders will come forward going uphill. When asking a horse for a more uphill movement and frame, the rider should not position her shoulders slightly back as if she was riding downhill for an extended period of time. Pushing with the seat and pelvis forward must be followed immediately by rebalancing the chest and upper body forward above the hips.

Another visualization for stretching up in the body is to imagine closing a zipper. You need to hold the base of the zipper down firmly with one hand while the other hand pulls the zipper up. Amber is stretching up very nicely with her frontline. She has connection down into the saddle, and you can imagine her pulling a zipper up over her sternum and chest. This gives her a nice, upright position, but it needs to be balanced by a second zipper stretching over her backline.

I would advise Amber to visualize the second zipper starting at her sacrum (the large, triangular bone at the base of the spine) that needs to be pulled up over the back of her neck and head. The balance between the two zippers will give her the necessary core stability and balance to encourage Furst Yogi to move with more cadence and self-carriage in an uphill frame.

A Giving, Following Hand

Amber is lifting her hands to help carry the weight of the bits and make sure they are not pulling down on the horse’s poll. I prefer a slightly higher, lighter hand position rather than a lower, heavier hand position. But too high of a hand position will break the line from the elbow to the rein to the horse’s mouth and should not be held for a long period of time. If held too long or too strongly, the horse will bend more in the neck and come behind the vertical. Furst Yogi’s nice neck position shows that he’s not being pulled up to self-carriage; he just got a little reminder in this moment. 

A brief lift of the hands can do wonders, but it needs to be followed by lowering the hands with a tendency to push them forward. To make sure that forward giving enhances self-carriage, try standing in riding position in front of a wall with your knuckles touching the wall. Pushing gently forward against the wall will engage your abdominal muscles and lengthen your spine in the lower back with the hips opening forward. This is why every half-halt is only complete when we get to the “giving” moment, where we actually control the horse using our seat. 

Another helpful mental image for Amber: She should imagine lowering her hands forward while also sending her arms along the reins underneath her horse’s mouth as if her hands are scooping under the mouth to help him lift and carry his neck. This forward scooping visualization helps riders keep their balance more forward and avoid leaning back with their shoulders.

I am sure Amber will enjoy training this impressive and willing horse further into Prix St. Georges and beyond, and I hope she can find value in these training tips.

About Susanne von Dietze

Susanne von Dietze is a leader in equestrian biomechanics. A physiotherapist, licensed Trainer A instructor and judge for dressage and show jumping, she gives lectures and seminars throughout the world, including at the prestigious German Riding Academy in Warendorf. She is a native of Germany and now lives with her husband and three children in Israel, where she competes at the international level. She is the author of two books on the biomechanics of riding: Balance in Movement and Rider and Horse, Back to Back. 

Watch training videos with Susanne von Dietze on EQUESTRIAN+.

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Practical Horseman.

Here’s why: Our national and international competition committees are continually raising the technical requirements of our sport, and our elite riders keep raising their proficiency. Part of their proficiency is based on the number of hours they spend daily in the saddle—most of which are sponsored. They are getting paid to practice. At the same time, the rising cost of riding and training makes it more and more difficult for you to develop your talents and perfect your skills.

Although it’s generally accepted that 10,000 hours of practice is necessary to reach elite levels of performance, the sad fact of the matter is that if you’re able to ride one horse a day, five days a week, it will take you a long time to log that 10,000 hours. Instead, you are going to spend a lot of your time hanging over the arena fence watching other riders while wishing you could be out there competing and improving.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that, as Yogi says, you can observe a lot just by watching … and thereby improve your riding. There’s a catch, however: You have to make sure that you’re observing and not just watching because there is a difference.

It Begins With Books

If it’s a given that you’ll have to develop the ability to learn by observation, then you must make sure that you’re watching the right things. Let me put it to you in a different way: If you want to develop your skills, you must learn to short-circuit the usual heuristic (learning by trial and error) process historically associated with learning to ride at an elite level.

There are several steps toward developing the ability to observe, to learn and to apply what you have learned. First, it will accelerate your learning process greatly if you have a sound understanding of the technical basis for modern riding. For example, what are the leg and rein aids? Where, when and how are they applied? Even though you may not yet be able to apply what you observe, you need to understand why certain things are happening.

You can find the answers to your questions by endless trial-and-error on your own, by taking extensive and expensive lessons or by reading books on the subject. While you cannot learn to ride solely by reading books about riding, you can certainly take advantage of the advice contained in good books.

Why not videos? Most of the videos I’ve seen are excellent, but most assume prior knowledge on the viewer’s part, which means you need to turn the pages in a book before you turn to videos as an aid to learning. Once you understand what is good and bad, video is an excellent learning tool. It enables you to watch the same exercise or competition again and again, using slow-motion and stop-action functions to analyze each step or stride of the horse and each action of the rider.

If the video is about a high-level show-jumping competition, and a horse has a knockdown or refusal, watch it again and again, trying to observe what happened to cause the mistake. When you watch videos of your own riding, avoid the temptation to concentrate on the winning performances; instead, watch your errors endlessly. The next time you ride, make sure you can prevent that mistake from happening.

Learning to Observe

One of the best things I ever learned from former U.S. show-jumping coach Bert de Némethy was to analyze what caused a mistake and to recognize when in a series of actions the mistake occurred. I was standing behind Bert one day, watching as usual, and a horse jumping a schooling course knocked down the front rail of a square oxer.

“So, Jimmy, where did the knockdown occur?” I immediately answered, “At the square oxer.” Bert replied, “No, it happened three fences before that, at the triple bar. The rider did not rebalance his horse after the big spread, and he was too much on his forehand to jump the oxer clean.”

At that moment, I understood that it was possible to observe far more than I had previously realized. My observational powers started to develop, and I no longer had to make a mistake in order to learn from it.

If you are one of those people who must learn everything yourself, all I can say is “good luck.” It is a positive attribute to learn from your mistakes, but you should not insist on making every mistake yourself because there are too many possibilities for error as we learn to ride. When you read a book, watch a video or observe a good rider, you are learning from someone who has already made innumerable mistakes. Profit from their experiences!

Before we get down to specifics, we need to discuss how to observe. When you first start to watch for the purpose of instruction rather than enjoyment, everything is a blur. The horse and rider have a knockdown or a refusal or a dressage movement goes badly wrong, and you are left to ask yourself, “What happened?” What happened is that you tried to see everything at once—and consequently ended up not seeing much of anything.

Instead, practice at first watching one particular part of the whole system. For example, concentrate on watching a horse’s left hock for several moments while you ignore the rest of the dressage test. Chances are that you will, for instance, notice a loss of regularity in the hind legs just before the horse comes above the bit.

Next, watch one front foot and try to determine how it and the opposite hind foot work together, and what happens when they are not harmonious. If you isolate various parts of the horse’s body and concentrate your observations on each aspect alone, you will eventually be able to “see” the whole body of the horse and understand how each part interacts to produce the performance you are watching.

Then, the next time you train your horse in dressage, you might feel the irregularity of his hind legs and know he is about to come above the bridle. This time, however, you will improve his engagement to keep him on the bit rather than pull on the reins in an attempt to “keep his head down.” You learned this valuable lesson without going through the hours of instruction that would have otherwise been necessary.

Education Through Observation

If you are unable to compete, go to an event as a spectator and sit on the rail of the warm-up arena. Devote 10 minutes to observing each horse’s eyes as he approaches an obstacle, ignoring the rest of the horse’s body. Try to feel what the horse sees and when he decides how he is going to meet the fence. Most horses make their decision long before the average rider “sees her stride,” which explains why coaches who insist that riders keep the rhythm in the final approach are successful. A horse traveling in rhythm is in balance, and balanced horses jump to the best of their abilities.

When does a horse jump well? Does he jump well when he is brought to the fence on the bit, just as in dressage? Or is he better when he has the plane of his face at roughly a 45-degree angle to the ground as he approaches? I think you can find the answer, but you have to observe carefully, not just watch.

When you watch cross-country, make sure to observe riders over both a combination and a single “fly” fence designed to be jumped at a high rate of speed. Again, concentrate on one thing at a time. Try to decide the correct place for the necessary speed change before the combination and the correct approach speed. At the fly fence, watch the riders’ actions in the approach. Do they sit down or do they sit back, and why? Which works better?

In all of these instances, make sure you imagine yourself in the saddle and mentally rehearse your actions based on your observations. I think this technique of observing explains in part why a skilled rider can get on a totally strange horse and immediately ride the horse better than his usual rider. The skilled rider has been watching—observing—hundreds of horses like the one she just got on, and she is mentally prepared to ride it.

We cannot spend all our time in the saddle, but we can observe carefully while grounded so as to be ready when the chance to ride presents itself.

For more with Jim Wofford, click here.

Graves also stresses the importance of keeping your horse in front of your leg and said it’s essential that you time your aids correctly and that he promptly responds to your forward aids. Here, she breaks down the differences between contact and collection and explains how you can improve both and make them work together.

Contact Versus Connection, Part 1

“To create proper connection, you must start with good contact. I take a lot of time educating my horses on the contact. This is important to make sure your horse is as comfortable as possible in his mouth and learns how to properly accept the bit.”

“Your horse must also respect the contact. It’s like teaching a horse to pick up his foot. If I run my hand down the back of his leg, I expect him to pick up his foot. I have the same kind of training technique when thinking about the bit. I want the horse to know if I touch you like this, this is the reaction I would like you to give me.”

“You must get your horse in front of your leg before you can address contact or collection. Commit to the tempo you think is best for your horse. When it comes to maintaining tempo, every horse has a different one he’d prefer and sometimes that’s a little slower and more behind the leg than we would like. That’s when you need to introduce the correction with your leg. He might not like the correction. But you need to call to his attention that you asked him nicely first and he didn’t listen. The correction, however, has to happen in a very short amount of time, so that your horse can relate it to his action or inaction.”

“Your horse has to learn to say there [in front of your leg] by himself. If you take your leg off and he slows again, he’s continuing to make the same mistake. That means one of two things about your correction was off. It either wasn’t strong enough or your timing was wrong. So if he keeps repeating the same mistake, ask yourself which one of those things you need to change.

Contact Versus Connection, Part 2

“With every horse you have to play with different aids until you find that sweet spot where your horse is properly reactive. It is for sure a challenge, but the first thing horses must learn is that respecting the leg is not optional and staying in front of the leg is not optional.

“Remember the correction itself doesn’t have to make your horse do the right thing. I don’t want the whip to be the thing that makes him canter. Instead, the whip serves to bring his attention to your leg. You might not always be able to ask so politely at first if he’s ignoring what you’re telling him. Our job is to sit in the saddle and when he makes a mistake to train him so the next time that mistake is not even a possibility.

“Even if he’s walking on the buckle, he should be walking like he walks in a free walk in the test. Those are the only walks he needs to have when he’s in the ring. And while you’re walking, think about establishing a kind of internal metronome.

“When we talk about connection, if your horse isn’t going forward the same every stride, I can almost guarantee that when you start to touch the bridle, you’re going to run into problems because he’s not thinking about going there.

“If the horse is not 100% honest and in front of the leg, we can’t start to have a conversation about the bridle being a boundary. Otherwise, he’s always going to choose the easy way out, which is to slow down and to push out behind. And not necessarily because of bad character. It would be a foolish for a horse to volunteer to do things the most difficult way, which is what we ask of them. So they’re just smart because they’re choosing the easier way out.”

Contact Versus Connection, Part 3

“When a horse starts to understand the boundary of the bridle, it really starts to change his athletic ability, because as he becomes more respectful of the hand and knows he can’t slow down, he will really start to use himself.

“If you maintain a bent elbow, you can always soften your hand forward like a hinge that can open and close. Also, if your horse pulls on you, having a bent elbow will help lock your center of gravity into your core. If your hands are flat, he’s likely to pull you forward out of the tack.

“You have to find the right moments in training to make changes in the bridle and your collection. Be aware of your horse’s level of sensitivity because that will also determine the level of any corrections you provide. Every horse is different and you have to understand each’s limits and when you need more or less on any given day.”

You can watch the full series on contact versus connection with Laura Graves here.

For More:

• Read more about collection and how to help your horse achieve it here.
• From short training tips to how-to videos and insider-access to private clinics and lessons, learn from top dressage experts on EQUESTRIAN+.

Five-star eventer, natural horsemanship advocate and performance coach Chelsea Canedy uses groundwork in every aspect of her training program and finds that quality work from the ground carries over to your under-saddle work.

In Part 2 of Canedy’s groundwork series from her video collection on EQUESTRIAN+, she demonstrates how to introduce your horse to lateral work and circle transitions from the ground and explains how these exercises translate into valuable training tools in all your work. She also shows you how to navigate groundwork with a horse who’s on the less-motivated side.

Groundwork to Move Your Horse Laterally

“Teaching your horse to move laterally in response to pressure from the ground is an extremely useful tool to prepare him for under-saddle work. Under saddle, we might call this exercise a leg yield to the wall. You’ll approach your horse from a 45-degree angle with his head pointing toward the wall so that he’s moving away from your pressure on the ground or what would be your outside leg under saddle. I prefer to use a wall for the exercise because it provides a boundary so that when you go to apply pressure with your hand or stick, your horse understands you don’t want him to go forward. You want him to go sideways.

“This exercise also helps loosen your horse up a bit and by getting him to use and cross his hind legs over, and it keeps him light in response to the pressure you’re adding to his side.

“To start, I move my horse toward the wall at a slight angle and when I start to apply pressure with my stick, I do it up in front of his eyes so he starts to notice that I’m going to be stopping the pressure to prevent forward movement. Then as he paws and attempts to do something different—which is totally logical on his part—I just wait until he moves away from the little bit of pressure I’m applying near his flank.

“In an ideal world, I would get one movement from the small amount of pressure I apply. This horse tries really hard and will do a lot of things with a little pressure. But I would really love to be able to apply a small amount of pressure at his flank to get him to take one small step to the side. He tends to overdo it a bit, which is fine. Some horses are just that way. With other horses you might have to increase the pressure to get a response.

“If your horse tries to barge ahead or misinterprets your stick cue, apply pressure from the halter to indicate you don’t want him to go forward. The moment he’s gotten something right, make sure your body posture is very calm and relaxed. You’ll see how my horse here licks and chews and relaxes his eyes and ears, and I give him a little rub so he doesn’t get worried or overly sensitive.

“In the long run, I’d like to keep my horse more at a 45-degree angle rather than having his hips swing around, but I’m still going to reward him for moving laterally in the way I’ve asked him. Even though he’s a little distracted by the door here, I love that simple, quiet movement of his hip, so I’ll reward him by just letting him be for a bit.”

Transitions On a Circle From the Ground

“I use circling from the ground as a tool to continue building the connection with my horse and not so much for exercise or getting excess energy out. When you start circle work, keep your horse relatively close to keep his attention focused on you. The farther away your horse is, the more likely you’ll lose his attention.

“I start by backing my horse away from me, so I can send him on a circle around me without him intruding into my space. On circle work, always start with the lightest pressure or signal you can use and only increase that pressure as necessary. For my horses, I use one cluck for walk, two clucks for trot and a kiss for canter.

“I don’t use a barrage of aids because that’s like constantly putting your leg on and getting no response. I want one aid and one response. If I don’t get a response from the aid I’ve chosen, I back it up with a stronger cue until I get my horse to try. Then, I immediately go back to the lightest aid I was hoping to utilize.

“During circle work, I want to be able to stop my horse in his tracks or draw him back into me, because I’m always trying to balance the drive of my horse with the draw of him to me. When I draw my horse toward me, I take a step back and look for him to follow me with eyes and ears until he wants to walk toward me. When I feel like he’s in the right space in relationship to me, I ask him to stop. If he doesn’t, I put a little pressure on him until he does.

“To practice downward transitions, I simply slow my body down and breathe out. This is also a great way to see if your horse is paying attention to your intention. He should read my body language to understand we’re slowing down and stopping.

“You can change directions on your circle work without making any major adjustments. Simply ask your horse to come toward you by getting a little bit in front of him. Then, I’ll use my hand to lead him in the new direction. It’s about bringing your horse in and then pushing him back out based on your body position and where you’re focusing your energy. This requires you to have confidence in your energy and pressure. You can’t come in with hesitancy like ‘I don’t know if this really going to work,’ because your horse will read that and doesn’t know if you’re really sure about what you’re asking and if he should respond.”

Navigating Groundwork With a Less-Motivated Horse

“Here, I’m demonstrating how to manage groundwork with a horse who’s less sensitive and maybe a little lazier than the gray horse I was working with earlier. This guy, by nature, is slightly less self-motivated. For this kind of horse, the stick and string is a really good tool. It’s different than a longe whip because it’s shorter and has less flexion, but it has a nice, long string attached to it, so it allows you to reach out touch your horses’ hind end if you need to.

“I ask Kenny to move out on a circle by leading with my hand and adding a little pressure behind where my leg would go. Nothing happened, so I’m going to add a little more pressure. Then, I get a livelier walk and am careful to keep my energy behind what I refer to as the drive line or where my leg would be on the horse. Pressure behind this line will send the horse forward, and anything in front of that line should slow the horse down.

“When your horse is doing a good job, keep your arm relaxed, the stick down and stay quiet with your body. If you want to increase his pace, add a leading motion with your hand and double cluck. There he didn’t go, so I reach out and give him a light touch with the stick. Here, I’m demonstrating it slowly so you can see, but in real time, I would lead with my hand, cluck and apply pressure quickly if he doesn’t follow through the first time. This way, the horse associates the touch with the stick and string with the aid I just gave.

“What you don’t want to do is start throwing a bunch of aids at your horse all at once, pulling on him or saying ‘whoa’ over and over again. Settle your energy until your horse thinks he should slow down and stop. Then, quietly send him back out with a double cluck and he reacted much quicker.”

For More:

• To watch these episodes and Chelsea Canedy’s full EQUESTRIAN+ video collection on groundwork, click here.
• Read Part 1 of Canedy’s groundwork series on how to improve your connection with your horse by building trust from the ground here.
• For her tips on introducing cross-country obstacles from the ground, click here.

• Test if your horse is listening to your aids.
• Balance your horse.
• Prepare or set up for the next movement.
• Make corrections without directly affecting a movement. 
• Take a breath.

Think about how you ride corners. Do you ride into them and your horse waits and listens for your aids, or does he turn or fall through the corner before you ask?

It’s natural for your horse to anticipate corners because he knows he has to turn to avoid hitting the rail. But often, he takes the initiative to turn before you’ve asked. And that’s where the problems come in. He’s come off your aids without you realizing it and is likely out of balance because he’s drifting or falling in.

I’ll explain how to correctly ride into corners and how this will positively affect your ride—both in and out of the show ring. 

How to Ride the Exercise

Starting on the long side of the ring, walk your horse straight into the corner by using more outside rein to keep him along the rail while supporting with your inside leg to block his instinct to drift in or turn early. Your inside leg will also help to maintain his forward energy and upright balance. Once you are one to two meters away from the rail, ask for a halt transition by trying to stop your hip and seat movement and tightening your core. If needed, add a little rein aid to reinforce your seat by closing your fists and stopping your arms from following the forward movement. 

Because you still have one to two meters in front of you, you will have enough room to walk forward, turn and go through the corner. Wait a moment after your halt, and then turn your head and look to the next corner while slightly turning your upper body in the direction of the turn without dropping your inside shoulder. The turn from your upper body will put a little more weight into your inside seat bone and inside leg. The weight aid is the primary aid for guiding your horse through the turn coming out of the corner because he’s naturally inclined to follow your weight. 

Ask you horse to walk forward while making sure your inside leg and outside rein continue to support him through the turn. If you’re doing the exercise correctly, your horse shouldn’t fall against your inside leg or bulge through the outside rein. After a couple steps of brief bend turning out of the corner, straighten your horse by using inside leg and outside rein on the short side of the ring on the way to the next corner where you’ll do another halt transition and repeat the exercise.

Practice getting comfortable going into the corner, waiting and then consciously aiding your horse to turn and walk out of it. This makes corners more tangible, so you can relax in the corner and prepare, instead of rushing to the next movement.

The more you school this exercise, the more corners will become natural, and you won’t need to think about them as much because your horse learns what to expect and how to carry himself. Over time, corners will become your half-halt. Instead of rushing through the corner and anticipating the turn, your horse will start to view the corner as a place to briefly pause, rebalance on his hind legs and prepare for the next movement.

The goal is to achieve as much harmony, lightness and subtlety as possible, so it looks like you’re not thinking about the corner or any movement coming out of it. If it looks easy that means the horse and rider are connected, and the horse is responding to the softest aids.

Tailor the Exercise to Your Level

The higher the level, the greater the expectation for how deep you can go into your corners. And depending on your level, you can also experiment with different transitions to increase the difficulty. 

Initially, I recommend doing walk–halt transitions in each corner with a simple turn. It’s not fair to expect a lower-level horse or a horse trying this for the first time to go all the way into every corner. Most lower-level horses don’t have the strength yet to maintain their balance deep into corners. This doesn’t mean you should allow your horse to cut the corner, but you don’t have to go all the way into it. For Introductory through Second Level, the depth of the corners should feel like a portion of a 10-meter circle. 

At First Level, riding a trot–halt transition between the corners is a fair question. When you halt, you should still leave one to two meters in front of you to allow for a couple of walk steps to make the turn and then trot to the next corner. This may surprise your horse a little bit, especially on the short side, because there’s not a long window of time between trotting out of the corner and halting again in the next corner. But it gets the horse really listening to your aids and helps achieve the necessary adjustability and rideability to go forward out of the corner, and then come back on your aids to the next corner. This idea is useful in tests because it encourages your horse to really listen to you from one corner to the next.

You can also try this exercise without the halt transition by trotting into a corner and then doing a walk transition. The goal is the same—you want your horse to stay on your aids and listen to your inside leg and outside rein before trotting out.  

For Third and Fourth Level, think about your corner as a portion of an 8-meter circle and take your transition a little farther into the corner. You want to feel almost like the rail isn’t there. Your horse should be on your aids so if you want one more step into the corner, you have it. 

At the upper levels, you can also do canter–walk transitions or canter–halt transitions. To make the exercise even more challenging, try cantering into the corner as far as you can and then turn out of it, which would become a quarter of a pirouette of really collected canter. 

During a test, think about what you need to be preparing for coming out of the corner. That will determine how far you go into it. The more you have to do coming out of that corner, the longer you want to stay there to set yourself up for success.

Common Mistakes

This is a simple exercise, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Here are some solutions for common problems.

Your horse bulges through the outside rein. To correct this, use a little bit of counter flexion before, during or after the corner, depending on when you feel like you’re losing your horse’s shoulder through the outside rein.

Your corners are actually circles. When riding a correct corner, you should have a straight line going into it, two to three strides of bend and then another straight line coming out. But these three elements often bleed together. The corners on the short ends become more like circles with a constant bend through the whole short end (see diagram, left). This is great if you’re doing a 20-meter circle, but if that’s not your goal, you need to ride a correct corner. Make a point to straighten your horse with your outside rein coming out of the first corner. The goal is to have your horse’s body parallel to the short side of the arena between the two corners. When you’re coming out of the first corner, it’s also helpful to look for a point outside the arena to prevent yourself from turning too soon before the second corner.

Your corner is a motorcycle turn. In a motorcycle turn, the horse leans in and falls against your inside leg. Both horse and rider are likely off balance and the horse will have lost some bend through his ribcage. Because your horse is out of balance, you may also lose control of his gait’s tempo. He might start to go faster, or the opposite may happen—he might lose energy and try to slow down. 

This can affect any movement you are doing after the corner—whether it’s a 20-meter circle at B or a line of two tempis across the diagonal. You want to maintain a good rhythm of the movement and get a good tempo that’s on your aids, not a tempo that’s a result of your horse having lost balance or bend and he then speeds up or slows down to feel like he can stay on his feet through the corner. 

First, make sure you aren’t encouraging the motorcycle lean by tipping your body to the inside through the corner. Stay tall and straight through your spine like a telephone pole. Make sure you’re not collapsing through your inside shoulder or inside ribcage. Think about your inside leg as a pillar or lamp post that your horse has to bend around and that you can use to help prop him up around the corner. Instead of coming through the turn like a motorcycle, your horse should bend through the corner like an articulated bus (a long bus with an accordion-style section in the middle), and your inside leg can help create that bend. You can also use your inside leg to leg-yield into the corner to catch him from anticipating the turn and get him a little deeper into the corner.  

The way you school corners at home will carry over into competitions, so practice a mindful approach to turning through corners and use them to your advantage for a responsive, balanced horse who is ready for the next movement.

For More:

• To watch a video of Ashley Donadt demonstrating this exercise, subscribe to EQUESTRIAN+. (Use code ASHLEY15 to get 15% off your first month’s subscription.)
• To listen to a previous Dressage Today Podcast with Donadt, click here.
• For more on how to improve your dressage transitions, click here.