San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Victoria and makes suggestions for further improvement.

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to give you an update on Amber and Legolas.

Legolas is just beginning to come into a new frame and is beginning to develop collection. As you can see in the video, he is able to stay up in the bridle and is not breaking over in the third vertebrae and is thrusting much deeper. Go back and compare earlier videos of Legolas and you will see that he was going a lot faster in his footfalls but without nearly the depth of suspension that we see now, that is the depth of compression of the hind legs. No matter how much we ask the horse to collect, you always need to come back to the full length of the stride.

Amber demonstrates a complete working trot where he is …

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art 2 Ride discusses the video sent in by Angie and makes suggestions for further improvement.

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with my good buddy Legolas. I wanted to refer you to a site that I recommend all of you look at. The website is: www.sustainabledressage.net .

This website is a wonderful work of love which someone has put together with devotion to correct training. The website is full of great articles explaining all the things that you see us discussing in our videos, such as getting a horse to work over it’s back, how all the muscles in the neck and back of the horse work together or not together. She also shows several examples of good and bad development.

Once again, the website is: www.sustainabledressage.net and I highly recommend you take a look at it. She is continually building the site up all the time. This is Will Faerber from …

San Diego Horse Trainer Will Faerber from Art2Ride critiques a video sent in by Victoria from Canada of her horse Dylan.

Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride here with Amber Matusek and her horse Legolas. Today we are going to work a little on lengthening.

Now that we have the horse stabilized in the bridle and she is able to sit to the trot quite nicely without losing his back, we can lengthen in the trot. With a young horse, it is a good idea to rise a couple of strides after the sitting trot and then ask him to lengthen. Look how beautiful he lengthens his stride! Look how he flowed out and his neck got a little bit longer. In the sitting trot, she reaches up and the poll stays up. This was a horse that was very badly broken in the neck, and we are just getting to the point where we can do this without him breaking …

Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with my associate trainer Amber Matusek and her horse Legolas. Today we are going to continue our discussion of beginning the horse in the canter.

Amber bought this horse about a year ago, and she has spent this time working him long and low. She started with us about three months ago and we have just been starting Legolas on the canter on the lunge line. She has gotten to the point where she can sit to the trot quite nicely in a  good active working trot, which means she can begin the canter. Remember the trot has to be correct before you begin the canter. Once we can get the horse to work over it’s back while supporting our weight, then we can become serious about the canter.

Amber …

Hello this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here today to work on the canter. With me today is Amber and her horse Legolas.

Before you ask for the canter while lunging, you must make sure he can work in the trot over his back first. Notice in the video that we have the line over the top of the horse’s head. He is a young horse and before we got him he would yank his head and drag people out of the arena, and that is why we have the line over the top and connected to the bit with this horse. So if he does begin to act out we can control him without a lot of difficulty.

When is the horse ready to canter? He is ready to canter when you can get him over his back …