Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride working here with Frauke Murphy for her and her horse’s first lesson with us. I taped a little bit of when we began on the lunge line so you can see what we started with, which you can find under our videos.

This is a horse that has done very well on the western circuit and has had about ten years of training. What we noticed is while she is very obedient, she is working very hollow and pulling her neck over and cranking over in the third vertebrae and not seeking the bit, which is what we see now. They have done a very good job of teaching her how to be a nice quiet horse, but now she will learn how to work over her back and the ride she will give and the support she will give the rider will be a lot more of an athletic one.

This is Frauke Murphy’s first lesson and what she will be working on the most is her upper body: keeping her shoulder blades back and her chest lifted so that she can stay balanced. When we first began, every time she touched the reins she would drop her shoulders forward. As soon as she would do that it would interrupt the stride of the horse. Now she puts her shoulders in the correct position and sends him forward from her leg getting him swinging. Look now how the horse is able to move! The most important thing for the rider is to stay balanced above the horse, because it only takes dropping your head, shoulders or chest to put the weight on the forehand which will interrupt the stride.

So once again, this is Will Faerber here with Frauke Murphy for her first lesson here with us. We will follow up with her to see how she is doing. We certainly have a nice round walk now. You will notice from her previous video how u-necked the horse was, but now we have the horse working over it’s back with some correct lunging techniques and also working in hand and me riding him a bit teaching him to follow the contact. Look how different the muscling looks already! All that under the neck that was so tight when we began is now soft and the horse is accepting contact with the bridle.

See you all next time here at Art2Ride!

back balance bridle classical foundation contact dressage lesson mounted lesson San Diego horse training stretching topline Will Faerber