I learned the hard way so that you don’t have to! One thing you should know about me is I have the “Do it yourself gene” which has served me well but has also served me … not so well.

So, here are the 3 things I wish I learned sooner as an equestrian.

Your Balance Influences your horse more than you think

Seems like an obvious one but when you truly start influencing your horse by utilizing weight-shifting techniques, your whole style of riding shifts. You can then train your horse to respond to slight shifts in your body (this is what the pros do). Using body weight shifting as an aid is so useful, especially when on course.

A slight shift forward with your shoulders encourages your horse to move up/ forward. A slight shift of your shoulders behind your neutral position communicates to your horse to come back/ collect themselves.

Stepping more of your weight into your inside stirrup through a turn can help your horse counteract the Centrifugal force that’s acting on you and them through a turn.

One of the best examples of how impactful weight shifting can be is through a roll-back style turn. If you’re not familiar, a roll-back is when you come off a jump and have to do a pretty immediate turn to a second jump that is usually close to the jump you just came over. Executing this type of turn well takes a lot of expert weight shifting.

Roll-back turns typically ride like this: land, balance, turn, establish your pace, look for your distance, and jump.

So, what do you do to execute that? You could yank on the reins to balance and then add leg to try to get your pace. However, this is unreliable, and your horse still has to put in extra effort to counteract your balance through the turn. It won’t be as efficient and it won’t feel good.

So, here’s how I ride a Rollback utilizing weight-shifting:

1. Land & Balance
   • The goal is to establish your horse’s balance within 2 strides of your landing. Lifting your body and hands, bringing your upper body back behind your neutral balance. This encourages your horse to rock back on their hind end and condense/collect their stride going into the first part of the turn. Usually, you’ll need to half halt to find the balance as well.
2. Ride the Apex of the turn
   • You shift your weight into your inside stirrup to help counteract the Centrifugal force that will be pulling you and your horse’s weight out of the turn. At the same time you want to bring your body forward because your horse is naturally going to slow through a tight turn, you want to use your body to encourage them forward so they come out of the turn on the pace you need so that you can read your distance.
3. Establish pace
   • Through the last part of the turn, you want to read your pace and adjust your balance accordingly. Come back to a neutral position with your body.
4. Read your distance
   • Now you’re out of your turn, you have your pace and you can effectively read your distance and adjust your horse’s stride accordingly.
5. 2nd Jump
   • Get into a forward balance (2-point, jumping position) as your horse is about to take off so your horse can come up to meet you. When you’re not meeting your horse’s forward/ upward momentum over the jump that’s when you get the feeling of being “left behind”.

The Ultimate Goal is for your horse to “carry themselves”

This concept is a little more elusive. The goal of all your training is to be able to get soft and “light” with your horse. You want them to hold themselves instead of getting downhill, falling in or out, speeding up, slowing down, etc. Training is making the correction and then releasing and being soft. Ultimately, your horse will fall out of what you’re wanting them to hold. Whether that’s a balanced medium canter or a shoulder-in, or a bend. You make the correction, ask them to hold, then you get soft. When they fall out again you repeat. You keep repeating until they understand they need to hold it themselves until you give them the next aid to do something different.

The softening part is SO important though. The release of pressure is the communication to your horse that they’re doing what you want, it’s telling them they’re doing a good job.

You’re Only as Effective as Your Tack

Now, this doesn’t mean you need the fanciest tack or equipment to be a good rider. However, you do need tack and equipment that works with each horse you’re riding. Testing and trying different bits, bridles, nosebands, and rein combinations can make a world of difference in how your horse goes.

You need to find tack, and especially bridle/bit combinations that your horse can feel relaxed in BUT are also effective. This is when having a pro to help you figure this out is so helpful. Pro’s usually have huge bit and bridle collections they can pull from to have you try and test out. They also have a good idea of what will work for how your horse goes.

The reality is you can’t just wack a loose ring snaffle on every horse and expect them to respect it and ride beautifully. That is almost never the case in my experience, so be open to experimentation to find what works best with your horse and what you’re working on in the ring with them.

Note: this is not advice for starting young horses, I advise always starting with soft and basic tack to begin their training.