Building balance and control
Five-star eventer Lydia Hannon shares some of her favourite exercises for developing your horse’s suppleness, rideability and balance
As told to Fizz Marshall. Photos: Jon Stroud
In this feature. . .
Maximise your warm-up time
New ways to use leg-yield Why half-halts matter
PART TWO: PAIRED EXERCISES
Whether I’m working with my own horses or teaching a client, one of my main focuses is suppleness. If your horse is stiff he’ll never move to his full potential, score the dressage marks he’s capable of or jump as well as he could if he was more flexible. Luckily, as with everything to do with horses, there are many ways to improve your horse’s suppleness. One really successful – and fun – way that I’ve found helps most horses when working on suppleness in the arena is to pair up exercises that complement each other.
Below are some pairs of exercises to work through, all of which can be made more or less technical depending on your horse’s level of experience and training. Whatever level you’re at, though, they’ll help you create the balanced, supple horse of your dreams.
Our expert
Lydia Hannon competed successfully as a junior, including third place at the Junior European Championships. As a senior, she’s completed Burghley, Luhmühlen and jumped a double clear at Badminton. Based in South Herefordshire, Lydia’s now focusing her attention on coaching, and producing young horses.