Let’s be honest for a minute. A lot of horses are heavy on the forehand. Riding circles in the arena can look more like wobbly eggs. We all love our horses a LOT. But many riders are pretty sure their horse wasn’t 100% designed to be a dressage horse with fancy moves! 

Figuring out the correct cues for shoulder out & in can start a migraine for many people. Hang on Elaine, what exactly are these movements?!. 

We want to help our horses build the topline muscles they need to carry us as safely as possible in the saddle.

But we also want to do this all without using gadgets 😢 that you would never touch with a barge pole. 

And many horses are professional at ‘motorbike style’ corners & having little to zero natural bend in his body on circles of any size. It’s quite common for many horses that when you ask them to go sideways, they just go faster!  

But I have some good news for you.

Dressage does not need to be complicated.

Light & softness can be improved in every riding horse.

Here are 3 Simple Steps to Begin Lateral Work with Your Horse

• Start with groundwork exercises. You can see exactly what your horse is doing, its usually easy to break things down into smaller steps, plus once you have the movements working in hand, teaching them in the saddle is so much easier!
• Begin with shoulder out instead of shoulder in. One of the biggest issues that stops people being successful with shoulder in & out, is that the horse is leaning on our hands, and pushing forwards. So instead of getting that soft bend through their bodies, we are just getting a lot more forwards! Shoulder out along fence line helps that a LOT!. As the fence helps to naturally block that excess unwanted forwards movement.
• Be patient. Don’t expect this to be perfect in one session. If you went to the gym for the first time in 6 months, you’re not going to turn into a toned, pro athlete over night! And you won’t want to spend 3 hours in the gym on day 1 as you would be way too much for you! So just spend 5 to 10 minutes a few times a week working on these lateral dressage movements and you’ll be happily surprised at your progress over a few weeks.

Helping your horse to become more athletic & carry himself better, would be a great present that will last your horse’s lifetime – and you’ll appreciate the difference every day you ride.

I’ve helped over 1,000+ horse riders to develop lightness, softness & collection – without using fear and gadgets or needing biceps of steel or arms like a gladiator! (seriously)

And this includes:

1. Shifting weight off the forequarters to the hindquarters
2. Waving goodbye to motorbike corners.
3. Saying ‘see ya later’ to egg inspired circles… 

I can show you how to do two simple lateral dressage exercises called shoulder in & shoulder out. They are perfect for you – even if the word ‘dressage’ gives you anxiety or your horse has NEVER done ANY lateral work before!

I break these down into super simple steps any horse & rider can understand & accomplish right here. 

These are dressage movements that are suitable for (and should be done by) all breeds of riding horses.

This includes quarter horses, thoroughbreds, arabs, paints, cobs who have never seen the inside of a dressage arena & horses who are on the forehand. It also includes appaloosas, Tennessee walkers, morgans, standardbreds, warmbloods…

And you can improve your horse’s lateral work, build top line, engagement, softness, bend, balance & lightness – in just 25 minutes a week. Learn more about shoulder in & out here.