B: Most horses catch on very quickly, but neck rope riding can be frustrating initially if the horse is accustomed to a bridle. Riders often experience pleasant surprises riding with the lariat. Among them: independent use of their seat, light and effective communication, and a different attitude or approach to work from their horse.
Obviously, you can be as creative as you wish as your aptitude with the lariat increases. For most therapeutic purposes, though, it is enough to practice turning and stop-start-stop transitions with the neck ring.
ROUTINES
to Resolve Common Challenges and Dysfunction
My mother once kept a skinny paperback dressage book on her shelf written by a European trainer with a long name. It was titled Free, Forward, and Straight. I recall looking at its crumbly cover and wondering how the author possibly felt the need to write an entire book about those three words. If I only knew! All these years later, having trained horses for most of them, I can appreciate just how challenging it is to create movement that is unrestricted, ground-covering, and symmetrical.
Always with corrective exercises, your goal is not to stylize movement specific to a discipline but rather to create a healthy and functional movement that is free of restriction, that optimizes the full range of joint motion, is balanced, and eliminates patterns that interrupt free-flowing and symmetrical use of the horse’s body. Your elusive aim is indeed “free, forward, and straight.”
Most horses lack optimized movement in one of the following ways. If one of these applies to your horse, prioritize the recommended exercise routines and timelines before returning to a general use of other exercises and information in this book. Obviously, a given horse might struggle with balance or optimized movement for reasons beyond these, but the vast majority struggle with one or more of these common postural challenges.
Resolving Crookedness/Side Dominance
Help horses that lean, drift, or bulge sideways in a particular direction when ridden, or horses that travel and bend their bodies measurably better on one side as opposed to the other and have a preference for a particular canter lead.
Exercise 3 x 2 minutes (p. 15)
Exercise 5 x 30 steps (p. 19)
Exercise 13 x 3 minutes (p. 43)
Exercise 16 x 1 repetition (p. 49)
Exercise 24 x 1-5 minutes (p. 64)
Exercise 35 x 3 minutes (p. 97)
Exercise 41 x 5 minutes (p. 107)
Exercise 46 x 2 repetitions each direction (p. 136)
Exercise 49 x 2 repetitions each direction (p. 142)
Exercise 51 x 30 seconds each direction (p. 146)
Creating Lightness of Movement and Contact with the Reins
Enable horses to carry more weight on their hindquarters and adopt softer contact with the reins with these exercises that will also produce more responsiveness to your aids, and help the horse move with lighter, quicker steps.
Exercise 1 x 2 minutes (p. 11)
Exercise 2 x 2 minutes (p. 13)
Exercise 6 x 4 repetitions (p. 21)
Exercise 12 x 2-5 minutes (p. 32)
Exercise 14 x 2 minutes (p. 45)
Exercise 32 until a release is observed (p. 84)
Exercise 34 x 5 minutes (p. 87)
Exercise 39 x 3 repetitions (p. 103)
Exercise 45 x 10 repetitions (p. 134)
Exercise 49 x 3 each direction (p. 142)
Fixing High-Headed Inverted Postures
Sometimes an emotional component plays a role in this postural challenge, but even so, these physical exercises will help. They release restriction from the muscle chains that have overdeveloped from an incorrectly high-headed posture and gain the horse’s confidence and comfort in new postures.
Exercise 5 x 30 steps (p. 19)
Exercise 8 x 10 steps (p. 25)
Exercise 15 x 2 minutes (p. 47)
Exercise 25 until release is observed (p. 72)
Exercise 27 x 2 repetitions (p. 76)
Exercise 33 until a release is observed (p. 85)
Exercise 39 x 3 minutes (p. 103)
Exercise 42 x 3 to 5 minutes (p. 109)
Exercise 47 x 10 repetitions (p. 138)
Exercise 55 x 1 minute (p. 154)
Improving Overall Balance
