Cherry Hill - Beginning Western Exercises

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Edited by Deborah Burns and Aimee Poirier

Cover design by Eugenie Delaney

Front cover photograph by Cherry Hill, back cover photograph by Richard Klimesh

Text design by Cindy McFarland

Production assistance by Susan Bernier

Line drawings designed by Cherry Hill and drawn by Peggy Judy

1998 by Cherry Hill

Ebook version 1.0

September 17, 2013

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Storey books are available for special premium and promotional uses and for customized editions. For further information, please call 1-800-793-9396.

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North Adams, MA 01247

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Arena exercises are a cross between gymnastics, meditation, and geometry. They are essential keys for discovering many important principles about training and riding.

Achieve rider balance

Find a steady rhythm

Establish energetic forward movement

Maintain left to right balance

Learn the gaits

Walk

Jog

Lope

Learn transitions

Walk to halt, halt to walk

Walk to jog, jog to walk

Jog to lope, lope to jog

Begin bending work

Riding a corner

Riding a large circle

Remember as you practice that it is the QUALITY of the work that is most important. It is a much greater accomplishment to do simple things well than it is to stumble through advanced maneuvers in poor form and with erratic rhythm. Keep your mind in the middle and a leg on each side.

Work regularly with a qualified instructor.

Ask a qualified person to stand on the ground, observe your exercises, and report to you what he or she sees.

Have someone record your exercises on videotape. Then watch the tape carefully using slow motion and freeze frame.

As you ride, watch yourself and your horse in large mirrors on the wall.

Without moving your head, glance down at your horses shoulders, neck, poll, and eye during different maneuvers to determine if he is correct up front.

Ultimately, the key is to develop a feel for when things are going right and when they are going wrong by utilizing all of the above feedback techniques. Answer the following by feeling, not looking:

Is there appropriate left to right balance on my seat bones? Can I feel them both?

Can I feel even contact on both reins?

Is the front to rear balance acceptable or is the horse heavy on the forehand, croup up, back hollow?

Is the rhythm regular or does the horse speed up, slow down, or break gait?

Is my horse relaxed or is his back tense?

Is he on the bit or above or behind it?

Is my horse loping on the correct lead?

Can I tell when his inside hind leg is about to land?

Review each component of an exercise.

You might need to return to some very basic exercises to establish forward movement, acceptance of contact, or response to sideways driving aids. Returning to simple circle work will often improve straightness and subsequently improve lateral work and collection.

Ride an exercise that the horse does very well, such as the walk-jog-walk transition. Work on purity and form.

Perform a simpler version of the exercise. If it is a lope exercise, try it at a walk or jog first.

Perform the exercise in the opposite direction. Sometimes, because of an inherent stiffness or crookedness in a horse, you will have difficulty with an exercise to the left but no problems to the right! Capitalize on this by refining your skills and the application of your aids in the good direction and then return to the hard direction with a renewed sense of what needs to be done. I often find that doing work to the right improves work to the left.

EXERCISE 1

Note: In each question, the desirable is mentioned first.

Is your breathing deep and regular, or are you holding your breath?

Is there equal weight on both seat bones, or is it difficult to feel one of them? Are your seat bones in the deepest part of the saddle, or are you braced against the cantle?

Are your hip bones directly over your seat bones, or are they behind your seat bones in the Cadillac position?

Is your lower back relaxed, or is it braced and tense?

Is your upper body above your hips, or is it leaning extremely forward or backward?

Is there a straight line from your shoulder through your hip to your heel, or are your legs way in front of your body? Are you slumped forward or are you leaning back?

Are your shoulders back, or are they rounded forward?