Show jumper Andrew Welles explains how to use a figure-eight pattern to create a good base canter on the flat. His student comes forward through a turn, onto the diagonal and then collects so the horse coils like a spring and can rock back on his hind end. This is the same feeling a rider wants w...

Show jumper Andrew Welles is in the irons warming up a young horse, making sure he is straight and forward in front of his leg. Andrew uses transitions—at the trot and canter—to ask the horse to step underneath himself and engage his hind end. This helps establish a base canter that he will use w...

Show jumper Andrew Welles rides over a straight line of three ground poles, collecting and lengthening the horse’s stride. He demonstrates adjusting the stride by riding the line in five strides, four strides and combinations of the two to help develop impulsion and he returns to the base canter ...

Anne briefly talks riders through the importance of establishing and maintaining a leg to hand connection with the horse that does not come from the hand, but rather the seat and leg. Doing so creates a more consistent and true connection with the horse.

Show jumper Andrew Welles reviews how he sets courses at home to incorporate elements of competition courses so they become routine. In schooling courses, he includes straight and bending lines, a plank, vertical-to-oxer and oxer-to-vertical combinations, a rollback turn and a liverpool. Then he ...

Anne has riders turn their inside hand over so that they can't overuse the inside rein. With this rein position, they do lateral work, including shoulder-in. She also demonstrates how the horses can bend just from the leg and without any rein.

Horses do not like to be out of balance, and Ronny feels that the rider’s balance is extremely important to help the horse’s balance. He talks about how a rider should utilize their upper body, leg and hand to be in balance themselves, which helps the horse be in balance. He feels that the rider’...

In this session from Equitana USA 2021, Ronny works with a rider and a 25-year-old Arabian and a rider with a 6-year-old Irish Sport Horse. In the warmup, he likes the horse to move freely forward with a soft connection in the hand. Too often, he says, he sees people in the warmup ring go straigh...

When warming up a jumper horse, Ronny wants the hind end really moving and coming up underneath the horse. In addition, there needs to be a soft connection in front to allow the head, neck and shoulder to move freely and allow the hind end to step under.

Ronny considers the riding aids as the natural ones we have – the rider’s body (which should receive the biggest emphasis), the rider’s leg and the rider’s hand (which should receive the least emphasis). The rider’s body balance is the strongest aid on the horse.

Ronny states that confidence for the horse can come through the rider maintaining a steady rhythm. He shows an exercise with two triangles of ground poles, which help the rider see how straight and rhythmical the horse is in the approach. The focus is on a forward rhythm while keeping the horse s...

Ronny watches the horses extend and come back in the trot and canter with the emphasis on coming back in balance to be able to correctly execute a rollback. He would like to see more body influence than hand when bringing the horse back.

The horses should be able to freely move forward and back in the canter and bringing the horse back should mostly be done with the riders upper body. In a course if the rider collects the horse abruptly it could mess up the striding and distance to the next fence.

The riders put Ronny’s tips into action while riding turns and rollbacks. He wants the riders to step into the outside stirrup, open the inside rein and use the outside rein against the neck. This helps the horse do a tighter turn while keeping the same tempo.

Ronny has the riders jump a small crossrail. Once through the turn, he wants the riders to connect with both legs and both reins to ride straight to the fence. He reminds the riders that their legs will do more to create a straight horse. Their hands will not.

They do the same triangle pattern exercise in the canter Getting to the triangle poles straight and in a steady rhythm will help the horse get through the exercise in the correct spots Ronny reminds the rider not to drop the contact when she gets to the base of the poles so the horse doesnt chang...

They do the same exercise in canter to the left and then add cantering a crossrail Ronny stresses rhythm and straightness throughout the series in order to come to the jump in a balanced rhythm He advises that the horses need to be slightly more forward than the riders think

All horses need to work on rhythm and straightness Ronny has this group ride the triangle ground pole exercise to show how straight and rhythmic the horses are Its important to have established the forward rhythm before the first turn and not after the turn

Grand prix jumper rider Kama Godek coaches a rider warming up over a vertical and oxer on a large circle. The rider can spiral in slightly to adjust the distance, and using an opening rein over the fence encourages the horse to land on the correct lead. Kama, a 5* FEI jumper rider, holds a USHJA ...

Ronny offers tips for efficiently executing a rollback. There needs to be less hand involved in turning as it throws the horse off balance. He talks about how to give room for the hind leg to move under the horse through a turn while not blocking the forward motion. If the rider uses too much han...

Grand prix jumper rider Kama Godek shows a fundamental exercise of a four-stride line over cavalletti with a focus on straightness. She likes this exercise because all horses can do it since it doesn’t matter how long their stride is. You can use the bend to adjust stride length between poles. Ka...

Kama Godek, 5* FEI Grand Prix jumper rider, holds the USHJA Trainer Certification and German Trainers Certification. In this video, she explains how to introduce a bending line in the trot. The pace should be steady, and the horse’s body should be straight with a slight inside bend. This is an ex...

Kama Godek, 5* FEI Grand Prix jumper rider, holds the USHJA Trainer Certification and German Trainers Certification. She coaches the rider in the next step of riding the bending line, which is at canter. The quality of canter and straightness of the horse is more important than the number of stri...

Grand prix jumper rider Kama Godek coaches a rider through a more difficult version of the four-stride cavalletti exercise where the rider does four-stride lines with narrow boxes. This really requires the horse to be between the rider’s hand and leg, and by doing it on a circle, the exercise is ...