Hello and welcome to episode Nineteen and Twenty of The Equine System podcast. The Equine system is all about training horses and being the best leader that we can be for our horse.

This episode focuses on teaching our horse to be light and responsive to our rib aids. It is important to start with lateral side steps and make sure our horse is confident moving sideways. It is the side steps which encourages our horse to bring their hind legs forward "through" and under their belly.

Once we have soft lateral movement, we are then able to lift the rib and back of our horse into a soft frame, our horse will become more balanced and will find it much easier to seek our contact and begin work in self-carriage.

REMEMBER Bending - Flexes the head and neck

Open rein - Creates space for the shoulder

Closed rein- Closes the door on the shoulder and allows the front legs to move out away from us.

This lesson will help us improve the balance of our horse, building confidence in every movement to come.

There are a couple of things that you need to know before we start. We want to be the leader of our horse, not because we want to be the boss or because our ego is inflated when we're in charge. I like to be the leader of my horse, because I like to make decisions that keep us both safe and.... if I can be the leader of my horse, we can achieve impossible things together.

Each session of season two will start with a safe horse, a motivator and yourself, in a safe environment. Horses are unpredictable animals; it is important that if you are learning these exercises, you do so on an educated safe horse which is appropriate for your ability and skill level.

Today I'm in an arena, I've got some walls. It doesn't matter if you haven't got a fancy arena, but if you're working up against barbed wire or your horse is afraid of the tools that you're using, probably you should have a look at the equine system on YouTube and see how we got a wild Brumby stallion to the level that we're going to be working with today.

For more help, more training tools or to connect with us check out, www.equinedevelopment.com.au

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