Premier's Riding School LLC

05/11/2026

Rue having fun today!!

05/10/2026

The leg-yield teaches the horse how to move sideways and provides a good foundation for more advanced lateral work.

05/10/2026

Shoulder-in is an exercise that is performed on three tracks to help improve your horse's engagement, suppleness, and straightness.

05/10/2026

You should never ride a downward transition by pulling back on the reins. Instead, you should ride them using your seat.

👉 Before the transition, your seat should passively follow your horse's movement.
👉 To ask for the transition, you stop your seat.
👉 Once your horse has transitioned, you allow your hips to follow your horse's movement once again.

You can give a rein aid by closing your fingers around the reins (not pulling back), but downward transitions should always be ridden more from the seat than from the reins.

Illustration created and copyrighted by HowToDressage

05/10/2026

When I was a boy the greatest complement someone on a horse could receive was being called a horseman, and at that time the term was inclusive of women. It was also a vailed insult to be called a rider in certain circumstances, meaning you were not a horseman. For example, in a hunt Field if someone could not control their horse and bumped into you, you might say to them, "You are quite a rider".

To become a horseman, you must learn the fundamentals of horsemanship. Many of these principles are very detailed. One fundamental of balance when riding is the 5 degree rule. A rider must not lean back in the saddle more that 5 degrees.

Why? Because any greater lean than 5 degrees will potentially unbalance your horse. This is because once you lean beyond 5 degrees, you will have moved your center of balance away from your horse's center of balance to the point that your horse will very often have to rebalance themself, which is a disruption to a horse that a horseman always avoids.

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid0ZveZskpLrRc9Ww9Vaa7dyGwjjQ5CcPDjMWG43nLomZSkx2CXZP3nmGM6uLJT6s9ul

The left image is of Étienne Beudant, a great French horseman and cavalryman. He is leaning back 5 degrees, which can subtly amplify a rider's seat aids. On the right is a modern dressage rider leaning back approximately 8 degrees.

You might say that leaning back 3 more degrees in insignificant. Many people today think so but that is because they are riders, not horsemen. Horsemanship is a state of mind that truly cares for a horse with great specificity in order to make a horse as comfortable as possible when they are doing their job for you.

There is no room in horsemanship for the phrase "close enough". Sure, horsemen fail to maintain this high standard at times, but when they do they try harder. I offer a spoken apology to my horse when I fail and I disrupt their work.

Horsemanship takes years to learn. We cannot expect it of students who are learning. But we can teach them the fundamental principles, including why these principles are important and how failing to apply them makes a horse's life more difficult.

The pictures show longitudinal or hind to front leaning. The same is true of lateral or side to side leaning, in fact leaning more than 5 degrees laterally on a slope with challenging footing can put your horse down on the ground.

I am writing this for all the supposed "caring" riders who will buy their horse a new blanket every winter, purchase the most expensive feed and supplements, and have people like body workers come for their horse all the time, who think that they are showing there horse how deeply they care. But if they really cared, the way a horseman does, they would improve their riding and stop unbalancing their horses, making their work increasingly difficult.

05/10/2026

Happy Mother's Day

05/10/2026

Travers on a circle improves the horse's suppleness, engagement, strength, and collection, along with preparing the horse for pirouettes.

05/09/2026

05/09/2026

PIROUETTES - KEY POINTS

👉 A pirouette is ridden on two tracks, and the radius should be equal to the length of your horse.

👉 During the turn, your horse should be bent in the direction of travel.

👉 Your horse's forefeet and outside hind leg move around your horse's inside hind leg, while his inside hind leg should lift and return to the same spot, or slightly in front of it (but never behind it).

👉 The hind legs should describe a small circle – around the size of a dinner plate in a high-scoring pirouette – with the hind feet lifting clear of the ground in every step, i.e. not losing activity or becoming ‘stuck’ to the ground.

👉 Your horse's hindquarters should lower and take more weight to free his shoulders.

👉 If in collected walk, the 4-beat rhythm must be maintained. If in collected canter, you should be able to recognize a canter stride, although the diagonal pair in the canter sequence does not land together.

👉 Your horse should be light in the contact, with his poll at the highest point and his nose coming just onto the vertical.

👉 Pirouettes should be ridden mainly from the rider's seat and leg aids, with the reins being used only as a directional cue.

👉 The whole movement should be smooth and fluid.

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Illustrations created and copyrighted by How To Dressage, and may not be reproduced in any form without prior permission.

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