Insights into Teaching Horses how to Carry a Rider & Use their Bodies
Dr Shelley Appleton Dr Shelley Appleton

Insights into Teaching Horses how to Carry a Rider & Use their Bodies

Dr. Shelley Appleton provides her insights into teaching horses to understand and get confident with how to carry a rider and position and move their bodies. She sees it as a process which does not always look “correct”, but respects that horses have to learn certain elements and avoids overwhelming them.

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Has your horse got contact issues?
Training Issues, Contact Issues Dr Shelley Appleton Training Issues, Contact Issues Dr Shelley Appleton

Has your horse got contact issues?

Poor training of the horse to understand and be confident with the bit results in horses with bad associations with the bit. The flow on effects of this negative association sees me rate it the number one root cause of behavioural and training issues that I resolve in dressage horses. My aim for this blog is to present four simple tests and observations you can make to assess the quality of your horse’s education, understanding and confidence with the bit, plus also to spread the idea that teaching the horse to understand the bit and allowing it to get confident with the bit is more important than contact or the horse working a “frame”. In fact contact and good posture are the end results of good training not things that are introduced too early because they can be detrimental and I believe that awareness of this issue can improve horse welfare, safety and performance.

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