Written by Wendy Murdoch The time has come in this ongoing series of articles on lateral work to talk about the rider’s aids. In the last two articles I discussed the importance of riding accurate circles to improve your horse’s suppleness and begin lateral bending. I have intentionally given you exercises that did not require […]
Written by Wendy Murdoch This article originally appeared in Eclectic Horseman Issue No.28 “We cannot monitor the horse’s understanding of our communications, we cannot evaluate his physical progress in balance and suppleness or engagement and collection without moving on precisely defined patterns…. Of all the patterns available, none is more important than the circle when riding on […]
This article originally appeared in Eclectic Horseman Issue No.27 Written by Wendy Murdoch Many riders struggle to apply their weight aids correctly. While your dressage instructor may clearly tell you where to have your weight for a variety of movements including canter departs, shoulder-in, haunches-in and half-pass, your attempts may not yield the results that […]
Written by Wendy Murdoch Previously I have discussed a simplified model of looking at the rider’s and the horse’s skeleton using the analogy of a bowling ball (the head), a flexible straw (the spine), a bowl (the pelvis) and one or two pairs of stilts (human or horse, respectively). In Eclectic Horseman Issue No.14 I […]
Written by Wendy Murdoch This article originally appeared in Eclectic Horseman Issues No.1 and No.2 When a great horseman passes away, his insight and his personal style are forever lost to us. But if he leaves behind a protégé, we are left with a window into the past that can guide us into the […]