We’ve been discussing tips (and in the next part of this series) for teaching your horse three in-hand maneuvers that are extremely important for the horse’s future from beginning work under saddle to advanced training. They are the forehand turn, turn on the haunches, and yielding.

I want to explain the importance of the turning aids and give you some exercises to practice to more effectively use them. This information may be a revelation. It will help improve your transitions and may change your riding forever!

It is back to the circle pattern we used in the last article about  “Falling Out” to learn how to identify, anticipate, and correct the second of two common problems that can occur when turning — when I explained how to properly use the bending and turning aids to correct the problem know as falling out.

I’m going to give you an exercise to practice that uses both the turning and bending aids.  The pattern for this exercise is what I call a “training figure 8.” It is important to understand the difference between this training pattern, as opposed to what could be called a “show ring” or “competition figure 8” pattern.

The goal for both the bending and turning aids is to control the horse’s body position and his balance. We will use a circle pattern to demonstrate how to correct one of two common problems that occur when trying to keep a horse straight through a turn. This week we will cover the problem called falling out.