Rudy Horsemanship

09/21/2026

So, for those of you who prescribe to whorls being a predictor of personality… what do you make of this one!?!

09/17/2026

Dealing with the spooky 👻 corner!!
1.) warm-up within the Horses comfort zone.
2.) when you are ready, go ride circles that are mostly still in the Horses comfort zone but, that venture slightly into the scary zone!
3.) Really concentrate on tempo and bend!! These circles only work if you actually make nice circles.  if your horse sucks back, heading towards the spooky corner and then rushes the second they pass it, that is them practicing fear. The more even you can keep the tempo the quicker they will emotionally regulate.

4.) *If* your horse is a little on the lazy side and not so scared that they can’t relax at the halt, you could take your breaks standing in the scary zone. But if your horse doesn’t settle down, hates standing still, or if they are the type that they are actually more spooky in the walk than they are trot or canter, then this won’t work for them. With those horses you want to take your breaks in their comfort zone so they have a chance to emotionally recover.
5.) Sometimes I will set up obstacles that are mostly in the scary zone, because having something to concentrate on- going over poles, or weaving around a double slalom,  gives both Horse and Rider something to focus on. When the rider is focused on an obstacle or pattern, they exude higher levels of leadership, and Horses like having a clear direct path so they know exactly where they are expected to go. Plus, having real things to look at sometimes prevents them from searching for fake things to look at.

09/17/2026

Read more in the comments!

09/16/2026

You want to ride an accurate circle.
Your horse wants to go to the gate!
Your circle ends up, looking like the purple line with the horse silhouette 🫣 Your horse bulges towards the gate on the side of the circle closest to the gate, and he tries to cut across the other side! It’s like some gravitational pull that keeps pulling your circle into other shapes. 

Try this… ride the dotted blue line. When you get to the top right portion of this circle look across, and ride an almost straight (or maybe totally straight) line, cutting right across the portion of the circle where your horse would like to bulge out. Really stare down that point where all three of these “circles” intersect.
Then on the bottom part of this sketch, really bulge the circle out. Lift the inside rein (do NOT close it against the neck) step into your inside stirrup, so you can use your inside leg like a power leg, and use your outside rein to guide the horse onto an extra fat circle.
Don’t try to ride a perfect circle ⭕️. Instead, ride a figure that is “crooked” in the exact opposite way that your horse is trying to make it crooked.

You typically only need to ride this correction a couple times until your horse allows you to ride an actual round circle 

09/15/2026

This really does say something about modern dressage.

This before and after shows perfectly what my problem with the modern horse education is.
Today I watched some sample lessons by a young, successful dressage coach. The pair he coached was a young woman and her four years old horse.
The horse had already won (!) dressage tests this year and was supposed to start in a higher class coming spring. I leave that without comment for the moment.

At the start of the lesson, the horse moved as a four year old horse should move under the rider: open poll, nose forward. You could tell that the horse wasn’t balanced yet, but it was extremely well behaved and really tried its best. I thought, what a gem of a horse.
The coach worked on forward with the pair. The task was to give a driving aid with both legs and thus drive the horse to the hand. The first few times, this looked successful. But as the lesson went on, and the coach asked for the same thing again, and again, the horse got more and more tired and behind the vertical. The rider was instructed to have more contact on the outside rein and drive the horse with the inside leg to the outside rein.

As the horse got more and more tight in the neck, I really wanted to tell the coach about the anatomy of the cervical spine, the intervertebral foramen, that building the sling takes time and more than just sending a horse into a fast trot, that a four year old needs plenty of breaks and that it starts to get heavy on the hand because it’s tired. Then you shouldn’t drive more, but let it rest, and maybe call it a day. There was no work in walk, by the way, only trot and canter. Walk was only used three times for less than a minute to let the horse rest.

As the horse’s neck got shorter and shorter during the lesson, it became stiffer in the shoulder, and the front legs pushed further under the body. I had the impression the rider had to use more and more leg aid, although the coach talked about “impulse riding”. That’s not what I saw. I saw a horse pushing itself more and more on the forehand instead of getting lighter.

I don’t agree with the idea that it’s normal that the young horse is behind the vertical. To me, this means that the horse is not strong enough to carry the rider, in which case we need to go back to groundwork and longing, or keep riding sessions short on a long rein. Yes, of course horses come behind the vertical. But it shouldn’t be for long and it shouldn’t be accepted as a feature of a young horse. And you probably need to make your reins a lot longer.

I noticed the horse’s crookedness and lack of balance. It tight roped behind and went wide in front. There was no correct power transmission from behind to front (twisting hocks and fetlocks), and this is the reason why, in my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to send a crooked young horse forward in the hope it will straighten itself out.

Why not do side movements with the young horse in walk and build coordination, strength and balance that way?

Or even better, do most of the work on the ground at that age still, and have only an occasional short ride?

We know so much nowadays about equine anatomy. Why not finally take that into account and change the modern education system?
I really don’t get it.

Nobody wants to start buying arthritis supplements when the horse is 8. So why do we train in a way that almost makes sure of that?
To me, the horse looked very narrow in the rib cage still, as if it hadn’t stopped growing (which it quite certainly hadn’t). Otherwise it was a fantastic horse with good gaits, and probably wasn’t cheap!

Why not wait a little and spend some time doing groundwork, longe work, work in hand, liberty, and focus on riding sessions like these a bit later? And then work on building self-carriage, instead of rushing the horse into your rein?

Because, with all due respect, if this is your before and after, something is not ok!

P.S.: These are AI drawings from screenshots I took. I didn’t look for the best and the worst moment, I just stopped the video randomly in the beginning and in the towards the end. I used AI because I wanted to anonymize the human and horse, but keep the exact posture. I can't draw that well.

P.P.S.: I just wanted to mention that the rider seemed like a very nice, talented young woman who probably only wants the best for her horse. I feel like I would love to send her some classical dressage books so she can make informed choices!

09/15/2026

Fall equinox in Pennsylvania is September 22 at 8:43 AM- about a week away.
And don’t get me wrong, fall is beautiful in Pennsylvania!  But every time I am reminded that summer is soon ending,  I can’t help but think about the harsh realities of winter.

This year I choose to lavish affection for autumn!! Fall is great riding weather here, and dammit, the planet declares fall from September 22 to December 21, and I’m not allowing the calendar or human traditions to steal a single day of it.
I know people will be putting up Christmas decorations the moment Thanksgiving is over, and I will comment on how lovely their fall decorations are!!
But truly, autumn adorns herself!!! Typical autumn decorations are just us rearranging the pumpkins and corn stalks, and colorful leaves that she gives us.
Is January and February that need decorated and for some reason we fall short. (I still vote we move Christmas to February so that we can enjoy twinkly lights and online shopping in the months we need it the most! )

Anyways, this whole post is to remind you to be very intentional with your time and thoughts this autumn.
So often, people get busy with holidays and family stuff, and they miss some of the best outdoor days of the year!!! If you’re not a horse person, have as many campfires and go on as many hikes and take as many road trips as you possibly can!!! And if you are a horse person in an area that also experiences brutal winters, please remember that in the dark cold of late January, you will be wishing that you spent more time riding when you could!

Is your horse extra fresh this time of year? Go ride for three hours! Spend that energy. Set up a jump and send him over a bunch of times. If your horse isn’t used to jumping, that will probably wear him out physically pretty quickly, and then you can go ride. Or honor Halloween early and pull out tarps and flags and balls and anything else your horse finds spooky 👻.  That way by the time November rolls around your horse will be used to the goblins and ghouls and he won’t be wasting any more ride time than necessary. Horses get silly in this approaching season. Don’t act surprised, instead be prepared. 

We also get super busy in these upcoming months, so be intentional with your time now.
And enjoy these blues and greens while they last!!! 

09/15/2026

Lessons tonight were lit! 🤣🍁🍃💨🔥🎃🤣
I don’t know about groundhog’s predicting the weather, but the horses have told us that autumnal equinox is right around the corner!
(BTW, we were knowingly working on things that brought out this behavior in both horses. If I would have been working with riders who can’t handle a little spice 🌶️, we would have worked on very different things and kept it way more chill. )

09/11/2026

When you know the reasons for the rules, you know when to break the rules!
Lise is doing such an amazing job starting her young horse, Journey. But they ran into a not common problem….

So the rule is, to stop, we ALWAYS use our seat first, before we ever use our hands.
But this wasn’t working because it meant Lise never actually got to use her hands!!!

Journey is so well educated on the ground, and so feely, and so in tune with Lisé, that Lisé never actually got to use her hand!
We always said Lise could do the first ride, but I would do the first couple canters. No offense, but before I canter a horse for the first time, I want to make sure they know how to stop off of hand!!!! lol.
So I had Lise start to drive journey into her hand, and close her hand first, and then use her seat, to do a bunch of downward transitions.
This is so backwards.
If you asked me without this context, I would absolutely say no way- it’s always seat first and then Hand!!!
But leave it to Horses to teach us to never say never!!

Journey was initially offended- OFFENDED!
But this made it clear that we were correct and she really did need introduced to the ideal of a fixed hand. Of course she’s a smart little girl and picked it up very quickly.

She also picked up the canter quickly and I actually think Lisé could have asked for it today, but the arena was kind of busy. But they did do some big trot in preparation and it looked fantastic!!

09/11/2026

Just when you think you’ve given yourself plenty of time…