09/01/2026
Relaxation + energy = the holy grail with horses.
At a clinic a few years ago in the UK I helped Sarah Watson with her chronically rushy mare. She rushes so much at the trot that Sarah doesn't usually canter her.
Sarah came to the clinic with perfect "bending for relaxation". The exercise involves bending so that the horse has a hard time holding their breath and holding onto tension, and find it easier to bend their ribs, step under behind and breath deeply, having a full emotional release. We took that exercise and used it to help solve the rushy trot, and then by day 2 we got a nice forward canter where the mare stretched over her topline and was cantering around with a nice rhythm.
They can only do this if they are loose in the back, and while there are many riding techniques to get a horse to do this, I don't know any of them. I don't ride a certain way to get a horse loose in the back, I do certain exercises with them to encourage it. But I'm not trying to get them loose in the back, I'm working on relaxation. Once you get that, everything else comes easily.
Take a look at this screenshot of Sarah cantering and look how far the horse's hind foot is reaching up underneath her, it's actually all the way up under the saddle horn. This is with a horse who is rarely cantered under saddle, so it's not from previous training.
āOnly those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.ā
~Friedrich Von Schiller.
Congrats Sarah on perfecting the small things, that makes all the difference come clinic time and makes my job easy.
I reposted this today and Sarah replied and said āJust the biggest turning point for us this clinic. And now, we go out on trail rides and gallop down tracks and then walk and trot with zero anxiety afterwards. The canter is no longer a gremlin for us.ā
