beginning work in-hand

We don’t want to drill the horse, so after working with Esta for a minute or two on flexions, we move on to work in-hand.  Here is an example of the type of in-hand work we’re doing with Esta (credit to Transformational Dressage on YouTube):

Some of the advantages of in-hand work are:

1.  the horse can be taught almost any movement on the ground without the weight of the rider,
2.  at ground level you can see exactly what is going on with the horse’s body,
3.  it requires total engagement of the horse’s mind, and it is very effective in getting a horse focused to work.

For a few reasons, we prefer this method of warm-up to lunging.

Next, Esta’s in-hand progress.