Have you ever tried riding a circle and it just doesn’t seem to be right, either egg shaped or even feels like a hexagonic mess? In this “Lessons 2 Learn By” episode I coach Laura how on how to achieve perfect circles by avoiding the pitfalls of magnets and drifting, giving her the tools to take home and practice.
When you warm up your horse you have to go at a certain pace in the round pen. When executing a 3 meter circle pay attention to the following:
- Keep your horse’s nose in and the hip out of the circle.
- Really focus on your horse cutting in and pushing against your inside leg.
- You have to counter the magnets (where they cut in and where they drift out) by thinking ahead and anticipating where you horse will cut in or drift out.
The only way you can make that perfect circle is by being aware of the two magnets that a horse has in a circle. Every horse has a magnet and the biggest magnet of all is the gate. You have to counter those magnets. It is so easy to do, Where the magnets are, all you do is slightly go outside of that magnet and you won’t feel the magnet at all, it will disappear. You gotta change your brain because it is actually your brain that’s causing it by not being careful enough about the magnets. If you don’t face the problem and let them cut in and drift out. If they are drifting out, cut in a little and if they are cutting in, drift out a little and the magnets will disappear and you will have a perfect circle.
By doing this you will get your horse broke; and the funny thing is, you won’t even know what you did to do it!
I don’t like things that are too complicated, I like to keep things simple, and horses like things pretty basic too.
The secret to riding is not what you know or how much you know, it’s about your mental mindset, If you think a certain way you can ride a horse without a lot of training. But if you don’t think a certain way, you have to train yourself.
Bill Cameron International Horsemanship 