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How to ride accurate circles for higher marks – with advice from self-confessed ‘circles geek’ Becky Moody


  • In this exclusive article for H&H subscribers, World Cup champion Becky Moody explains why good circles start with knowing your arena, your horse and yourself

    We ride more circles than anything else in dressage. So it’s a bit of a problem that many of us don’t fully understand how to ride a circle for optimum benefit, whether that’s in tests or during our dressage training.

    The 20m circle looks innocuous on a test sheet. Easy, even. You pick it up at the marker, swing round, and from the saddle it feels fine. Then the sheet comes back: “Loss of bend.” “Not round.” “Falling in.” “Falling out.” Sometimes the full set – or my most common comment: “Not 20m.”

    The 10m circle, meanwhile, is where a lot of riders first learn the hard way that a circle isn’t a steering exercise. It’s a test of balance, suppleness and awareness rolled into one.

    How to ride the perfect circle

    Becky Moody is, by her own admission, a geek about riding a circle.

    “When I was younger and even more of a geek, I used to have my little to-scale arenas that I would draw, and then I’d draw my tests so that I could really understand the distances,” she says. “I’m quite a visual person.”

    The work, in other words, starts long before you actually start turning. Here are Becky’s tips to help you ride the perfect circle – and they’re relevant to riders at all levels.

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