One of the easiest ways to impress a dressage judge is by riding accurate corners. But it’s not just about scoring high marks; improving how you ride corners encourages the correct bend, suppleness, straightness and balance from the horse with the rider prioritising using their seat and leg, over their hands. This is the foundation for all lateral movements and more advanced work.
Here’s how to work on your discipline and accuracy round the bends with the help of a simple flatwork exercise.
Aims
to ride into the corners of the arena
achieving bend through the horse’s whole body, without drifting in or out
to encourage straightness and suppleness
improve your transitions
The setup
Setup: No setup required, but you do need an arena – whether permanent or marked out in a field – so that you have corners to ride into.
Rebalance for the corners by making a transition from trot to walk before turning.
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
How to ride the exercise
Once you’re warmed up, ride a 20m square in trot, turning across the school from E to B (or B to E, depending on the rein).
Two strides before each corner, ask your horse to walk. Imagine your horse’s whiskers touching edge of school so that you ride deep into the corner, then turn and trot out. The downward transition should help rebalance your horse.
As you approach each corner your horse should begin to naturally take their balance back on to the hindleg as they anticipate the downward transition. When you feel this, you can continue around the corner in trot without walking.
Build up to a consistent trot rhythm on the whole square, without changing tempo or cutting any corners, then repeat on the other rein.
If you feel the horse fall in or try to cut a corner, do the next one in walk.
Tips
1. Stop the drift
If your horse tries to cut the corner, half halt and check your inside leg is there to encourage them to bend their body around your leg through the corner.
2. Building up
Once your horse is becomes more consistent, instead of walking in the corners, just half-halt to rebalance the trot before the turn.
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3. Progress
As the balance of both horse and rider develops, you will be able to ride a consistent trot rhythm through the whole square without cutting any corners. If you lapse at any stage, go back to walk and establish correct corners again so the horse understands what you are asking him to do.
Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
