Maria Eilberg: How to improve your horse’s walk
Using the pole exercise shown in the video, make sure you are nice and straight in your approach to the exercise and in the centre of the poles.
The exercise is boxed in by other poles so that the horse feels secure within where he is being asked to go.
You want your horse to get as close as possible to the first pole which will help encourage reach and balance within the rhythm you have established.
As your horse becomes more confident with the exercise you can add more poles at a slightly wider distance from one another to encourage more reach within the stride.
Practice this exercise both in medium walk and free walk so that your horse gets used to the variance within the pace and the balance required within the variance of pace.
About Maria Eilberg:
Maria was a member of youth European dressage teams from 1998‐2005, winning four medals, two pony European silver team medals and two young rider European bronze team medals. She was British under‐21 champion in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003. In 2006, she was selected as travelling reserve for the World Equestrian Games in Aachen. In 2008, Maria was the travelling reserve for the Olympics with Two Sox. She retained her British grand prix freestyle title and became national champion.
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Strong results in 2009 led to her selection for the silver medal-winning British team at the Alltech FEI Windsor European Dressage Championships. The Autumn of 2010 marked Maria’s first World Equestrian Games where she impressed by taking her place on the silver medal-winning team with 68.213% in the grand prix and later improving her performance to post 68.50% in the grand prix special.
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