"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

-- Chinese Proverb

Tales From The West Galloping Bridle-less

"Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed."  -- Cavett Robert   

"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts." -- Arnold Bennett, Novelist

 I hope you are in good enough shape for your horse that you don't expect the saddle to hold you on instead of a toned body and good balance. It may not take much, but it does take some work. Check yourself by how you climb up on a fence. Easy or not? 

Many folks seem to confuse a horse's innate ability to canter with a balanced, soft canter.

These are not the same thing. Many who bring a horse to me for training tell me their horse canters just fine. I have them 'show' me on line and I just shake my head and say, "That sucks! That's not a canter, that's a mess." The horse is bolting off, half sideways, either counter-cantering or cross-cantering and braced every which way to Timbuktu with the head to the outside and the ribs bowed in to the center of the circle.

"If you don't know enough to fix problems in a horse that already exist, then you don't know enough to ensure you don't put problems in a horse."  

- Ross Jacobs.

I put this quote here because of course it's true. Many just kick their horse to go and have no idea what the legs are doing. However, I can't get into that here because learning what a proper canter is takes help. I'm going to discuss one way to help a horse if you already know how a canter should go.

There are a lot of horses out there falling in on the corners with their heads to the outside and slanted like a motorcycle around a turn. Because this is scary or at least uncomfortable for a rider, the rider tries to hold the horse up or pull the horse into a more balanced turn. The horse then lets them struggle with that.

• "It's the little things that make a big difference."