In the video I show you a part of the process of taking a green horse and getting them working into self carriage.

Part of the process is what we call "over the back". What this means is the transition from the horse pulling with its chest and shoulders for forwardness to drive from behind, engaging its topline muscle and working with relaxation and swing to travel into contact and in a frame. We do this without see sawing on the horses mouth, holding, forcing or jamming our horses head into a frame or using tools to do the same.

Being able to "work over the back" is the end result of the musculoskeletal development that it takes the horse to go from pulling with their chest and shoulders and balancing with their underneck for forwardness to working with engagement, throughness, swing and relaxation.

This is a difficult journey.

It's one that often has pieces of the puzzle missing in the riders bid to be winning the dressage competitions, ribbons and trophies.

It also has to do with the fact that a lot of us learn to ride on educated horses that already know how to do this and so when you get a green horse you don't know the steps to getting every piece of the puzzle to come together.

It is why a lot of people get to novice and then can't progress to elementary because they get stuck trying to develop collection. If you have taught your horse to come into a frame by asking for submission to the bit, then when you get to the point where you're ready to ask for collection, there's nothing to collect because all your horse does is give you more submission to the bit.

The bit cue HAS to communicate

"sit more into your haunches, push up through the base of the whither and extend through the shoulder"

and as a result the horse comes into a frame.

The resistance that you get in getting to this point is not resistance to the aids but the horses bodies resistance to the movement. They physically cannot do it! So they cheat and tuck their nose behind the bit.

It's why our training plan has to be so thorough to develop the complementary strength and suppleness to actively lift into us and hold us.

If you want the exact process for this, the exact aids and then the lesson plans that bring the exercises and the aids together so that your horse can travel freely within self carriage plus online coaching from me check out the Self Carriage Program.