A Solid, Correct, Classical Work-in-Hand Foundation for you and your horse.

This special introductory course includes everything you need to know to be able to begin work in hand with your horse. You will learn how to hold the reins, how to hold the whip, and how to walk and carry yourself. You will learn the different kinds of work in hand, different traditions, and how to introduce it to your horse to help with your training. Then you will learn 9 exercises you can use to develop a solid and correct foundation in the work-in-hand.

“Work in hand creates a closer bond between human and horse, as they work quite literally “side by side”, and the human has to expend at least as much energy as the horse.”

How much fun you will have with your horse!!! 

IMPROVES YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR HORSE

This work creates a strong bond and relationship of trust and respect with your horse. We have successfully used this work to connect with horses who were shut off, shut down, and tuned out. It helps you to define the "language" of the work and nature of the relationship.

USE IT TO TEACH MOVEMENTS TO YOUR HORSE

Because you don't have the weight of the rider, and you are on the ground so you can more easily guide and influence the horse slowly, it is perfect for introducing and teaching movements to the horse such as shoulder-in, half-pass, turn on the forehand in motion, full pass, turn on the haunches, piaffe, and passage. You can also use it to troubleshoot problems.

IMPROVES BALANCE, SUPPLENESS, COORDINATION, AND BODY AWARENESS FOR THE HORSE

Without the weight of the rider on the horse, you can guide the horse into exercises which improve the balance (so the horse learns to more easily and readily shift the weight to the hindquarters), suppleness (so the horse releases blockages and resistance throughout his body), coordination (because you can go slowly, the horse learns to coordinate his body better), and body awareness (so the horse learns he has FOUR legs and he can use all of them!).

You’ll learn how to:

CREATE PARTNERSHIP...

You'll learn how to create an enjoyable partnership with the work in hand (without the mistakes that often frustrate both horse and rider in the early stages).

SIMPLIFY THE PROCESS

You'll learn how to simplify the process of introducing this work to your horse and getting started with exercises which build a solid foundation (so you can later progress easily and simply to the more advanced work).

INCREASE YOUR CONFIDENCE

You'll learn how to increase your understanding, coordination, and confidence with the work-in-hand (perfect for riders who have no, or little, prior experience with the work-in-hand).

ADD MORE OPTIONS TO YOUR WORK

You'll increase your repertoire of creative foundational exercises (perfect for riders who love and devour everything “work in hand” and feel like they can’t get enough of learning about it).

ENHANCE YOUR TRAINING

You'll enhance your training with work that helps improve coordination, body awareness, balance, and suppleness (so you can stop trying to do it all the hard way).

TRAIN YOUR HORSE WITHOUT RIDING

You'll learn how to strengthen and develop your horse even when you are unable to ride or your horse is unable to be ridden (so that minimal time is lost in the training due to injury, bad weather, etc.)