May 2007 • VOLUME 21 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

This series started entitled “I’m scared to lengthen my reins.” A reader from Italy who saw within the videotape of Manolo Mendez a release to the horse that she found intriguing and beautiful. Something that she craved for herself and her very spooky horse. And so began what we now would like to call “Susan’s Journey”. Because she no longer is afraid to lengthen her reins. She has begun an incredible journey where she allows all of us to participate and share in her problems and share in her successes. Hoping that by sharing, in some small way she can help other riders with many of the same problems that she has. Each step of her journey is an example to both student and instructor of possible solutions to everyday problems, each step documented in video and/or pictures, showing what works and what doesn't work, showing success and showing misunderstandings along the way.

And so the journey continues.

Nadja: The very first thing I noticed when I looked at this video is the corner of the arena. I see that grass is growing in the corner. What does that tell me?

It tells me that nobody goes into that corner. Everybody is cutting the corner short. The result is that the horses know they are going to cut the corner short and follow the path in the dirt.

Corners are really, really important. Every corner is another opportunity for you to balance up your horse. If you start looking at pictures you'll notice that horses can go through corners in two different ways, either they lean like a barrel horse going around a barrel, or you will see the horse upright through the corner. And if you watch yourself further into the video you will see your horse leaning through corners, and especially when he is trotting through those ‘quick turns,’ he is leaning into the turns.

When a horse leans he ends up on his front end with his back stiff and his chest rigid - he ends up looking very straight, which is what we often see in competition because he is not bending. The horse that leans is straight because he is not bending. Not what we want. What we do want for our horses is to stay upright and bend through the corners, not lean through the corners. To start with, begin by

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