A guide to using ground poles for a variety of possible training situations, including school movements and figures.

Get your horse in shape and maintain his overall fitness, regardless of his age or abilities. Equine Fitness will have your horse looking and feeling his best with a series of fun exercise routines specifically designed to enhance his strength, stamina, and agility. Clear step-by-step instructions and detailed illustrations make the exercises easy to follow, and the book includes a handy set of pocket-sized cards that you can use in the ring. Jec Ballou’s simple conditioning program promises lasting results for healthy horses and satisfied riders.

A highly illustrated guide to simple yet effective methods for keeping horses sound, healthy, and performing their best. Over time, horses (like people) acquire postural habits, compensate for soreness and injury, and develop poor movement patterns. This limits performance ability, causes unsoundness and health issues, and ultimately undermines the horse's overall well–being. Jec Aristotle Ballou has made a name for herself advocating for the horse and providing sensible instruction in his schooling, conditioning, and care. Her bestselling books and popular clinics are designed to enable any horse person to correctly apply proven principles that bring measurable progress while avoiding boredom and confusion. In her latest collection of mounted and unmounted corrective exercises, Ballou demonstrates how we can actively work to improve the horse's posture and movement, whether he is: An active performance or pleasure mount. An aging or older horse that benefits from gentle exercise. A horse being rehabilitated following injury, illness, or lack of conditioning. Ballou's positive cross–training techniques are free of shortcuts, and her guidelines for analyzing the horse's posture and way of going help readers gain a new awareness of the equine body. Applicable for all disciplines and full of quality color photographs to explain the exercises, this is an integral collection that optimizes how the horse uses his body and helps ensure he stays sounder and healthier for more years of his life.

This series of Western Dressage exercises are designed to improve suppleness, balance in movement, and responsiveness. Each exercise has a specific goal in mind, and they are organized by different areas of focus: softness, looseness, rider development, engagement, adjustability, and ground work. With illustrated step-by-step instructions and full arena diagrams, you’ll quickly be on your way to mastering this exciting discipline.

A consistent exercise program for both horse and rider, like that detailed here, provides a solid foundation for building that trust. Demonstrated through color photographs, each exercise has a clear objective, such as improving rhythm, gaining strength, or adding explosiveness to the horse's jump.

This book discusses ground-pole training for all disciplines and shows how you can make the most of precious schooling time. It provides quick and easy pole layouts, using just a handful of poles. Different exercises are given for each pole layout, so there is no need to move the poles during a session. Exercises range from the simple to the more intricate, with the inclusion of more transitions, lateral work, raised poles/cavalletti, or riding in a different gait. Claire Lilley explains how these pole exercises can help you to ride with precision and improve your horse's way of going, adhering to the scales of training. You can also use the different layouts to check whether you are sitting straight, turning correctly, and riding transitions and lateral movements properly. She lists common rider faults for each exercise to help riders self-correct if schooling alone. As an experienced trainer herself, Claire knows that this book will prove an invaluable resource for riding instructors, providing a veritable cookbook of ideas for lesson plans. Poles are a great teaching tool, adding variety to every lesson and helping the teacher to explain lessons to the pupil. Teacher's tips are given for each exercise. Claire says: "Try the exercises for yourself and I'm sure you will be amazed at the improvements that can be made both in your riding technique and in your horse's way of going. You will never be bored with schooling again!"

Presents ground training exercises for every horse and handler, including catching, yielding, turning, sacking out, backing, long lining, doing obstacle work, and more.