I’m having a quiet day off after yesterday’s nosebleed so thought it would be a good day to let my human talk about the effect Will Faerber from art2ride (also written as arttoride on YT) has had on my schooling and her riding.

If you have read the posts from last spring you will know that Dolly arrived with some serious issues; in spite of a mix of accidents and other setbacks we were making steady progress but it all went wrong  (see  wp.me/p4wbRD-3Q .)

Already a fan of  Sylvia Loch, whose books and videos  continue to be a source of inspiration,  since buying Dolly I had also been learning a new approach to handling on the ground using methods advocated by Pat Parelli.  I was already well aware of the advantages of schooling “long and low” but when I “discovered” Will Faerber and the art2ride website last July  something about his way of explaining and demonstrating his methods, combined with the footage of lots of horse owners achieving excellent results working by themselves, boosted my confidence at exactly the right moment.

In September, with the arena finished and Dolly feeling much better after her total break and slow re-introduction to ridden work,  I was determined to finally get her going forwards.  Watching Will’s wife Karen trotting round on huge horses with their noses nearly on the floor, horses whose necks and backs had been in a worse state than Dolly’s, I realized that I needed to put on my brave pants, kick on and feed out the reins even more than I had been doing.  I admit that at my age and fitness level this was not easy to do at first on a mare who  panicked and reared  and  eventually  tanked off round the farm with me a few months earlier.  It took a while to get more than a few steps of walk at a time in a good stretch but the more relaxed and experienced I became about riding her in that position the more she settled into it.  Trotting at full stretch was much harder to achieve but,  when it’s going well, I can bring her poll up to the height shown in the photo without losing the rhythm or causing over-flexion or a hollow back.  I don’t believe that any one person gets it right 100% of the time but Will’s wonderful attitude  and the art2ride videos convinced me that if I persevered then the Dolly I know is hiding in there somewhere would start to emerge;  and she has!

highest dolly can bring up her head while staying round and keeping the same rhythm and tempo