It’s getting to that wintery time of year, so it’s time to start building some snowmen (in the sand school!)
Today’s video is another look at my all time favourite dressage exercise, The Snowman, but this time, with DRONE footage!
OK in case you haven’t seen The Snowman before, or need a recap, here’s the original Snowman video that has lots of detail on the exercise!
To ride The Snowman, you ride a small circle in trot, then change direction into a much larger circle in canter.
It looks like a lopsided figure eight, or, A SNOWMAN! This is a great exercises to improve your canter transition, pick up the correct lead, and get your horse more supple!
Things to remember when riding The Snowman are…
- Try and keep your circles as round as possible.
- Move your horse off and around your inside leg to get the maximum bend.
- Make sure that you’re perpendicular to the center line when asking for the change for the change of direction.
The snowman is genuinely one of my favorite exercises.
It works on trot-canter transitions, suppleness and it’s a great exercise for horses of ALL levels!
The beauty of the snowman is that even if it’s messy at the start, your horse will figure out what that pattern is, and will anticipate the transition, which will improve the quality of the transition.
If your horse anticipates the trot, then ask him to keep cantering around the big circle and only allow him to come back to trot on your say so!
Take a look at this video of me doing The Snowman with Mercurio, it’s not always perfect but it ALWAYS improves! Let me know in the comments if you find the video helpful.
Thanks so much for watching!
