If you want to use your horse's natural ability to the full, and you want to learn to put him on the bit, and to use the quality of the horse's natural pace, you have to develop a feeling for rhythm.

One of the first things I like to teach is counting the rhythm, the hind legs coming off the ground at the walk and the trot, counting as left right or right left, so that if you're on the left rein you start counting on the left first and if you're on the right rein start counting on the right.

This is an excellent way to start to feel rhythm. It is very simple. Once a child is old enough to know his left hand from his right, and starts riding a horse, he can learn to count this rhythm quite simply and he tends to learn it faster than an adult.

Once you've learned to count a rhythm, you can start to think about transferring counting the rhythm of the hind legs coming off the ground, into feeling the rhythm with the reins, feeling left right with the leg. The rein aid is just a feel, squeezing your finger in the rhythm as you need, and the same with the application of the leg aid.

It's not one leg on, one leg off, it's both legs on your horse's side and feeling that rhythm basically by sitting tall and flexing your weight down through your heels, so what the horse feels is just the tensing of the calf muscle in rhythm, with both legs constantly on your horse's side.

Eventually, you get to the stage where you can not only count the rhythm, and feel it, but also transfer it through your reins and through your seat and leg aids so you start to be part of the horse. It is not only physical but begins to become a mental thing too. Without being very complicated you can start to achieve a good feel for the rhythm of the walk and trot.

HALF TURNS AROUND THE FOREHAND
Once you have reached this stage and are putting the horse on the aids more you may think of trying turns around the forehand.

I have modified my teaching of this over the years. I used to teach the hindquarters moving to the inside if you're on the circle, which I still think is the end result of a correct turn around the forehand, but it is more difficult to achieve. The process I teach now is to do the half turn around the forehand, hindquarters moving to the outside of the circle. The main reason against making the turn with the hindquarters moving to the outside, is that this is the only exercise where the rider's inside leg needs to come behind the girth. I've found doing a turn to the outside of the circle makes it easier for the horse to be mobile with his front legs. In this type of turn around the front end, I'm asking the horse to keep moving and not ground his front legs.

Counting the rhythm really helps these exercises to work more correctly. It is important that when the rider is on the right rein and is counting right left, the first step of the hindquarters to the outside should be when the count is right, as the hind leg is coming off the ground, and can step to the outside, and vice versa when going on the left rein.

These exercises are much better done from a walk initially. Doing the half turn around the forehand is a good place to start to develop a feel for rhythm: the rider's inside leg has gone behind the girth and moves the horse's hindquarters to the outside. The outside rein then asks the horse to wait, and becomes a diagonal half halt, the outside rein is lightly half halting the horse.

The rider's inside leg says, 'go there', the outside hand says, 'stay here' . You then describe a small half circle with the horse's hindquarters, until you've done a one hundred and eighty degree turn and are walking the other way. The circle should be no more than four or five metres in diameter, you need to restrict it to that, and you work to the stage where the front legs are nearly walking on the spot.

You can do a ninety degrees turn at the start to make it a little easier. You get your horse to step perhaps three or four steps to the outside of the circle, halt, facing the centre of the circle, and then just walk on, change your rein and go the other way. It makes it a little easier for the horse if you make a ninety degree turn for the first few times. As long as you keep the hindquarters moving away from your leg, just restrict the horse slightly with your outside rein, stop him walking out of the movement.

It doesn't matter how long it takes you to get around, the main thing is that the horse keeps moving away from your leg. If you let the circle get to ten metres, you're not being positive enough with your outside rein. Once it's working fairly well at ninety degrees then you can continue on and make it a one hundred and eighty degree turn, then continue on the circle on the other rein.

This exercise is emphasising the control of the hindquarters of the horse with the seat and legs, getting the horse more responsive to your legs and controlling the back end of the horse more with your seat and legs.

LEG YIELDING
I like to leg yield off a circle initially because you have your horse just bent on the line of the circle. This is where counting the rhythm helps this exercise to work more correctly. If you're on the left rein on the circle and have a coordinated leg aid, you're asking your horse, as he brings his inside hind leg off the ground, to step to the outside, and into the weight of the outside rein.

It's much easier for the horse, and much better to maintain the rhythm and balance, if you have developed this quality of feel for the horse and the rhythm of the walk.

Again you are using a diagonal half halt. However, this time the rider's inside leg stays on the girth, you don't need to change the leg aid, you ride your horse from the inside leg, into contact in the outside rein and get him to step two or three strides off the circle and then put a little more outside leg on and walk forward on the line of the circle.

Do this exercise on both reins at the walk. Leg yield on the circle can be done at the trot, and at the canter.

DEVELOPING TURNS AROUND THE FOREHAND
Half turns around the forehand, moving the hindquarters to the outside of the circle at a walk, at a trot and at a canter, are excellent exercises for relaxing neck and shoulder muscles. When you start the exercise at the trot, you can go back to quarter turns again, as we did in walk. But by the time I start the exercise in canter, I usually have the horse established enough to go straight to a half turn, have them positive enough and not compensate too much because by that stage the horse has to accept the half halt on the outside rein. You're aiming for that feeling that the horse is almost trotting or cantering on the spot, and just keeping moving away from your leg.

If you are positive about the movement at the walk, and the horse is respecting the outside hand, when you ask for your quarter turn at the trot, you can ask for a smaller circle, even at the trot. The rider has to be positive with the half halt on the outside rein.

If the horse stops moving away from your inside leg, you get after him! If he drops out of the trot, you compensate with your outside rein. The main thing is that the horse keeps moving away from the inside leg, whether it's a quarter turn, or a half turn, so ride out of the turn before you lose impulsion. Give him a flick with the whip behind the leg and go forward. That's what the whip is there for, so you try to get in before the horse drops off, keep that impulsion, keep the respect for the leg.

This is the point of counting the rhythm, it works, it teaches you to feel the left right of the horse's movement, and you feel the support of your inside leg, and your outside leg.

For this exercise to work correctly at the canter you must have control of the back end of your horse when you come out of the half turn around the forehand and you change your rein with a flying change.

It's much easier on the horse because, going back to the first part of the exercise where your inside leg goes behind the girth to do a half turn on the forehand, doing this exercise at the canter you've set the horse up for his new lead and the leg aid doesn't need to change.You canter a half turn on the forehand and at the finish of the change the new inside leg asks the horse to go forward as you change the bend.

This is a reasonably simple exercise for your horse to give you a flying change. For this to work well, the rider needs fairly good control over the back end of the horse with the seat and legs and not too much in the reins. The horse then, naturally balanced, comes out and gives you a flying change. These exercises are excellent for jumping horses. They get the horses lighter in your hands and much more responsive. The rider has to have control of the hindquarters with the seat and leg to make the exercises work correctly, so that the horse will come through with a flying change and not be disunited.

An exercise to follow this is turning on the haunches or crossing front legs over, the beginning exercise for a half pirouette. Here you lead your horse around by opening the inside rein, supporting with the outside leg and crossing your horse's front legs over, walking a small half circle initially to the right or left until you can put the horse more on the aids.

As you collect a little more and have more contact, the exercise begins to produce a half pirouette. You ride half circles trying to keep the inside hind leg walking, cross the front legs over and describe a small half circle around the inside hind with the front legs.

Again, these are training exercises which emphasise control of the back end and shoulder areas of the horse with the seat and legs, being able to maintain the bend you want and control the pace and length of the strides with the reins.

During this period of training and 'feeling' exercises I would be starting half turns around the forehand with the hindquarters to the inside of the circle at the walk, trot and canter, and walk and canter half pirouettes and beginning half pass.