She does travel with her head to the outside most of the time even at home. I will work on using leg yielding and shoulder in at home as you have said and will work with her as much as I can on this problem as it is ongoing. The only time she seems to flex to the inside is when we are circling.

Again thank you very much I love your advice in threads so thank you very much for giving me advice on this particular subject. I will work on this and let you know how it goes

If she does it at home too, you need to first get her engaged and over her back. So millions of transitions (literally millions! I rarely spend more than a circle or diagonal line in the same gait, or at the same tempo, on a circle you want to be constantly asking for a little more, a little less, a little more. Then a little flexion left, a little flexion right, left right. Always testing her suppleness and self carriage. Teach her leg yield and shoulder in to start getting her used to the concept of working into the outside rein and being 'through'.

Throughness is a very hard concept to explain in person, let alone over the net so you really need to get a good, highly regarded dressage coach to help you out with it. I find in Australia, there are not many riders who have their horse genuinely through, they seem to just 'fake it' at competitions.

Hi Shauna,

Ok in dressage the inside rein is only there for a little bit of lateral flexion and should be used only when the horse is not bending from your inside leg and hip. I like to have my horses working so that I can move a hip slightly forward and the horse will flex lightly to that side.

Does your mare always travel with her head to the outside? Or was it only at the show? because it's common for horses that havent been out much to looking to the outside of the arena when they are learning the ropes.

To combat the problem if it is just at shows, bring your inside reins slightly up towards your belly button, ride with a very strong inside leg and position your inside hip slightly forward. The inside rein is not to be used as a constant pressure and should be no where near as strong as the outside rein. Just 'feel' it and that should be enough.

Hello Kayty,
In my thread about my first dressage test with my horse you said she had the wrong bend the whole way through the test. My problem is that I try to use my inside rein and my inside leg to encourage her to bend while supporting her with my leg to keep her out but it doesn't seem to work. When I use my inside hand she thinks I am asking to turn and then I use my inside leg to push her out and she seems to think that we must go faster is there anyway you could help me out here?

Thanks in advance,
Shauna