Free Riding Lesson Ideas

Learn about the following mounted and unmounted exercises to improve your students' seats:

Unmounted Exercises: seatbone awareness and a pilates exercise 

Mounted Exercises: riding without stirrups, jockey seat, heel turns, and standing in stirrups.           

A super fun game to practice steering where riders will reach for horse treats placed throughout the arena on jump standards, fence posts, etc at a walk or trot. 

This game can be played individually or in pairs/teams!    

Set up four poles as seen in the above diagram. If needed, spread the poles out to make a wider "L" for less advanced riders. 

Practice walking and trotting through the chute, without touching the poles...

To teach a rider how to properly ride a corner with their seat bones, without causing the horse to lean into the turn. Riders must learn how to balance on the back of the horse while turning and not lean into the turn...

Set up 5 cones in a straight line with as much space between them according to your riders' abilities and gaits ridden, per team if playing with teams. One at a time, have each rider...

Exercise One

Shorten stirrup length - like jockey style - to make students use their legs differently...

Everyone knows the western game barrel dash where you race around one barrel and ride back to the start/finish line so we have made the English riding version! Use ground poles or a jump...

Scatter several cones throughout the arena, off the wall. At a walk, riders circle around the cones. Focus on even circles with the cone being the midpoint of the circle and then...

1. Try pas de deux! A pas de deux is a performance using two horses. The horses perform dressage movements, usually mirroring each other and accompanied by music...