How Teach a Horse to do a Side Pass

Video Transcript

"I'm Kelly on behalf of Expert Village. I'm going to show you some tips and techniques I use to exercise my horse during calisthenics. So another really great calisthenic you can use during your training regimen is the side pass this gets your horse moving laterally so it gets your horse to soften and lift its leg and cross one over the other. So what you will want to do, and this is a great way to teach your horse to side pass. We are going to kind of cock her head a little bit in the opposite direction of where we are wanting to go. So if we are wanting to move to the right I'm going to turn her head just a little bit to the left and I'm going to use my leg in her midsection to push her over that way. So I want to make sure I don't move my leg too far back because that's going to teach her that I want to move her hip that's all going back to putting the buttons on your horse and incorporating different spots where you place your leg into moving different parts of your horse. So you want to make sure you're keeping your leg in her midsection not to far forward and not to far back. So again if we want to go to the left we are going to the same thing we're just going to pull her head slightly to the right and use our leg at her midsection. This is a really great way to get your horse to soften get your horse to lift it's shoulders to engage its hind end and move laterally which will really enable your horse to be more responsive and a lot softer and a lot easier for you to work with. Another thing you want to make sure of is that your horses front and hind end are moving simultaneously and your horse is standing straight you don't want your horses front end to moving and your horses hind end to be standing here because that is going to kind of defeat the purpose of the side pass. So you want to make sure that your horse front and back end are moving simultaneously. And your horse is staying straight and it's crossing over. So that's one technique to use when you're side passing."