Brian Hadley Stables Academy

06/11/2026

06/03/2026

A lost stirrup is rarely just about the stirrup. It is almost always a symptom of something happening further up the leg such as a gripping knee, an unstable lower leg, a foot that has crept too far into the iron, or an ankle that is bracing rather than absorbing. Losing a stirrup is a symptom. The position fault that causes it is what needs to be addressed and it is almost never just about the heel. Here is what is actually going on and how to fix it...

1. The gripping knee pushes the lower leg back and up.
This is the most common cause of a lost stirrup and the most consistently misidentified one. When a rider pinches with the knee, the knee essentially acts as a fulcrum and thus the lower leg (the calf) tends to fly backward away from the horse's side. This is the mistake that some instructions make by telling the rider "heels down" when the real instruction should be release the knee. A gripping knee cannot produce a stable lower leg regardless of how much the rider tries to push their heel down. Fix the grip and the heel position almost always improves without another word about it.

2. The lower leg has no independent stability.
A lower leg that swings with every stride has not yet developed the muscle memory and strength to stay in one place independently. The leg likely moves because the rider does not yet have the neuromuscular control to hold it still while the rest of the body moves with the horse. This takes time and specific exercises to develop and heels down as a correction does not build it. You have to train the stability directly.

3. The stirrup is on the wrong part of the foot.
Stirrups belong on the ball of the foot which is the widest part just behind the toes. A rider who has pushed the foot too far into the stirrup is a position where the foot cannot maintain a correct heel down position because the ankle joint is blocked. Check foot position before you correct anything else. Sometimes the fix is that simple.

4. The tread angle does not match the rider's natural foot position.
Some riders naturally turn their toes out slightly. Some turn them in. A stirrup iron that forces the foot into an unnatural rotation creates tension in the ankle and lower leg that contributes directly to stirrup loss. Adjusting the expected foot angle slightly can make a significant difference for riders who consistently lose stirrups despite correct lower leg work. For western, I love using stirrup turners because they keep the stirrups in the correct riding position as opposed to you fighting the fenders. I am not sure of the name for the english stirrup ones, but MDC makes them where the stirrups are on a swivel and can be changed to three different positions. I personally love to use these for myself and my students because it beats "fighting" your tack.

Here are some exercises that actually build the stability to keep the stirrups...

- No stirrup work at the walk:
Start with regular walk work without stirrups and doing exercises such as transitions, direction changes, halt to walk, all help to develop the independent leg position. A rider who can walk without stirrups in a correct stable position is developing the muscle memory that transfers directly into stirrup work at faster gaits.

- Single stirrup work:
Drop just one stirrup. This isolates each side independently and reveals asymmetries in lower leg stability that riding with both stirrups masks. The side that loses the stirrup most often is almost always the weaker or tighter side. Work it specifically rather than drilling both sides equally and hoping the weaker one catches up.

- Two point at the walk and trot:
Two point position requires the rider to balance entirely through the lower leg with weight sinking into the heel and the stirrup bearing the rider's weight directly. A rider who cannot hold two point has not yet developed the lower leg stability to keep a stirrup reliably at any faster gait. Build two point progressively through halt, walk, trot, until it is solid before expecting stirrup security at the canter.

- Transitions without stirrups:
Walk to halt, halt to walk, walk to trot and back, all done without stirrups. Every transition tests the lower leg's ability to stay in place while the body manages a change in energy. A leg that stays stable through a transition without stirrups will stay stable through the same transition with them. Use transitions specifically to develop the stability rather than just drilling gaits in straight lines.

Losing a stirrup consistently is a position problem that no amount of heels down correction will permanently solve. Find the root cause such as a gripping knee, unstable lower leg, incorrect foot position and address it directly with exercises that build the stability rather than just reminding the rider it is missing. If you fix the leg, the stirrup takes care of itself.

What is your go to exercise for building lower leg stability in your students?

06/02/2026

The canter depart, aka the transition into canter, is one of the most diagnostic moments in riding. It tells you immediately what the rider actually has and what they do not yet have in terms of balance, timing, feel, and preparation. A clean balanced canter depart on the correct lead does not happen by accident. It happens because the rider prepared the horse correctly, applied the aids clearly, and had the balance and core stability to stay with the transition rather than getting left behind it. Here is what goes wrong and how to fix each one...

1. The horse picks up the wrong lead.
This is almost always a preparation problem rather than an aid problem. The horse picks up the wrong lead when it is not balanced and bent correctly before the aid is given. Before the canter depart, ask for correct bend through the last corner or circle, confirm the horse is soft on the inside rein and connected to the outside one, and then ask. A correctly prepared horse picks up the correct lead far more consistently than one that was surprised by the transition from a straight or incorrectly bent position.

2. The horse runs into the canter.
A horse that accelerates at the trot before breaking into canter is a horse that was pushed into the transition rather than lifted into it. The aids came from the leg alone without a half halt first to rebalance and engage the hindquarters. A half halt two to three strides before the canter aid rebalances the horse, lightens the forehand, and creates the engagement that makes a clean upward transition possible. Without it, the horse falls forward into canter rather than stepping under and up into it. Teach your students to half halt first, every single time, before the canter aid is applied.

3. The rider gets left behind.
A rider who tips forward or gets launched out of the saddle at the canter depart lost their position in the transition. This almost always comes from one of two places, either bracing against the transition instead of following it or not having enough core stability to absorb the moment the canter stride begins. The fix for bracing is feel work such as lunge line transitions where the student focuses entirely on softening into the upward transition rather than stiffening against it. The fix for core instability is progressive no stirrup work and two point at the canter before asking for the depart itself. A rider who can hold two point through a canter transition has the balance and stability to stay with a depart without getting thrown.

4. The horse ignores the aid entirely.
A horse that does not respond to the canter aid is a horse that has learned it does not have to. This is almost always a rider problem that has become a horse problem over time. Repeated unclear or uncommitted aids train a horse to wait for a bigger signal and eventually the escalation becomes the normal aid. The fix starts with making sure the aid is clear deliberate and applied once before escalating, not a series of squeezes that the horse has learned to ignore. If the horse does not respond to a clear aid reinforce it immediately and consistently every time. Inconsistency in the response to the aid is what teaches a horse to test it.

5. The depart is correct but falls apart immediately.
A clean depart that breaks down within a few strides tells you the horse was not genuinely in front of the leg or balanced before the transition and that the rider got lucky on the depart itself but there was nothing underneath it to sustain the canter. The fix is the quality of the trot work before the depart. A horse that is forward off the leg, genuinely connected, and balanced through the corners will maintain the canter after the depart because the energy that created the transition is still there. A horse scraped into canter from a flat disengaged trot has nowhere to go but back to trot.

Here are some exercises that actually fix canter departs...

- Transitions on a circle. Ask for the depart at a specific point on the circle such as at the top, at the side, etc and ask for a downward transition back to trot after four to six strides. Return to the same point on the circle and ask again. Repeated short canter transitions on a circle develop the horse's balance in the depart and the rider's feel for preparation and timing without the pressure of sustaining a full canter around the arena.

- Trot to canter over a ground pole. Place a single ground pole on the track and ask your student to trot over it and pick up the canter on the landing side. The pole encourages the horse to step under and lift through the transition and gives the rider a clear preparation point to work toward. A horse that rushes to the pole is a horse that needs more half halt work before the exercise. A horse that steps over calmly and picks up the canter cleanly has found the right balance for the transition.

- Canter from walk. For more advanced riders a walk to canter transition bypasses the rushing trot entirely and requires genuine engagement of the hindquarters and clear preparation from the rider. It is harder than a trot to canter depart and fixing it fixes the trot to canter at the same time because the aids and preparation are identical but just more obvious in their absence at the walk.

A clean canter depart is not luck and it is not natural talent. It is preparation timing and balance built through correct progressive work. Fix the preparation and most canter depart problems fix themselves.

What is the most common canter depart problem you see in your students and what fixed it?

05/06/2026

Drop your stirrups. It is a simple instruction that riding instructors should give regularly. If no stirrup work is done correctly, it is one of the fastest and most effective ways to build an independent seat, develop core stability, and create the kind of deep balanced position that carries over into everything a rider does in the saddle. Some riders dread the thought of no stirrups but the problem is not the exercise. It is how it gets used.

The most important point about no stirrup work is that quality beats quantity every single time. A rider who grips, tenses, and white knuckles their way through thirty minutes without stirrups is not building strength, they are building bad habits.

1. Exhausted muscles do not learn correct movement so they compensate.
Compensation patterns built under fatigue are genuinely difficult to undo. The goal is never to survive no stirrup work. The goal is to use it so effectively that the rider barely realizes how much they are improving.

2. Start with one stirrup before you drop both.
This is one of the most underused progressions in no stirrup work and one of the most effective. Ask your student to drop just the left or inside stirrup and ride for five to ten minutes. Then switch - right stirrup dropped, left stirrup in. Riding with a single stirrup isolated each side of the body independently and reveals asymmetries in balance and strength that riding with both stirrups or neither, completely masks. A student who rides beautifully with both stirrups in and falls apart on one side without one has just shown you exactly where the work needs to happen.

3. When you do drop both stirrups start short.
Five minutes of genuinely quality no stirrup work at the walk and trot is worth more than thirty minutes of gripping and bouncing. Start with five minutes. Let the quality be the standard not the duration. When the quality drops and you will see it before the rider feels it, put the stirrups back. Rest and maybe go again. Progressive intervals of quality work build strength far faster than grinding through exhaustion and the rider finishes the lesson with good movement patterns reinforced rather than tension patterns locked in.

4. Know when to stop.
The moment you see a gripping knee, a braced hip, excessive bounce, or a lower back that has stopped following the movement the no stirrup work is done for that session. These are not signs to push through!! They are signals that the muscles have reached their productive limit and anything beyond that point is building tension not strength. Tired muscles build fitness. Exhausted muscles build problems so know the difference and act on it.

5. Build it progressively across your curriculum.
No stirrup work at the walk should be established before no stirrup work at the trot. No stirrup trot should be solid before no stirrup canter is introduced and for many riders no stirrup canter is an advanced goal not a standard exercise. Build the progression deliberately. A student who has developed genuine balance and stability at the walk and trot without stirrups will find the canter far more manageable when the time comes. A student pushed into no stirrup canter before they have the walk and trot foundation will grip, brace, and bounce in a way that is uncomfortable for them and unfair to the horse.

6. Use it as a teaching tool not a test of toughness.
No stirrup work is not a punishment and it is not an endurance event. It is a diagnostic and development tool that tells you where a rider’s balance actually lives when the stirrups are not there to prop it up and then gives you a way to build what is missing. Assign specific time limits.
Check in regularly about tension and fatigue. Have students put stirrups back when quality declines without making it feel like a failure. Focus on what they are feeling and where is the movement coming into your body, which side feels different, where are you holding tension, rather than just how long they can last without stirrups.

7. Do not forget the horse.
A tense bouncing rider without stirrups is not comfortable for the school horse carrying them. Monitor your horses during no stirrup sessions and be honest about when a rider’s fatigue is starting to affect the horse’s way of going. The horse’s comfort is part of the equation and a rider who understands that their tension has a direct impact on the horse beneath them is a rider who has a very good reason to do the work correctly.

How often is enough?
Three times per week of quality no stirrup work is plenty for most riders. The body needs recovery time between sessions and more frequent work without adequate recovery produces fatigue not fitness. Build it into your regular lesson curriculum as a standard component rather than a special event and your students will develop the seat security that comes from consistent progressive work over time without the dread that comes from treating it like a monthly ordeal.

No stirrup work is not about suffering. It is about building the kind of independent balanced seat that makes everything else in riding possible. Done correctly it is one of the best investments of lesson time you have. Done incorrectly it is just uncomfortable for everyone involved.
Use it well. Your students and their horses will thank you.

How do you incorporate no stirrup work into your lessons?

02/24/2026

Let’s pink out for Erlene!

12/14/2025

12/01/2025

11/26/2025

How exciting and rewarding! Brian Hadley Stables Academy has been recognized as the Best Equestrian Facility in Weatherford for 2025!

11/20/2025

📢 Important Update on EHV-1/EHV-4 Outbreak & Our Safety Protocols

With the recent news of EHV-1/EHV-4 cases in the region, we want to reassure all of our clients and families that Brian Hadley Stables is taking every precaution to keep our horses and riders safe.

We have implemented our strict biosecurity plan, which includes:

🔸 Disinfecting when you enter the property
🔸 Disinfecting again before you leave
🔸 Using our supplied disinfectant sprays, which we always keep fully stocked
🔸 Increased monitoring, sanitation, and reduced cross-contact between horses

The health of our horses and the safety of our riders remain our top priority. We ask everyone to please follow posted instructions and cooperate with our staff so we can maintain the highest level of protection during this time.

If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Thank you for helping us keep our barn safe and healthy. ❤️🐴