Equine Axis

09/27/2026

09/25/2026

Dyslexia is far more common in your lesson program than you might realize and it shows up in ways that are not always immediately obvious. A student who struggles to remember which is left and which is right. A rider who cannot process a multi-step verbal instruction by the time the horse has taken three more strides. Someone who hears everything you say but cannot translate it into a physical response quickly enough to make it useful. These are not focus problems or effort problems. They are processing differences that require a different delivery system and once you understand that the adjustments you need to make are surprisingly practical and effective.

1. What riding actually does for a dyslexic rider.
Before we get into the teaching strategies, it is worth understanding why riding is such a powerful environment for a dyslexic student in the first place. The rhythmic motion of a horse at the walk closely mimics the pattern of human gait and that movement stimulates the vestibular system which governs balance and spatial orientation, the proprioceptive system which develops body awareness, and the tactile system through the physical contact and movement of riding. For a dyslexic rider whose brain is working to build better sensory processing and motor coordination, the horse is doing genuine neurological work with every stride. The movement helps the brain organize incoming sensory information more effectively and builds the kind of body awareness that supports not just riding but reading, writing, and fine motor tasks outside the barn. Riding also builds neuromotor and neurosensory pathways that support how the brain processes language. The lesson you are delivering is doing more for your dyslexic student than developing their position and their feel. It is actively supporting how their brain learns.

2. Replace left and right with something physical.
Left and right reversal is one of the most common dyslexia related challenges and it causes enormous frustration in riding lessons where direction changes are constant and fast. Stop relying on left and right as your primary directional language and replace it with landmarks. Head for the E marker then turn toward the barn. Track toward the gate. Ride to the corner near the road then turn toward the woods. Physical landmarks in the environment are processed faster and more reliably than left and right for many dyslexic riders and the confusion disappears almost immediately once you make the switch. For some riders the instruction go out to the rail and take the right rein is genuinely impossible to process in real time. Head for the E marker then turn toward the barn gets there in a fraction of the time.

3. Use a whiteboard for figures, patterns, and courses.
Keep a small whiteboard and dry erase markers at the arena with you and use them. When you want to teach a figure, a pattern, or a jump course draw it rather than describe it. Include the dressage letters if you have them, draw in your arena landmarks like the barn, the road, the woods, whatever is visible and then hand the board to the rider and ask them to trace the pattern with their finger before they ride it. The physical act of tracing the route with a finger before riding it is one of the most effective processing tools available for a dyslexic rider. They have seen it, touched it, and traced it before their horse takes a single step. The result is a rider who knows exactly where they are going rather than one trying to process verbal directions while managing a moving horse.

4. Color code the horse's shoulder for the posting diagonal.
The posting diagonal is one of the most consistently difficult skills for a dyslexic rider to develop visually and the standard approach of looking down at the outside shoulder does not work well for a brain that processes visual information differently. Try this instead. Put colored tape along the blade of each of the horse's shoulders such as red on the right shoulder and a different color on the left. Put matching colored tape on the rider's hands or use different colored gloves. Now the rider has a full color coded system that gives them multiple reference points for identifying and matching the correct diagonal rather than relying on a single brief glance at a shoulder while posting.

If the color system still is not landing stop trying to solve it visually and teach the feel instead. Have them drop briefly to sitting trot and feel which diagonal pair is moving before rising again. It works beautifully for riders who cannot reliably use visual confirmation. The feel approach is actually more correct long term anyway and for a dyslexic rider it may simply be the more natural path to get there.

5. Hop on another horse and show your rider
For younger dyslexic riders who cannot readily process verbal instruction at all, ride a horse yourself and ask them to mimic your posting. The rider watches your movement and copies it rather than trying to process and execute a verbal instruction. Mimicry bypasses the processing bottleneck entirely and for young children it is often the fastest route to a correct independent posting trot.

6. Give one instruction at a time.
A multi-step correction is genuinely impossible for many dyslexic riders to hold in their working memory long enough to execute. Pick the single most important thing, say it once clearly and give them time to try it. Then add the next piece but one thing at a time always. The lesson moves more deliberately and the rider improves significantly faster.

7. Use physical demonstration over verbal explanation.
Show it before you say it. Walk alongside the horse and demonstrate the position with your own body. Use your hands to physically cue the correct position when appropriate and safe. For a rider whose brain processes visual and physical input more reliably than auditory language the demonstration does in three seconds what ten repetitions of the verbal correction never achieves.

8. Be consistent with your language.
Dyslexic riders often need to hear the same instruction phrased the same way every time before it becomes automatic. Pick your vocabulary for each concept and stick to it. The consistency reduces the processing load and the instruction lands faster.

9. Never draw attention to the processing difference in front of others.
A dyslexic rider who is already working harder than their peers to process your instruction does not need the additional weight of being visibly different in a group setting. Make the accommodations quietly and matter of factly as part of how you teach this specific rider. Most of the adjustments that help dyslexic riders like clearer language, one instruction at a time, more visual demonstration, landmark based directions help every rider in your program anyway.

A dyslexic rider who finds an instructor who understands how their brain works is a rider who stays in your program for years. The horse is already doing more for them than most people realize. Your job is to make sure the instruction that goes with it is delivered in a way their brain can actually use.

Do you have dyslexic riders in your program? What strategies have worked for you?

09/19/2026

09/16/2026

Tuesday's training.

Our training exercise for today is 10 metre circles and shallow loops.

First ride in walk 5 metre shallow loops on both reins.

Then adding a 10 metre circle in each corner so a circle at the start and finish of the 5 metre shallow loop on the long side of the arena. This is on both reins.

Then to change it ride a right 10 metre circle in the first corner followed by a 10 metre right shallow loop.
At the depth of the loop at X rode into a left 10 metre circle then on completion continued to complete the shallow loop.
Finally with a right 10 metre circle to finish. Then repeated from the left rein.

All the above exercises are in walk as part of the warm up.

Walk and trot transitions can then be added to this exercise. So for an example a walk circle into a trot shallow loop into a walk circle.

There are many variations of where to put the transitions in.

Or ride through the complete thing in trot.

We hope you like this exercise. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Happy training.

09/15/2026

Part 7: What Changes Mechanically in Static Pillar One?

If the horse is already struggling to support the front end, why would we ask them to lower their head?

Wouldn't that make them fall even farther forward?

** An important note: throughout this series, we’re following one possible compensation pattern in which the horse has been carrying the head and neck elevated and braced. For this horse, finding Pillar One involves allowing the head and neck to come lower. 

But lower isn’t always the answer. Some horses may actually need to bring the head and neck higher to find their starting Pillar One position. The goal isn’t to place every horse at the same height. It’s to find a position where that individual horse can begin to reorganize the cervical spine. **

First, we need to distinguish between simply lowering the head and what we're actually looking for in Pillar One.

It's forward, out, and down.

Pillar One isn't about dropping the horse's nose toward the ground.

The forward and out component is just as important as the down.

If the horse drops their nose while leaving the base of the neck compressed backward toward the chest, we haven't necessarily changed much.

The horse can be low and still be collapsed, braced, and heavily on the forehand.

In Pillar One, we're looking for length through the cervical spine.

The head reaches away from the body, the cervical region elongates, and the base of the neck has an opportunity to come forward out of the thorax rather than remaining compressed backward between the shoulders.

So the head position itself isn't what we're after.

We're looking for a different organization of the cervical spine.

And one of the first things that changes when the horse reaches forward, out, and down from an elevated and braced head position is the contribution of the nuchal ligament.

Passive support changes the equation.

The horse's head and neck are heavy, and gravity is constantly acting on that weight.

Fortunately, muscles don't have to do all of the work required to support them.

The nuchal ligament is a large elastic structure extending from the poll through the cervical region and continuing into the supraspinous ligament of the thorax. Its lamellar portion also connects the dorsal ligamentous system with some of the cervical vertebrae.

As the horse reaches forward, out, and down, tension through the nuchal ligament increases.

This allows the ligament system to contribute more passive support to the weight of the head and neck, reducing how much of that support has to come from continuous active muscular contraction.

Pillar One changes the balance between passive ligament support and active muscular effort.

As the nuchal ligament contributes more to supporting the head and neck, the dorsal cervical musculature can reduce their activity.

And when there is less active extension and retraction of the upper neck, there is less need for an opposing muscular brace underneath it.

The brachiocephalicus and omotransversarius no longer need to participate in the same degree of lower-neck brace.

The goal isn't for these muscles to become inactive.

It's for them to become available for movement instead of being continually recruited for stability.

And underneath them are the scalenes.

As the cervical spine reorganizes and the need for muscular bracing around the lower neck decreases, the demand on the scalene muscles changes too.

As we discussed in the previous post, this matters because of their relationship to the neural structures traveling through the lower cervical region toward the brachial plexus.

Reducing unnecessary muscular bracing can create a more favorable mechanical environment around those nerves.

The rhomboids and trapezius get a more stable foundation.

The cervical portions of the rhomboids and trapezius attach along the nuchal ligament before extending toward the scapula.

When that ligament is appropriately tensioned, it provides a stable dorsal foundation for the muscles attached to it while also carrying more of the gravitational load of the head and neck.

The muscles no longer need the same degree of continuous contraction simply to resist gravity and stabilize the system.

And because we're talking about static Pillar One, the horse is standing still. The rhomboids and trapezius aren't being asked to move and control the scapula through a stride.

They can reduce unnecessary activity and return toward a more appropriate resting length, leaving them available to contract dynamically when movement actually requires it.

Passive support allows the muscles to stop working so hard just to hold the body together.

Creating scapular space.

When the muscles surrounding the scapula maintain excessive activity, the shoulder blade can become functionally pinned against the ribcage.

As the rhomboids and trapezius reduce unnecessary stabilization, the scapula has greater freedom to change its relationship with the thorax.

We're creating enough freedom within that relationship for the scapula to glide and rotate rather than remaining rigidly fixed against the chest wall.

And that, along with the passive lift the nuchal ligament provides, gives the serratus ventralis a better mechanical environment in which to do its intended job: supporting the thorax between the forelimbs while remaining available to respond dynamically when movement begins.

And the relationship from below can change too.

In the compensation pattern we've been following, excessive pectoral tone was contributing to a downward and backward influence on the shoulder apparatus while also becoming increasingly recruited for stabilization.

As the organization of the head, neck, withers, and scapula changes in Pillar One, the pectorals no longer have to participate in that same degree of static stabilization simply to help keep the front end organized.

But we still have to address the why.

If the pectorals became chronically tense in response to hoof pain, respiratory difficulty, or another underlying physical problem, that problem has to be resolved first.

The same is true of the horse's environment and management.

We can help the nervous system and musculoskeletal system discover a different way of organizing the body, but if we then put the horse back into poorly fitting tack, or return them to an environment that repeatedly creates the same stress and protective response, we're continuing to give the body a reason to recreate the pattern.

Compensation exists for a reason.

Our job isn't simply to remove it. It's to understand what made it necessary, address what we can, and then help the horse develop a more functional option.

But mechanics are only half of the story

If the horse experiences contact as something to brace against, their response to the position may be very different from a horse who understands the connection and actively follows the feel.

This is why, in BTMM, the relationship to touch and connection isn't separate from the postural work.

It's what makes the postural work possible and that is what we’ll discuss next.

09/11/2026

DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS: Avoid Falling in Through Corners

To prevent your horse from falling in through corners …

Think of your inside leg as a pillar that your horse has to bend around and that you can use to help prop him up around the corners.

— Ashley Donadt

🎨 Illustration by Sandy Rabinowitz

Click the link in the Comments below to read more! ⬇️

09/11/2026

Andy is still looking for his very own person!

Wonderful all around horse!

Located in Woodinville, Wa. Shipping can be arranged for buyer.

13 year old 15.1 QH/Arab cross gelding (not registered)

Past background as a lesson horse in a HJ program with kids and adults both in Wa state and in Canada.

Has not been in any work for over a year, this is what reflects is low sale price as his next person will have to put the time and work into him getting him back under saddle and in the direction they please.

Looking to find him a non jumping home as he has a past hind suspensory injury. It is as healed as it will be and has shown zero lameness while playing out in turnout and having light lunge sessions over the summer.

Priced very low for in complicated sale, we will soon be getting him back under saddle and his price will go up with more time invested into bringing him back. Get him now and make him what you want!

Easy keeper, prefers to live outside.

✌️🥕🥕🥕

09/10/2026

THIS

Pulling the horse into frame, is not the answer to creating balance or softness.....

The bridle, whether you are using a bit, bitless, hack or sidepull, should become a bridge to equilibrium, not a mechanism for holding the horse in a shape.

We want the horse to understand that the connection from the neck coming out of the shoulders can lead into a space of balance—where they can carry themselves, allow the hind leg to come through, and remain connected to the rider without becoming rigid.

When the horse finds that balance, with rhythm, consistently they start to find and create cadence.
Cadence develops swing.
Swing creates freedom and power.
And, over time, strength and coordination turn that power into collection.

So when we look at the neck, we aren't simply asking:

Is the horse's head in the right place?

We are asking:

Is the shape of the neck helping this horse organize the rest of its body?

That is a very different question.

Classical teaches, up, out and in front, because they were not discussing specifically a perfect picture, they were discussing helping each horse find the bridge to the riders hand and in turn, finding their balance over the topline.

While it may look different for each horse and it should, the principles do not change. Rhythm, relaxation, connection. Not hiding from or avoiding the contact.

09/08/2026

🎁Tuesday Tip🎁

Are you riding every step in your ride? Remember that the engine infact is not just under your seat but powered from the haunches, hocks and hind legs. Remember that when you influence the energy from behind the saddle your riding your horse correctly back to front, in turn making it easier for them to travel and carry us on their back.