People who have Morgans for dressage, help me with this neck!

[cuatx55]

Arabs are like this too.

Control the 4 corners of the horse using SF/LY if you can-- even a few steps. The neck is just one facet-- don’t forget shoulders haunches. (My horse isn’t green so I use HP, LY, SI, HI in several variations to make sure I can always place each part of the horse where I want and he doesn’t blow through any of these aids-- Change direction every few strides to keep them from locking the neck/throwing the shoulder and plowing forward).

And tempo!

Can’t wiggle? I’ll shoot forward then! or be lazy! wait, I’m thowing my haunches out now LOL can’t catch me… Every stride a different evasion

I say it’s like fighting a battle on 5 fronts at the same time.

And be quiet in the seat and contact. Over-riding makes the wiggling wrose. Stable core= stable horse.

[Abbie.S]

Thank you all so much for the ideas.

It was said a couple times, but I really appreciate folks mentioning the dangers of too much focus on forward. This horse could trot for daaayyyzzzz and he’s totally unfit. So I can only imagine what that would be like when he’s fitted up. My approach was going to be scanning back the tempo and asking for soft, soft soft all the time to encourage him to relax his back and channel the energy through his butt instead of powering off those shoulders. The general consensus when I’ve talked to higher level trainers is always “forward!”, but then they clearly don’t know Morgans!

Good ideas about constantly asking for some kind of change, use poles, etc to avoid allowing him to get locked.

I’ll admit, this horse is SO laid back that I almost thought something was wrong with him for the first couple weeks. I’m used to far hotter, more sensitive horses… This guy is just too cool for school.