Teach Your Horse To Do A Hind End Stretch

2024 Update: This is a legacy video! Meaning that much of the information in this video has been updated as it's been many years since I published this video. I didn't want to completely remove this resource, but for best results I would recommend learning from a more complete and up to date resource.

The Willing Equine Academy
www.thewillingequine.com/academy

Please note that I no longer use any artificial aids/equipment (such as the chambon) and I also do not recommend mixing the clicker/food (positive reinforcement) with pressure and release (negative reinforcement) training techniques. My techniques now focus on shaping the desired behavior with positive reinforcement, teaching lunging at liberty or with the reverse round pen first with positive reinforcement, and then progressing from there. And I absolutely do not use whips anymore.

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2017: As promised, this is a video documentary showing the progress and how I taught the hind end stretch shown on my recent Instagram photos.

I choose to call it a hind end stretch because my focus is more on the hind end getting into a nice deep stretch versus "hammocking" the center of he horse's back between stretched out front and hind legs like is common in normal "parking out".

I will be calling this series "Horse Yoga" and this is the first stretch I've taught in this series. I plan on training and documenting various different "self stretches" that will be taught with primarily positive reinforcement, free shaping, and luring... and will be different than common manual stretches (or "carrot stretches"). There's absolutely nothing wrong with manual stretches, I'm just finding teaching the horse to stretch on cue without manual manipulation to be extremely useful and potentially having less risk as the horse has complete control over when and how much they stretch. It's also a great mental exercise!

www.thewillingequine.com
@thewillingequine