I like to make my schooling fun, after years of suffering from arena fever where all my training and ultimately riding happened inside the fence line of a 20 x 40 arena I have realised actually how restrictive those four fence lines can become Now at present I don’t have a surfaced arena so I have had to become imaginative with how I school my horses, and it’s made the whole process much more interesting for us all This morning was my stretch session, I like to do a whole session on stretching at least once a week where the frame isn’t shortened at all, obviously stretching coming into my warm ups and cool downs for any other session but when it becomes the only frame to ride in I feel it really allows the horses to let go of any tension held there. I wanted to incorporate some lateral suppleness too so I used some trees as guides and weaved, circled and wound my way through them, really encouraging the paces to stay open but the suppleness if the bend to grow This was Farm more interesting for me that riding continuous circles in a school and also the undulating ground meant that my pony had to really think the whole time making an exercise that’s quite repetitive in its nature something that he could t switch off too. If you don’t have access to trees, cones and barrels are also a way of doing this exercise but the most important thing is to make it interesting A simple thing by changing the location of where we ride, can mix it up enough to keep your horse interested but also challenge its fitness and ability. Have fun this weekend with your horses