The Rider's Guide to Real Collection: Achieve Willingness, Balance, and the Perfect Frame with Performance Horses

Collection is one of the most misunderstood concepts in Western and English riding. Everyone wants it, but few people know how to get it. World-class rider, trainer, and clinician Lynn Palm now offers the one and only book that explains away the mysteries of collection while telling you exactly how to attain it. With 40 years experience riding and training champion all-around performance horses, and a background in dressage, Lynn has perfected an easy-to-use system of exercises that gradually collect any type of horse, regardless of his build, and that are of particular value to stock horse breeds such as Quarter Horses, Paints, and Appaloosas. Lynn begins on the ground with in-hand exercises—free lungeing, ground-driving, and lungeing-and-bitting—to gain the horse's trust and improve his responses to cues and commands. She then explains how you start in the saddle with simple transitions—such as halt-walk-halt—and gradually progress through stages that include more difficult transitions between gaits and markers; lengthening and shortening of stride; yielding on diagonal, straight, and curving lines; turns on the forehand and haunches; shoulder-in and shoulder-fore; haunches-in and haunches-out; half-pass; and simple and flying lead changes. Learning how to bring your horse into true collection helps you improve his performance; create a more willing equine partner; extend his physical and mental longevity; and enjoy riding him even more than you already do.