Schooling a Green Horse for Polo – Video 7

In this video, Christian plays Hanalei in her 6th ever chukker. Hanalei’s balance is good enough that she is doing natural lead changes when necessary, but she’s not quite at the level of queued flying lead changes yet.

Christian talks about acclimating the green horse to other horses on the field, and the swinging mallets that come with them. He talks about introducing the ride-off and using the trot to help balance the horse by changing diagonals rather than being forced to balance the horse by changing leads at the canter.

And perhaps most important of all, Christian uses the chukker to help reinforce in Hanalei’s mind that he will not lead her into painful situations. When she accepts this, she will truly be able to start enjoying the game. Enjoy!