 Today I'd like to show you an exercise that I call the four doors. The idea with this exercise is that we can ride our horse with focus and help them feel back for what we want them to do. And we start the exercise off with just circling the cones and it'd be helpful if I could have them look to the inside and step to the outside a little bit. We could do this walking with a little like leg yield here where I ask them to step over. And once I feel like I've got him stepping out and around and he's arcing to the inside and he's looking, then I'll start the exercise. And what I will do, I'll enter in through the door and then I have an option. I could halt. I could go left. I could go right. I could go straight. I'll choose straight. We just started out today, so let's go ahead and choose straight and then I have an option when I leave the circle. I chose left. But you could choose left or right. I enter in. I choose right. I take my torso to the right. I look at where I want to go. Hopefully he follows that feel around and then as I leave, I choose right turn. Now we could play with this and come up with different combinations. So for example, as I leave the circle, maybe we trot or jog a little bit and just make an easy jog. And then I'll turn, focus, look in, and as I come to the inside, we'll walk. So every time I come into the circle, we'll walk. Every time I leave the circle, we'll go ahead and trot. Now I might go all the way around a full circle or two circles. But in this case, I'm gonna come out wide, so I have room to turn in and as we let's halt. Because he started to follow a feel and come forward, so I like that. So I might say here, take a break and halt. You did good. That worked out pretty well, and you started to come forward. Now you can even play around with this to where we start to add cancer to the mix. So perhaps I take a canter, right lead, get them up and forward, and I look around and I plan ahead. I don't just randomly turn, but I plan ahead. So as I come around here, I'll make a wider arc. I'll think about bringing them to the walk. Come on in. Straight through is fine with me. When I leave, every time I'm on the outside of the circle, I might pick up a canter. Pretty soon, he starts to think, well, jeez, I don't want to, I don't want to really canter the circle. And I can feel when he starts to settle in with me and he gets kind of with me. So then I decide, all right, let's walk. Let's come on in to the center of the circle. Maybe we'll halt in the middle just because I felt that he did pretty well. Give your horse time to stop and stand and think this through. Now the middle of the circle, the inside of the door, this is pretty nice because this is where he starts to come in. He knows he gets to halt. He starts to feel back for me pretty soon. I'll start to ask more of him. As I come in through the doors and to the middle, I say, all right, you did well, but give me a little backup. Rain back. And now let's take a halt. So I didn't just come in and stop. I came in and said, give me a backup. And pretty soon when we come into the middle of this circle, he's going to start looking and feeling for me saying, well, what do I get to do? Do I get to take a halt? Do I get to take a break? Can I settle? And I say, well, yeah, but give me a movement first, like rain back. Notice as I come in through the doorway, I'm looking in. Now, this time I might say, move the hindquarters. Give me like a little turn on the forehand. Now, you might not go around as far as I am, but I say, give me a turn on the forehand. And then have a break. He goes, OK, pretty soon they're looking for what you they're feeling for you. They're being mindful of you. So we could go back to trot. Think about all the different combinations you have. And think about the trot. I'll come in. I'll halt. This time I'll say, can you give me a little turn on the hindquarters? And he goes, yes, I can. And I go, you know, that was great. Why don't you just take a break? Pretty soon they're looking for this. And they say, what do you want to? What would you like next? This exercise is useful because let's say I have a horse that's too fast. Many of you have horses that perhaps get nervous and they're a bit fast. So then I might pick turns that would cause him to have to slow down. So maybe I make sharper turns with my doors, with my circle. And notice that I can make this more difficult, making sharper turns. And by having him sort of look back and say, where are we? Where are we about to go? Pretty soon he's feeling back for me. And he's not going to be going that fast and rushing. I'll just make it difficult for him to go fast by making this more challenging, this exercise. So the combinations are up to you. The options are up to you. What I want you to think about is what does your horse need? If your horse needs more forward, then you want to favor straight lines for a little bit. So for example, coming in, going straight, go well past your doorway, and then as I turn, wide turns, give him more room, you get the idea. Coming on, let's say let's go straight. Pretty soon we're happy with our horse. He's gone straighter and more forward. And so then don't get greedy, come on into the center, sit up and back and say, could you halt? And let them have a chance to think this through. So yeah, there's always something that our horse needs more of. They might need to be straighter between the legs and reins. They might need to be more forward. They might need to come back and feel back for us. And that's what's fun about this exercise is you can choose the options and you can choose the options that help you get what you want from your horse. What would help you? You can even start adding turn on forehands at the cone. You could come into the center. We could bring the hindquarters over in the center. You could walk out. We could bring the forehand through coming out, come up to trot. Well, here's another option. You could come into the circle. You could turn and go right back out the door. You came in. I'll turn left. Now we could do that with some energy and with some life. So maybe I come in and sort of keyhole my way around like this and come on right back out again. I'll make a dower transition. But this time we don't rain back. I might say, you know, give me a turn on the forehand. Why don't you bring your hindquarters over and give me a turn on the forehand. And when that feels really good, I'll let you stand. So he goes, okay, that's not bad. I like this deal. So for many of us, we need to keep our horse going energy up all the way into the turn on the forehand. All right. Now this time I'll say left lead. Now you could also trot or you could walk, but I'll say left lead. Dower transition using my headlight to turn. This time I'll say I would like you to give me a little turn on the hindquarters. All right. I like that. Now why don't we come on back and face the camera? So I'll get two turns on the hindquarters. Maybe a little rain back. All right. Now halt. Now don't get greedy. Sometimes you will ask for too many movements and then your horse will stop. But see, I'm keeping his life up on the outside of the circle. And as I come in, I'm bringing, letting him settle, but not totally to halt. So he's got to give me a little bit more. Perhaps we're not even riding the cones and we're just practicing cantering on the rail and getting our horse together. And so right now maybe he's not thinking about those cones very much. And I'll come around and pretty soon as I come towards the cones, he starts thinking about it and he goes, you know, I kind of remember that we get to stop in the middle. So pretty soon I'll say, yeah, come on over and notice how much his life came down. So coming back to the circle helps him settle in again. If we completely leave the arena and I rode back in again, I could come back to these cones. I could go on my trails, come back in the arena, find the middle. Pretty soon he looks for the halt. I might jump some jumps within the arena, be able to do a little jumping and let's say your horse gets a little excited. And so now you need him to settle in. How do you do that? Well, we could look, we could say, let's come back to the door exercise. Notice he knows what's gonna happen. So I love the four door exercise for this. It's super simple and it's something that anybody can do with their horse and it's something that you can get pretty advanced with and pretty creative with. Think about what your horse needs, which ingredients, which elements would help your horse for you together. And then pick movements that help encourage what you want to have happen. Slow down, more turns. Go forward, get a little straight, move them on the outside of the circle. You need some rain backs. Well, come on into the center, have him give you a rain back before he gets to halt and take a break. So think about what you need more of and help him find that answer. You can play around with this. You can come up with many more combinations. You can help your horse to find what you're looking for because this exercise helps you get clear, focused, helps you better direct the horse, have a plan instead of just riding around the outside of the ring. Go ahead, give that a try. See how many variations you can make with this exercise and let us know what you think. Happy riding.