How To: Know Your Diagonals

   POSTING TROT! Your trainer will shout, if you've never ridden before you might know what one of those two words mean, trot, or go faster. So now you are bouncing around as your horse trots around the ring. Then your trainer says posting is where you stand up and down out of the saddle while you trot. Ok, easy enough. Then she throws a kink in everything, she tells you that you are on the wrong diagonal. 

   How can I be on the wrong diagonal, I thought I was going straight? What in the world is she talking about? Have they lost their mind? 

   The main reason there is a correct and incorrect diagonal is because it helps maintain your horse's balance at the trot. So what is the correct diagonal? You want to sit when the front leg on the outside comes back. The video on the left shows when the left shoulder is coming back and the video on the right shows the rider sitting when the left leg, the outside leg, wrapped in yellow comes back.

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Check back in later this week to see how to change your diagonal if you are on the incorrect one!