To gain riding confidence and progress with your training, it's a great idea to 'time' your ride.
A few minutes of focused work with a clear aim can yield fabulous results. Try it!
The important thing to remember when training educationally young horses is this:
It will NOT look perfect all the time! The horse has endless different answers to pressure it might try and many will result in the head being too low or too high, too in front of the vertical or too behind. It's our job to what we want clear to the horse by releasing pressure at the correct time. If you expect perfection during training the likely result is an unrelenting pressure that most likely increases when the horse is correct, to HOLD it in place.
First decide on what sort of head elevation you are wanting - this will vary depending on the discipline (here we have a quarter horse so will be wanting a lower head carriage than a dressage horse, for example) and then release on that. However, remember, your horse will have to develop the muscles to carry itself, whatever discipline you choose, so expecting perfection now will certainly break Rule #2 - The Horse Can't Get Hurt.
