Clips for Exercises and Steering

Clips,

hair clips hair clips

clothespins,

clothespins

and barrettes –

oh my!

Clips, clothespins, and barrettes are great tools to use in lessons!

For exercises you can have the rider put them on their horse’s mane or on the saddle pad, then take them back off. Here is a picture of clips in a mini’s mane (imagine it on a bigger scale with a rider and that’s what it looks like in a therapeutic riding lesson, minus the sunglasses and boa). It encourages stretching and the use of fine motor skills. If the rider has a hard time using their fingers, this may take a while. In such a case only plan on using 2-4 clips.

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You can also put clothespins on the rider’s pockets to encourage correct direct rein steering. Here I had a rider who kept bringing one reins down to her knee and other across her horse’s neck. So I put clips on her pockets to bring her steering hand toward, and a clip on the horse’s crest for a visual not to let the non-steering hand cross over. It helped tremendously!

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What do you use clips for?

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Note: This is not professional advice, this is a blog. I am not liable for what you do with or how you use this information. The activities explained in this blog may not be fit for every rider, riding instructor, or riding center depending on their current condition and resources. Use your best personal judgment!

4 thoughts on “Clips for Exercises and Steering

  1. Hi! I love clips… especially pegs. I peg 4 to6 different coloured pegs on the mane, in rider reach, and they have to ride around the arena and find the matching peg, that is on a basket or card etc and peg or put the matching peg from the mane with it…..thanks again for more wonderful ideas 🙂 Happy Riding, from Nan 🙂

  2. I buy barrettes from the dollar store! I use them to mark a spot on the mane for hand position during two point riding. I can make a unique placement for each horse-rider combo.

  3. Hi , I’m new to this site , so am just reading through old posts.
    I love using pegs with my class , they are all 5 years old and all have high support needs.
    I have made a whole lot of different novelty pegs, using glue and string and stickers , I have a wide variety of animals , bugs , flowers , toy cars , ‘Frozen’ stickers , a variety of textures , shapes , sizes and colours.
    I use them as motivation , matching , rewards , grooming ( they brush the mane then make it pretty ) great for fine motor skills, language, colour , hand eye etc. The kids love them 🙂

    • Welcome to the site! And thank you for your comments! Making novelty pegs is a great idea, I love it! You are so creative. Thank you for sharing!

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