A short instructional video (YouTube) demonstrating common mistakes and correct technique for riding 20-meter circles in dressage. The speaker highlights typical errors—riding into corners, drifting along the long side, excessive outside bend—and emphasizes steering the withers and minimal bend, illustrating the idea with a 'balance beam' visualisation. A membership pitch for Dressage Training TV is also present.
These first two circles you'll see here the rider is showing the typical mistakes made when performing 20 meter circles at the lower levels. Firstly, the rider rides into the corners, then goes along the straight side and often drifts across the arena, making the circle rather flat. In the second attempt you can see the horse even showing outside bend. And this makes the drifting across the arena even worse. Look at how the circle comes away from the track at A and only touches the track again 10 metres along the long side. K and F are 6 metres in from the end, so you should hit the track four meters past those markers. Even then you don't spend very long on the track. The third attempt by the rider shows how tricky she is finding straightening the horse after going wrong for two circles, the last circle is done correctly. You can see how little time is spent by the rider on the track. Notice how little bend your horse needs on a 20 meter circle. Always think of steering the withers around the exact path of the circle. If you remember from the book, you can imagine the horse was trotting on top of a gymnastics balance beam wrought into the shape of a 20 meter circle which is just wide enough for your horse to trot along the top of. You could ask yourself which side of the balance beam would your horse fall off or would you be able to keep turning every step around the circle with equally balanced shoulders?
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