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One of the things I talk about in Master Dressage is the importance of Rhythm and I also go on to qualify the difference between Rhythm and Tempo. Without control of the speed of the horses legs lots of things become very difficult. Lets look at some of things that can happen when we lose tempo control:

1. Loss of balance – the horse will speed round it’s turns losing balance
2. Impulsion remains difficult – we apply our legs but we getting speeding up instead of impulsion
3. Ground cover – getting the horse to take longer strides becomes difficult as our leg aids simply mean speed up.

In my book I go into this in a lot more detail. My mentor, Mary Wanless, as a great video on tempo control and explains the rider biomechanics of this below.