New schooling regime tips?

[solomon]

I now have decided I must get some quality schooling done with Pete. I have to be honest, it has been a very hit and miss affair up to now. I am going to fit two schooling sessions in a week realistically. Apart from obvious transitions, trying to work in an outline, what other tips can you give me for some strengthening, and balancing work. I know trotting poles raised are very good but quite difficult on your own. Lungeing too can be part of the plan, any other suggestions?

[fleabitten]

bending! you could have a bit of craic with bending cones ;D walk, trot and canter. flexing his neck by using your hands to bend his head round towards you - might be hard at first so a helper can stand on the ground and make sure he stands and doesnt think you want him to walk a circle or something lol! - you can also do this on the ground after you ride with a bit of feed/grass, hay, treat, whatever you want. Just stand at the side of him and get him to stretch round and take the treat. put the treat in between his front legs so he stretches over his back. this will help him stretch laterally and along his back!

when you lunge you can put trotting poles out.

teach him rein back. again you might need a helper on the ground!

i think its sort of boring just attempting to get suppleness by riding endless circles and stuff and it isnt really working, because the horse is just so stiff so maybe some of the above exercises will help with bendyness! and then it will be so much easier to get bend and ride circles and stuff.
can also teach turn on the forehand to mix things up - stand at the fence and ask him to move his butt round with your leg and hand. progress to doing more than 90 degree turns and being able to do it in middle of arena.

riding without stirrups, one hand on reins, tie reins in knot and ride with no reins using legs to steer.

to get good circle shapes, set out cones at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o clock and ride around them. or just set a cone in the middle and keep your eye on it so youre always the same distance.

some jumping practice - riding over poles. set out random poles and just ride over them at any pace teaching pete to lift his legs, have a bouncier canter and think. set out 2 poles and canter over them and try and get 1 less and 1 more stride - practicing controlling the pace. or do the 12, 3, 6, 9 exercise with poles - riding over poles instead, trying to met the pole in the middle and getting same number of strides between each.

trying some leg yeild at walk.

um, i think thats all i can think of for the mo! i think if you get too fixed on an outline it might just end up frustrating you if you cant get it so maybe the above exercises will improve pete overall (and you ;D as you could do any of these at any pace and with or without stirrups or reins) and then he might be easier to work in an outline.

then you will be able to have much more fun schooling as you can learn new things like shoulder in etc.

[solomon]

Thanks Flea some really good ideas.

[maximum]

A very good book is 101 schooling exercises - amazon have lots second ones its full of good ideas.

The main thing is not to be too rigid - if something is not working then dont be afraid to ditch it and move to another way - you can always come back!

work within the scales of training and you cant go far wrong. after my teaching experiance today I am going to say get the shoulders moving! stiffness through them and the outside shoulder falling out are one of the biggest problems I see along with false outlines, get the back end doing the work!!

Spiral circles - start on 20 m circle moving in to smallest size he feels balanced on then move him back out onto the 20m circle using the inside leg.

serpentines with circle at each loop end.

shallow loops on the long sides.

short sharp transistions - so in trot canter for 6 strides then trot for 6 then canter etc and concentrate on the quality of both the up and down transitions - no falling into trot!

shoulder in on a circle then quarters in - very bendy banana horse!

demi - voltes ( half circle from quarter marker onto center line then leg yield back to track.

hour glass which is a bit like a figure of eight but is using the long diagonals so from H X F then K X M - working moving the horse round the corners and off the markers by pushing the shoulders round rather than turning the head and neck and be as accurate as you can.

try counting the trot/canter strides you take between say between K and M and next time aim to do more or less be lenthgning or shortning the stride.

just know what you are going to do - make a lesson plan even if its only in your head and you will be more committed rather than endlessly circling without really knowing what you want to achieve.

[fimacg]

I also do lots of 10m circles changing the rein for each one working my way around the arena, keep us both on our toes.

[fleabitten]

you could also do a turn on the forehand square. this is where you walk a square shape and when you get to each corner you do a turn on the forehand 90 degrees!

ive tried the serpentines with circles on the end - i got rodeoed with i remember. i was going to trot the serpentine and then do a large canter circle and kieran began cantering before i asked and then he rodeoed the full length of the schooling area which was about 60m or so! i was yelling at him really angrily 'kieran!' ...soooo p*ssed off with him lol!

the transition one will be v difficult! lots of practice ;D

in your lessons you could get your instructor to help you with some of these things or teach you how to do them. even ask your instructor to get on pete and show you.

[duckles]

I think all the above suggestions are excellent (and some I am dying to try out). I would really recommend the exercises in the section 'Maxi and Brig's workout.' - they are a great mixture of exercises that are fairly 'easy' if your horse is unfit but at the same time quite a challenge to do nicely. And they make it very easy to note progress in suppleness and bend.
Otherwise - I would suggest you do a certain amount of exercises that you or Pete enjoy or excell at - always good to have fun. Apparently animals learn best when having fun.
I think simple things like, rising for 10 beats, sitting for ten beats, walking for 10 beats etc are good for are own accuracy and give a bit of variaration to trotting around the arena.
If you have poles to scatter around, its usually good fun and you can go over, around, weave etc.
ride without stirrups for some time. Or with the stirrups up really high (great and very painful for the calves)
With JB (who can be a very tense sharp horse) I tend to warm up in a similiar routine whenever I school as it reassures him and calms him and he does enjoy doing things he does well.
Cori is just the opposite and schooling is usually a nightmare BUT when I do get the dedication to do it, I have to change approach each time and do the unexpected. It is the only way he will listen.
So I suppose I am saying (in my usual roundabout way) is do what suits Pete best and work to his strenghts.
I love schooling myself but am trying to get the horses fit by hacking at the moment.

[maximum]

Feb 15, 2010 16:35:36 GMT fleabitten said:

the transition one will be v difficult! lots of practice

In what way? Its a simple enough exercise what do you think will be hard about it flea?

[fleabitten]

hee hee! it sounds simple but in reality it can be quite difficult. i think it will be hard to get it accurate. sometimes its easy enough getting the forward motion but hard to bring it back again and it can end up into a bit of a pulling match. then again i suppose it depends on the horse. also sometimes maybe if you get the forward and then its slow to get started so its a bit sloppy. i just think theres so much that can go wrong in this simple exercise. am thinking of trot-canter-trot transitions. or maybe you cant get thr forward straight away or theres too much fastness and you struggle to have enough control in the canter in the first place.
you might end up doing a lot of pulling and kicking trying to get a response for the 6 strides or whatever.

does that all make sense?

[brigadier]

Sol- cant really improve on what Maxi and Fi are suggesting- lots there to keep you and Pete busy and on the right track, the important thing to remember is when it is going well, lots of praise and relax, when it isnt, go for a hack! Never get frustrated or too disappointed. It seems a long slog to get it right but if you take it steady you will get there!

[maximum]

I can see where you are coming from flea - its an exercise which requires accuracy and good strong seat! its probably one for someone with a bit of experiance but it can be adapted simply by doing trot-walk-trot and doing more strides of each gait before moving on but any horse and rider should be able to tackle that.

[fleabitten]

i agree about the walk - trot - walk - i did plenty of that and it was easy, as was halt - trot - halt. its the trot-canter-trot transitions that are so hard ;D

[maximum]

They shouldn't be unless you dont do the groundwork! its like a pyramid and needs a good solid base- its only really hard if you try too much too soon- and nothing good ever comes too easily!!

[fleabitten]

I have another exercise which we did in our lesson on saturday. It was to improve our showpiece for working hunter.
My instructor put two poles parallel with their ends facing E and B. We had to canter a figure of 8 and trot the length of the poles before striking off in canter on the other leg. I suppose this is a bit like the trot canter transition thing.

It required a lot of control and steadying of the canter and quick reactions from the horses to your aids but never running away. I noticed that the more you repeated the figure of 8s then the horses began to understand what it was we wanted and responded quicker.

I was able to do this - i was so chuffed as i was so nervous about it and i didnt think id be able to do it and control the canter or do trot canter transitions and i was even able to collect my horses canter by using my seat and legs!!! ;D ;D ;D So chuffed!!!!

[maximum]

well done Flea - see its not so hard!!