101 Schooling Exercises Book - can someone explain the key?

[Ludi-doodi]

OH (with only one small hint from yours truly) bought me the 101 Schooling Exercies book which duly arrived yesterday. I haven't tried the exercises yet, but they look great- I can see it being a very dog-eared book very shortly being taken up and down to the menage everytime we school!

Anyway at the top of each exercises there is a little key with stars against Beginner, Prelim, Novice, Elementary, Medium. I'm guessing it's something to do with difficulty of the exercise at each level but does anyone know what these mean? I've checked and double checked the intro and the back pages, but I can't find out what an explanation!

 

[helenhorse]

Hi, i really have no idea what they mean, but is that the book with that grumpy lady trotting a dark bay

?? i have that one lmao!!! but not currently with me so really cant help!

 

[scotsmare]

I think the idea is to work at the level of your horses schooling

 

[Marchtime]

As scotsmare says I think they indicate the difficulty level of the schooling exercise.
This is guess work being that I don't have the book but I would imagine Beginner would be mainly walk and trot exercises which are fairly simple and achievable for those who haven't done much schooling previously. Prelim, Novice, Elementary, Medium all refer to British Dressage levels. A prelim dressage test contains walk, trot and canter, 20m circles etc so the exercises would be based at this level. Novice tests involve the same as prelim with some medium strides and counter canter. I hope this is of some help!

 

[Gorgeous George]

I have the book too and love it, but the key baffled me too, I realised that different movements were obviously relevent to different levels but they don't really explain the star rating??

 

[Ludi-doodi]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi, i really have no idea what they mean, but is that the book with that grumpy lady trotting a dark bay

?? i have that one lmao!!! but not currently with me so really cant help!

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha, yes that's exactly the one!

 

[Ludi-doodi]

An example might help:

Exercise 1 -walk-to-halt transitions: All 5 levels has 5 stars
Exercise 13 - teaching your horse half halt: Beginner, no stars, prelim 2 stars, novice 3 stars, elementary & medium 5 stars each
Exercise 66 - Shoulder in combined with 3 10m circles : Beginner 1 star, Prelim 3 stars, Novice 5 stars, elemetary 3 stars, medium 2 stars

Confused

Me to

 

[YorksG]

Haven't got my copy here, as lent it to a friend, but agree that it is confusing, so ignored that bit!