Advice for Novice 30

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Trakehner92

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I have decided to enter the Novice 30 as well as Prelim 18 at my next dressage competition. I have never ridden a novice test before so some tips would be really appreciated. I'm very lucky that I have an absolutely fab instructor who is a BD judge herself. She is super supportive and has really pushed me to enter.

We are fine with the test apart from the medium trot. My horse finds it quite hard. We usually end up with a really fast rushed trot instead of a medium. His canter work is spot on. I'm gutted there is no counter canter in this test as he's absolutely fab at that :(

Any advice would be fantastic.

Thank you :)
 
When I first made the move up someone said the me "it's two movements" don't worry too much about them for now.

It's a fab test. One of my favourites
 
Thank you. That's true actually. I never thought of it like that. It's our first one so I'm just going to take it easy and not expect anything to spectacular.

It's a shock to be entering a novice test at all. I have never been interested in dressage and although I school my horse and have regular flat work lessons I've always been more of a jumper. We will see how it goes I suppose.

Thanks for your advice. I feel a lot better about the medium trot now!!
 
The medium trot strides are as previously said only part of the test and if the rest is good you wont lose many marks if its not performed as they want to see. My ISH is no good at medium trot, however,,,,you will be able to pick up good marks for the medium canter strides if your horse is good at canter as you say. Make sure the give and re-take of the reins is clearly shown too in the early part of the test in trot over X, thats a good mark picker up. Good luck and enjoy !
 
Perfect! Thanks for that. We have a massive medium canter for a 15.2 haha I have to remember not to ask for too much or we end up with a huge extended canter!!

I'll make sure we practice our give and retake the reins. :) How many strides of trot should I allow between my canter transitions?
 
Test says 1 horses length so perhaps 4 strides of trot, I stand to be corrected on that. Not done the test since Oct 14 as N28 seemed to be the favourite last year. My test sheet for N30 that movement scored 6.5 and says in the directives column "clarity of trot" so I would expect that to translate as trot being clearly shown and it not be a flying change..


Mmmn just read the comments for the movement on the opposite rein and comments say too many trot steps but obviously I dont know how many I did....hopefully someone else will comment and offer advice here on this.
 
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Izzwizz said:
Test says 1 horses length so perhaps 4 strides of trot, I stand to be corrected on that. Not done the test since Oct 14 as N28 seemed to be the favourite last year. My test sheet for N30 that movement scored 6.5 and says in the directives column "clarity of trot" so I would expect that to translate as trot being clearly shown and it not be a flying change..


Mmmn just read the comments for the movement on the opposite rein and comments say too many trot steps but obviously I dont know how many I did....hopefully someone else will comment and offer advice here on this.
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Right oki doke. That makes sense. He works better if he has a few strides between canter transitions so 4 should work well for us. We will have a play around this week and get it spot on.

Thank you for everyone's advice! It's all really helpful :) xx
 
We'll be doing this test in a couple of weeks, so I'm reading the replies with interest. It's worth googling the test and watching some of the videos on YouTube. I've done this when I'm doing a test for the first time, and not only find it easier to learn but also take some tips from the way the people in the videos ride it. Sometimes they give their scores too, so you can pick a good one.
 
I did my first Novice on my boy a few weeks ago - it was probably a bit soon for us but there was only one Prelim qualifier so I thought I'd give it a shot! Our medium trots didn't happen at all (my fault! We can do a decent medium at home but I froze up in the test) and got 4s for both of them. We still managed 64.04% overall, which is an Areas qualifying sheet so good enough for me!
 
j1ffy said:
I did my first Novice on my boy a few weeks ago - it was probably a bit soon for us but there was only one Prelim qualifier so I thought I'd give it a shot! Our medium trots didn't happen at all (my fault! We can do a decent medium at home but I froze up in the test) and got 4s for both of them. We still managed 64.04% overall, which is an Areas qualifying sheet so good enough for me!
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I'm in the same boat as you at the moment. There is only 1 prelim and it seems a waste to go just for one test. So I thought I'd give it a go. Id be more than happy with anything over 60%.

All we can do is try !! Practice makes perfect after all :)
 
Hi just me again. So we've been practicing out novice 30 and all of the things I thought we would struggle with like walk to canter and the medium trot are fine.

My only issue is the change of canter over x with the few strides of trot. One change is fine but the other is a night mare. 90% of the time we get the wrong canter lead then we don't have enough time to change leg before the 15m circle. Not only that the wrong lead and then having to change seems to really upset my horse and then he's at the top of his tree and won't listen.

Does anone have any advice?

I have a lesson on Wednesday so we can go through it then but I was hoping to have another go tomorrow morning as we ended on a bit of a bad note tonight.
 
For the change of lead over x on the diagonal my instructor had me come back to trot and then do a 10m circle in the direction of the "new" canter lead then pick up canter coming out of the circle and continue on your diagonal line. Do that a few times to encourage the change of bend and thence back to doing it on the straight line.
 
Walrus said:
For the change of lead over x on the diagonal my instructor had me come back to trot and then do a 10m circle in the direction of the "new" canter lead then pick up canter coming out of the circle and continue on your diagonal line. Do that a few times to encourage the change of bend and thence back to doing it on the straight line.
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Thank you ! We will practice that this morning !! :)
 
Slow it down, set up the transition and don't bother how many trot strides you need. Ask for your canter when the moment is right not when you have done the "right" amount of trot.
And if it goes wrong, trot, ride a couple of circles, bring it back down then ask again. If it's not right to ask for a 15m circle then don't ask for it.
Practise a trot change of rein, change the bend then ask for the canter so he gets the idea of it being not just in the corner.
Take your time and don't worry too much about practising your test, everything in it is just movements that you would use in every day schooling but done in a specific order. Work the movements rather than the order.

I never practise a test on the horse, he anticipates far too much. If need be I will practise specifics from a test such as a rein back, or a canter trot canter etc but I will do them all over the school
 
Roxylola said:
Slow it down, set up the transition and don't bother how many trot strides you need. Ask for your canter when the moment is right not when you have done the "right" amount of trot.
And if it goes wrong, trot, ride a couple of circles, bring it back down then ask again. If it's not right to ask for a 15m circle then don't ask for it.
Practise a trot change of rein, change the bend then ask for the canter so he gets the idea of it being not just in the corner.
Take your time and don't worry too much about practising your test, everything in it is just movements that you would use in every day schooling but done in a specific order. Work the movements rather than the order.

I never practise a test on the horse, he anticipates far too much. If need be I will practise specifics from a test such as a rein back, or a canter trot canter etc but I will do them all over the school
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This is fab advice that you. I think this is where I'm going wrong. He's quiet forward and very intelligent so hes anticipating the canter so his trot is a mess which is setting him up for the wrong canter. Then he's totally excited and is fighting me to get back to trot to change the leg.

I will practice little bits of it but not all together until we do the test in a couple of weeks :)

Thank you so much !!
 
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