Another schooling in the field thread!

[hayley.t]

I just need a little bit of advice about schooling in the field please . My pony is 7 and has mainly hacked with some schooling and showing. I have always schooled in fields but mainly in walk and trot with small amounts of straight canters. This year we have been having lessons again and trying to get a bit more serious. In my lessons we are mostly working in walk and trot which I am happy to do and move on to canter when appropriate. However I found that at my last show he was struggling to stay balanced in canter (he is a cob and canter has always been his hardest pace to maintain, before we started working in canter schooling he didn't even canter in the field!) so I have been trying to improve this however he is now getting very strong when schooling in the field. We did manage today to canter some lovely circles but then he started trying to run out through the shoulder so I brought him back down to trot but he was very forward and tried to canter every time I sat to change my diagonal. I will speak to my instructor when I have my lesson but haven't had a lesson since this issue arose so just wondered if anyone has any tips. I have been trying to include lots of transitions to keep him interested and we have just silaged so have lots of different fields to ride in. I did wonder whether I should let him have a decent canter first up a long field or is this just teaching him to canter in fields and not work? Also as an aside, I don't seem to be able to start a new line by pressing enter, does anybody know how to fix this or what I am doing wrong? thank you

 

[Alphamare]

What I would do (and have done) is keep the caber going and use your outside leg and rein to stop your horse from falling out or trying to nap. My youngester tried this a couple times but pretty quickly stopped when he realised I wasn't going to let him. These were the instructions from my instructor when he did it in a lesson.

 

[TandD]

when changing diagonal dont sit for two, rise for two instead! then there is no confusion of 'sit and canter' as your leg may be moving back as you sit, giving the aid for canter! once your both firmer on the transition ans signals try sitting again!

 

[hayley.t]

Thank you, I will try this, he does try and nap to the gate too. My friend suggested turning him the way he was falling out too so that he had to bring his head right round sometimes too, so that he is having to listen to me and I did that a couple of times today which did seem to help. He was better today than he was yesterday so I hope we are going in the right direction, its just hard work, my stomach muscles were sore! lol. He is also lacking in breaks but I am reluctant to use a stronger bit so I like your advice of keeping the canter going as he is ok when working properly.

 

[JFTDWS]

Personally I'd tackle the issue directly by putting him in canter, bringing him back to trot and correcting every time he tries to canter without you asking him until he's thoroughly bored of the whole idea. In fact, I'd be doing sitting trot randomly to remind him that it doesn't mean canter - sitting trot is just that: trot. I don't like ill mannered horses thinking they get to decide what we're doing next. I may have just had a similar little discussion with one of mine for predicting canter every time I asked for walk SI :rolleyes3:

eta - wrt to falling out, I'm a big believer in short quality blasts of canter. One circle and back to a balanced walk / trot is far better than lumbering on in canter and falling out / onto the forehand etc.

 

[Alphamare]

Yes I would also work on your trot-canter-trot transitions too.

It can be physically hard work stopping them falling out and my guy is big! I ached that day but he barely did it in the next lesson so they do learn

 

[hayley.t]

Thank you TandD I will try this too. We are normally ok but he is just so forward and anticipating. I also think the cantering is a bit of an evasion technique as he used to set his neck up but we have schooled him through this and he is working over his back well and really tracking up behind and relaxed in front but he has just learnt that he can tuck his head in and run out through the shoulder. I have a lesson on Thursday but was just worrying about it. I have lessons every 2 weeks so its not like its a long running problem as this has only started since our last lesson but I just feel like we are going one step forwards two steps back at the moment, I know we're not and my instructor is pleased with his progress it seems that as one thing improves something else arises.