Confused - lessons and schooling - long!

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Luckylocalian

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Help! I am so confused as to what I should be doing with my horse schooling! He is a 5yr 17'1 dutch warmblood broken earlier this year. I have been having weekly lessons at weekend during the day - these are quite "classical" - about the horse relaxing thoroughly and working forward with the lightest aids possible. We are not really working in an outline at all in the lessons - which I keep being told is not important at this stage as long as he working forward and I have been happy with that so far.

Problem I have is that recently he has been very naughty (especially when I ride him after work with lights) and been bolting off with me in the school and bronking and general naughty high jinks! He never does this in my lessons (probably because they are in daylight and I am more relaxed at weekend). Lots of people at the yard keep telling me I need to have a much shorter rein and firmer contact with him and be much stricter. When I do this tho he feels tight and overbent and not relaxed and harmonious (which is how he feels in my lessons)... however I do have control which I am lacking when he is tanking off with me when I am trying to be light and soft and get him to relax and bring his back down.

Sorry for long post but what should I be doing? What is the right approach? Don't want to confuse or ruin him!! Thanks!!
 
Bolting or running off?

Bolting is when you cant stop.

I would shorten the contact and push him forward into a workinig trot/canter.

He is probably just young and fresh.
 
Running off which turns into bolting ie have to run into the fence/hedge to stop. He is young and fresh you are right I just think it must be very confusing if one day it is all about getting him out on the end of the rein and long and relaxed and the next he is on a short contact being worked quite tight and short if that makes sense?
 
Have you any idea why he doesn't do it in your lessons? Do you think it is because you are asking him to think a bit more? When you are schooling on your own, do you keep changing the rein/pace doing circles other movements etc, or do you tend to go large mostly?
 
Have you tried lunging him first to get the freshness off him? Then I would do your best to work him as you do in your lessons, but if he gets rude you need to be firm with him so he understand that it's not acceptable. So if he runs away with you pull him up sharply - doesn't matter if it's uncomfortable, bad behaviour should be rewarded with discomfort and good behaviour with you being nice! Give him a bit of a shock if necessary. Then give him a pat and go back to being nice again. Repeat as often as necessary! I know how you feel as I have a 5 year old who can be similar, but if I try and work her on a short firm rein contact she just gets stroppy and tense and I don't get any decent work anyway.
 
can you not start by lungeing him when you are on your own to get the freshness out of him and help him relax before you get on?
 
Lunging may well be a good idea. How often is he in the school is another one to think about. And finally, you need to be able to read him so that you can stop him before he pisses off with you!
 
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Running off which turns into bolting ie have to run into the fence/hedge to stop. He is young and fresh you are right I just think it must be very confusing if one day it is all about getting him out on the end of the rein and long and relaxed and the next he is on a short contact being worked quite tight and short if that makes sense?

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If he was bolting he would go thru the hedge.

I would go for lunging and ride with more of a contact. If he rund off, sit deep and kick on, canter forward and on circle and circle and walk when you are ready...then ask for a walk to canter transition...when he has calmed down go back to how you were.

I agree with riding with a light contact but a contact should be that - a contact. It should be firm and light and short. IMO. As in you should give but have enough there. Sounds naf but exactly like elastic.
 
When my youngster gets like that I keep my leg on and make her work twice as hard - she soon gets fed up and works properly
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Out of interest how big are you? He might be trying to throw his weight around as he sounds like a big boy.
 
(especially when I ride him after work with lights)

There must be something different....

have you checked his eyesight? If he cant see that well in dark with lights he would then probably spook and get fritened. Maybe worth a look by a vet.

Other than that, maybe look at everything whcih is different, and see if you can uncover any other clues as to whats causing this.

There's always a reason for everything.

Best of luck.
 
Thanks all. In answer to your questions:

Schooling - I rarely ever go large! It is all about serpentines and circles and transitions both within the pace and through the paces.

Lunging - I have been advised not to lunge him because he runs off and goes disunited which is apparently very damaging to a young horses back. Also, because of his size and the fact he is only young and still growing I have been told that lunging is very bad for his weaker joints?

Hacking - I have as often as I can but work full time except Wed and it is dark by the time I get to the yard. I would say he is schooled 3 times a week, hacked 1-2 and jumped once.

Canter - he is pretty green and doesn't even know what walk to canter is! I get stressed about his greeness but keep being told that I am not to pressure him as he is still so young for his age (apparently the big ones take a long time to grow and mature)

I think he doesn't do it in my lessons because they are during the day and he finds working at night in the dark and cold much more spooky - but there is nothing that I can really do about that!

Finally - I am 5'7 and just under 8stone so yes I think he does take advantage of me!

Oh, it is so stressful! All day at work all I want to do is get out and get to the yard and then sometimes he is so mean to me with his boisterousness and it is really upsetting!
 
I think that lunging is a very useful part of a horse's education, so personally I would want to teach him to lunge properly - and long line too. This will also reinforce your aids and teach him to be more obedient.
Lunging is no more damaging than circling, as long as they are not tearing around like a hooligan.

I wouldn't just lunge him to get the freshness off him though, I always think this just ends up producing a fitter and fitter horse that needs more and more work before it behaves. I would use the lunging as a schooling exercise. The fact that he does not listen to you on the lunge and is rude under saddle speaks volumes about his level of obedience IMHO.
 
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Thanks all. In answer to your questions:

Schooling - I rarely ever go large! It is all about serpentines and circles and transitions both within the pace and through the paces.

You should go large, it is important, however you are right to keep him occupied with the circles and transitions

Lunging - I have been advised not to lunge him because he runs off and goes disunited which is apparently very damaging to a young horses back. Also, because of his size and the fact he is only young and still growing I have been told that lunging is very bad for his weaker joints?

My horse is 6 years old and 17.3hh. He has been taught to lunge as have many young horses. The disuniting is to do with balance most probably which the lunging will help with. Use two reigns and educate him.

Hacking - I have as often as I can but work full time except Wed and it is dark by the time I get to the yard. I would say he is schooled 3 times a week, hacked 1-2 and jumped once.

So why not take him on a short hack on the days you can to warm up and then go in the school.

Canter - he is pretty green and doesn't even know what walk to canter is! I get stressed about his greeness but keep being told that I am not to pressure him as he is still so young for his age (apparently the big ones take a long time to grow and mature)

Walk to canter is a fairly basic transition. As I said before I have a similar type of horse. They are big horses, yes, but it is up to you to educate him. A walk-canter transition is not going to blow his mind!

I think he doesn't do it in my lessons because they are during the day and he finds working at night in the dark and cold much more spooky - but there is nothing that I can really do about that!

No, apart from ride forward

Finally - I am 5'7 and just under 8stone so yes I think he does take advantage of me!

Probably, however if you use your seat correctly you should be able to control him...if not, why did you choose such a big horse? !

Oh, it is so stressful! All day at work all I want to do is get out and get to the yard and then sometimes he is so mean to me with his boisterousness and it is really upsetting!

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Totally see why you are upset but I think you should get on and forward. You say he is green and can't lunge but you jump once a week - which does not make real sense to me. I think you should focus of varied flatwork and hacking. Use poles etc to stop him being bored, and when he starts push him forward rather than holding him back.

And lunge!
 
If he has only just been backed and broken this year, make sure you arn't asking for too much too soon when you are on your own at home. Ours are usually backed and broken, ridden for 6 weeks then turned away until the following spring.
 
Blimey he has a busy life for a just broken 5 year old! if he doesn't even know walk to canter, or doesn't ride in an 'outline' why is he being jumped once a week?! Personally, I'd keep the schooling sessions just to my lessons so that I had useful instruction and hack him out the rest of the time. You can still "school" on hacks - bend, circle, halt, rein back etc in quiet places... Keep it light and simple.
 
Is there any chance of switching your lessons and having your trainer come in the evening so they can see directly the problems that you are having?

I have a very spooky warmblood whos classically trained but considerably older than yours. One minute he'll be walking along fine and the next minute hes gone with absolutly no damn warning.

Have you been taught to use your thighs to stop and slow the horse yet? If not id be inclined to start introducing this as its quite effective for runners. With mine, i cant grab hold of the front end at all. If you ride on a short contact before he's correctly warmed up he'd deposit you into a wall, so i have to be able to control him through my body as opposed to the hand. Get him used to slowing down and halting at the squeeze of your thigh. Initially it can be introduced in conjunction with a slight hand aid, eventually, it can be used alone. In addition to giving you extra breaks, its very useful for half halts when you reach higher work.

Do you tend to rush your warming up more when you're on your own? The walk work is absolutly paramount to a schooling session and is extremely good for settling the horse, getting yourself settled down and making him concentrate. The more hes concentrating on you, the less likely he is to be looking for monsters. Lots of laterals, keep your contact long as you've undoubtedly been taught and allow him to stretch.

Remember its the time of year also when horses are at their worst - couple that with the necessity of riding in the dark and you're probably going through a really bad phase.

In regards to lunging - yes, excessive amounts of lunging on young horses isnt good. To be honest, excessive amounts of lunging on any horse isnt good but where there comes a question of your safety and confidence, I'd be inclined to lunge. If you're nervous when you're getting on, it will make him worse. Lunging him to take the edge off him will give you more confidence. I lunge on a cavesson for the sake of avoiding tugging on the horses mouth (you dont want to ruin the good work you're putting in!) and don't use any auxilary gadgets or reins.

In addition to this, you could try loose schooling as an option of blowing off some steam and also ground work to supplement your ridden work (although probably best to get your trainer to help you with this initially). Learning to work your horse from the ground will become invaluable to you again as he gets to higher levels of training. You can start with very simple ground work such as doing turns on the forehand etc. Again, i use a cavesson to avoid any potential mouth jabbing.

Be aware that a degree of the tension you will be feeling when you attempt to ride him on a tighter contact will come from his excess energy. If he's wound up tighter than a coiled spring, it will be very difficult for him to give you the loose, relaxed feeling you get on the loose rein in your lessons. However some horses will then react negatively to being on a shorter contact and it will wind them up all the more (hence you tend to start with the longer, loosening work before picking up with a more high neck carriage and then letting them out again at the end to relax more).

Primarily - id try and get your trainer out in the evening when its dark so he or she can see exactly the problems you are having
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Its very hard for them to help you unless they witness it and taking advice from people who dont know how you are being taught will muddle your own understanding.
 
Thank you all - really appreciate your input. Just to clarify when I said jump once a week I meant pole work and grid work for balance and flexibity and agility mostly for variation for him and because he enjoys it so much. Also, I wasn't very clear with the lunging - he is generally very good on the lunge... it is just that when I get him out and he is in that spooky fresh naughty mood i'm talking about he has been known to rip the lunge rope out of my hands, kick out at me (!) and bolt around the arena for 20mins before I can stop him... not so lovely!

Touchwood I think you are right about the obedience - he is really trying his luck at the moment and seeing what he can get away with!

I will try these suggestions and let you know how I get on!

Thanks again!
 
Henry - hacking isn't an option during the week as I don't get to the yard until 6pm at the earliest, also I have very limited hacking where we are, mostly road work which is horrible esp on the darker days! I have been encouraged to jump him by both my classical instructors as variation and to keep him keen - do you think he shouldn't be jumping then until he is perfectly schooled?

Tierra - that is an exceptionally useful post - thank you. I will definitely try to get my trainer to come out one evening - that would be particularly useful. I have been taught to use my thights and back and seat to slow him and it works wonders when he is listening to me but sometimes i find that when he is tense my tensing to slow him can wind him up! The problem with youngsters is the inconsistency and that can really get you down. Thanks for your supporting words!

About his age - do you really think he has had a really busy life? I keep seeing 4/5 years olds doing pre-novice or quite advanced dressage and think that mine has had a fairly sheltered life - having never been pushed competively at all... do you think I am pushing him too much?
 
yes, this is all a lot of stuff for a 5 yo. I'd DEFINITELY echo no lunging, WAY too much pressure and stress on growing bones. Here' some info on how (and when) horses physically mnature.

http://irishnhsociety.proboards41.com/in...read=1189155303

Five years old is very much a baby and you need to take care of him, rather than push him. There are a lot of over pushed broken down horses on bute/coldbacked out there before they're ten due to over / inappropiate work when their bones were still growing.

Best of luck.
 
If you're following a quite strict classical schooling plan then imo, he isn't doing too much. Theres a vast world of difference between schooling youngsters according to classical principles and schooling them according to modern methodologies.

Keep sessions quite short as they do tend to tire quickly. You're clearly being taught to encourage him and let him stretch which is extremely valuable and precisely one of the lessons that often gets missed out of more modern methodologies.

In regards to being jumped when hes not "working in an outline", i dont really have an issue with that either providing you're keeping the fences small and using lots of pole work - which your post implies that you are. A 5 year old should not really be working "on the bit" (hate that damn phrase anyway) as they arent physically capable of doing so. What they should be doing is learning to stretch forward and down into a contact and how to use their back ends correctly. This is in complete opposition to modern methods which tend to demand horses work "up" way before they are ready and have the awful habit of ignoring the back end and over using the hand.

Pole work is excellent for adding variety to his life and helping to gymnasticise him further (which will supplement the work you are being taught on the flat).

As I said, keep the schooling sessions short, hack out when you can although you're obviously limited during the winter months and use poles to add variety (as i said, also try and get your trainer to give you a lesson in working them from the ground - its really good fun and again, adds variety!)
 
See half of me thinks to try and get him into trot asap and keep him going til he settles as it tends to be the best "settling" gait. However, with mine, i know from experience that it doesnt work and im better doing lots of work in the walk to chill him out and get him listening and relaxing. Trotting too soon just gets him more on his toes and we end up whizzing about all over the place
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I usually do a good 20 minutes in walk doing lots of flexing and suppling work as the less tension he has, the more control i then have in the trot. Again, if i go into trot too fast, his neck tends to be like a piece of steel and fixed solid which just makes him like a steam engine.

At the end of the day, do remember as i said before that this is the worse time of year and you have a young horse. The key is to not let it get you do and keep going with him.

With mine, i absolutly ignore his behaviour when hes being a pig as any rise in my temper just upsets him. Its vital to remember above anything that they are flight animals and he isn't sitting in his stable all day pondering how best to annoy his mum; he's reacting to things around him (in this case probably too much energy causing him to over react to things hes seeing out of the corner of his eye.. all of which is aggrevated by the fact its dark!).

Punishing him or losing your temper with him when hes reacting TO something will just shatter his confidence in you because, as far as he's concerned he's just doing whats natural to him. (This incidently, is precisely also why i lunge for a short period if i know mine is going to be a real pain as hes less likely to irritate me when im not in the saddle)

How much turnout is he getting? Is he getting a decent chance to blow off steam during the day? The more energy he can burn without you, the better really.

Anyway! best of luck with it all, please get your trainer out during the evening so they can see the problem first hand and dont let it get to you or question your methodologies.. everyone has tough times and early winter is usually bad for many people.
 
Thanks ever so much! At the moment he is out for three hours a day as they have just reduced the grazing but the fields are going to close altogether for about three months in the next week or two... not great but the best in the area. I do wonder if he is too fit really as he has an awful amount of energy! I am guilty of trotting quite soon rather than working in the walk - partly because it is so cold I just want us to get moving but I will try and do some work in the walk and some transitions etc.

Was pleased to hear your comments on working on the bit etc, that is what I have been told but so many people say that he is too big and strong to not make him work "properly" and I am very sensitive and tend to take everything on board (which is why it is a bad idea for me to post on here too often as I take criticism to heart too much) and then end up confusing myself and probably him!

I will also have a go at the groundwork - tried to have a go myself once but didn't really know what I was doing and ended up with my boy just looking at me like I was a bit daft! ;-)
 
Yea, i have zero grazing also and its a pain. Similarly mine is far too fit really but as I dont like clipping, i always take him into winter fit enough to not have any increase in work.

In the walk, you want to be doing an absolute ton of lateral work as from a classical point of view its the gymnasticising that leads to the horse working correctly. Do lots of circles and loops from the main track to the quarter line. Alternate the neck flexion as you go to get him bending through his neck. From there do leg yielding, shoulder in, haunches in, halfpass and so on. Lateral work will get him using his rear end correctly which then of course helps lift the forhand. Make sure whatever you do on his best rein, you try and do double of on his poorer rein. So many schooling errors later can be traced back to the horse not being worked consistently on both reins (problems maintaining a good circle for example!)

5 year olds should not be working "on the bit". In correct terms, that would require the poll to be the highest point of the neck with the back correctly rounded etc. Having such an "upwards" neck carriage is very difficult for a horse and there was a study by a vet named Dr Gerd Heushmann who worked in collaboration with a classical rider named Anja Beran, which found that it took approximately two years of being worked correctly for a horse to even develop the muscles to carry itself like this.

Most horses are worked incorrectly with their outlines broken below the poll. Often they drop behind the vertical and dont use their backs correctly. (The safest way for a horse to carry a rider is with a rounded back, which is why you focus so much on riding from the back end. The horses natural reaction to a rider on their back is to hollow away however so you have to educate them to not do this - hence a good seat is then so important also!)

Its really easy to get disillusioned with dressage in general as there are many different schools of thought and many people think if the horses neck is curved, then its working correctly; rather than looking at the bigger picture. At his stage of training, i wouldnt expect an outline at all. What you want is for him to be stretching down and seeking a contact from you (as opposed to the hand seeking a contact from the horses mouth as many modern methods teach.. you want the horse seeking a contact from your hand).

In regards to ground work, the easiest point to start, imo, is with a turn on the forehand. ALWAYS do ground work from a proper lunge cavesson as using a bridle can result in the horses mouth getting jabbed. With a turn on the forehand, you literally want to stand by the horses head and have him step around you. You use a schooling whip as an extension of your aids here and lightly tap his thigh to ask him to step. As the handler, the maximum amount of moving you want to do is perhaps a couple of steps backwards to allow for a small amount of movement by the horse. Ultimately, many classical riders teach piaffe and passage from the ground so its good to get used to working from the ground! I also think it help develop another level of trust and respect between horse and rider
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If you need any help at all, feel free to PM me. Its great to hear of someone sticking to more traditional principles!
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