dressage levels!! your thoughts!:)

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naid pollyanna

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we had this discussion on our yard today and interested to know everyones opinion!

has anybody else noticed that even horses that arent the next dressage superstar find the higher levels such as novice/elementary or even medium seem to get you better scores than the prelim classes or that your horse behaves so much better!

haha it was quite a weird one but we found it very true! haha let me know!
 
My horse behaves better the higher up the level, mainly because she is so smart and has to think more. There is too much time between movements in prelim and novice imho. :)
 
Mine behaved better higher than lower. Doing very basic stuff she loses interest very quickly, so she tended to liven things up herself. In prelims, we regularly showed wonderful collected paces & lateral work, in my attempt to remain in some form of control. I've since discovered with her, if its an easy test, you needed to do the bare minimum to warm up, so she wasn't bored by the less interesting movements. However, I suspect some of it was me, & us as a combo for dressage. Basic school moves on a schooled horse aren't really my thing, there's no challenge. And she prefers jumping, although for fun at home can do more advanced lateral work which she loves. So tbf, us both together doing prelim & novice had the same rather bored attitude.
 
I don't compete at the moment but was playing around with this theory today. I found a lone elementary test sheet in my tack room and discovered we use a lot of it in our schooling already, so had a play about with some of the movements. She was about 1000% better when we were playing elem than when we were playing prelim. I reckon if I schooled her using only prelim moves she'd end up razzing through them at a million mph with her ears up my nose!!

Unfortunately, when I enlisted a stray yard kid to call the test for me, I found the movements came too fast for me or my little buddy to keep up and we just ended up giggling!
 
Mythical said:
I don't compete at the moment but was playing around with this theory today. I found a lone elementary test sheet in my tack room and discovered we use a lot of it in our schooling already, so had a play about with some of the movements. She was about 1000% better when we were playing elem than when we were playing prelim. I reckon if I schooled her using only prelim moves she'd end up razzing through them at a million mph with her ears up my nose!!

Unfortunately, when I enlisted a stray yard kid to call the test for me, I found the movements came too fast for me or my little buddy to keep up and we just ended up giggling!
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haha yes i cant have a reader at all i dont listen and just end up making the test up hahaha my horse just learns the prelim tests and tells me when a transition is made(which she likes to do a good 5 strides before she should) haha:D
 
naid pollyanna said:
haha yes i cant have a reader at all i dont listen and just end up making the test up hahaha my horse just learns the prelim tests and tells me when a transition is made(which she likes to do a good 5 strides before she should) haha:D
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I'm the same with my sat nav. I have to set it in a language I don't understand so I have to stop and think about what it's just told me!!
 
Took my loan boy to our first dressage comp the other day, he's a dressage school master, but there was a definite lack of concentration there. He has competed to advanced medium with owner, we did a prelim.

Personally I think he was a tad bored, although he did try and leg yield to the door down the centre line. Naughty boy :o

But then it was a completely new place, although he behaves better when doing more complex stuff at home.

But in all for a first outing I shall not grumble.
 
I do agree with the horses having more to do at the higher levels and therefore being better but I also think it is the rider who hasn't got so much time to fiddle and worry and just has to get on with it.
IMHO it is often more the rider that causes the behaviour!
 
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