Dressage with no at home arena ... Thoughts

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R.F.S

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Interested on people's thoughts at competing to a reasonable standard with no at home school. I have a youngster who I am hoping to compete dressage when he's broken, I absolutely love my yard and don't really want to move the yo is fantastic and the people there are lovely it's just a small set up but done well. The downside is there is no arena :( we do have a small flat paddock that is suitable to walk, trot and canter in but it is on the small side the other liveries are happy hackers and th yo produces show horses to hoys etc so whilst the horses are well schooled she just uses the paddock when she feels the need to. There are a few schools close by to hire and a friend also has a school at his home I am able to box to and use for free as well as weekly lessons with an instructor. I would be interested to hear off anyone who has been in this situation to see how it worked out for u :)
 
Depends on what you consider a "reasonable standard" to be! There is no reason not to be able to work your way up the grades without a school. Actually you may well be in a better position without. I'm all for dressage schooling on hacks. You can develop a good standard without stressing the horse - or you - out. The horse gets to see loads of things and learns not to react to them. They also develop the self carriage to deal with an uneven surface rather than the regular surface of a school. You have access to a school and to regular lessons for when you need it. Plus your horse will not learn that being boxed always means a competition - it will be more routine and less stressful. Practicing your test too often in a school can also lead to the horse anticipating the movements. But if you are aiming at Prix St Georges or above you might need a school eventually!
 
Lol I wasn't quite aiming prix St George's, probably medium eventually providing he goes well enough and then who knows. Good to hear that it may be doable I really do love my yard and like u say I do have access just not on a daily basis. :) thanks for your reply
 
It sounds like you have plenty of options so I dont see why not - if you had no transport and no way of using a school nearby, and didnt want to hack then you might have a problem! But as the other poster has said, there is no reason why you cant do the majority of your schooling out on a hack; you can work on relaxation and different positions with the neck (varying between more of an outline, down into a stretchy outline, back up again etc), you can do plenty of transitions in and out of walk & trot, you can do some leg yield if safe to do so...all the basics you can easily work on out hacking. Then when you want to start doing more canter you can use the paddock a couple of times a week, plus use your friends school/hire a local school.

Youngsters need hacking out loads when they are first broken anyway, so I'd say you'd want to be hacking maybe 3 times a week then using the paddock or going over to a school once a week. That is more than enough for a newly broken youngster, you just want to work on getting him to see the world and relaxing, with a nice soft neck and good reaction when you put your leg on. Beyond that you dont need to achieve much more until they are 4 when you can start to do a bit more work with them.

I've tried to find an article for you that I read a few months back, it was about people competing to a high level who dont have schools at home but cant seem to find it which is a shame - but basically there are people, even professionals, who dont have schools! There was one eventer I remember who was at 3* I think with no school and her horses lived out 24/7. She schooled out on hacks and in the paddock in the summer when the ground was suitable. So it just shows it can be done! You just have to be a bit more clever about it and utilise your hacks as much as you can.
 
I do!

All I have is a field. I don't even have stables. I box up to bath and plait during the winter on my parent's driveway 3 miles away. I don't school at home. I use my warm ups to school. I'll school on hacks.

I'm competing BD Prelim / Novice. Unaffiliated Novice / Ellie. Training higher in my lessons.

It all depends on you and your horse. It's suiting my lad living a simple life. He gets bored if I over do it, hence why I don't. A Happy horse = happy times competing.
 
We don't even have a suitable field and have just come 7th at Regionals and won the Badminton Dressage Champs in the RC class. Having said that, our school is nearing completion and looking very beautiful and I cannot wait to have it! :D
 
I'm so pleased to read all these replies, congratulations miss c fantastic results :) thanks for all your inspiring replies, I guess it just seems a necessity these days to have an arena readily available lol
 
Years ago it was very unusual to have a school although there was usually a flat piece of field you could use. I used to do all my schooling out on hacks - very useful when you need to stick the horse in shoulder-in to get past the horse eating crisp packet in the hedge! As long as there was no traffic I could do lateral work across the lane and a nice inviting uphill stretch of grass was ideal for medium trot and canter. Opening and closing gates taught walk pirouettes without even thinking about it.
 
I have no school at home, and there is only a couple of months in the summer when I can ride in the one suitable field we do have. I go out to school in nearby arenas as often as I can - but often this will be only once a month. We do a lot of schooling out hacking. We are currently competing elem and hoping to have a bash at med before the end of the year :)
 
Fantastic and inspiring thread and much needed as was starting to feel sorry for myself not having daily access to a pristine all-weather school. We do have a school but it's sand and is just too deep for my mare for most of the summer (then it's too dark in the winter as no lights). I've been using fields to school in and find that it improves our precision as there is no track to fall back to and I use random tufts and weeds as markers to practice dressage tests too (so they're never truly rectangular) and to perfect (!) straight lines. I also do some schooling out on hacks but we mostly have roads so mostly leg yielding and rhythm.
 
AshTay said:
Fantastic and inspiring thread and much needed as was starting to feel sorry for myself not having daily access to a pristine all-weather school. We do have a school but it's sand and is just too deep for my mare for most of the summer (then it's too dark in the winter as no lights). I've been using fields to school in and find that it improves our precision as there is no track to fall back to and I use random tufts and weeds as markers to practice dressage tests too (so they're never truly rectangular) and to perfect (!) straight lines. I also do some schooling out on hacks but we mostly have roads so mostly leg yielding and rhythm.
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If you are on a quiet road you can also do shoulder in, travers and half pass. Also, change between riding "up" into a contact and stretching down. I actually found teaching my mare shoulder in and travers out hacking hugely beneficial as it meant we weren't limited to the length of the school, and also didn't get distracted by moving off the "track" in the early stages.

When we are having a stretchy hack, I find stretching the neck gently from side to side, while keeping the body straight (no falling into shoulder in!) very useful. When we are having a more "up" ride, we will do an exercise that goes from shoulder in to renvers, then turning the shoulder round to change to shoulder in on the "other rein", and then into renvers. I find this incredibly useful for suppling my mare, and to be honest isn't something I would have room to do if I was schooling in an arena at her current training level.

Also, leg yielding or half passing out around obstables (cars, drain covers etc) - can either leg yield in and half pass back (maintaining the direction of flexion) the other way round, or do the same in both directions (so leg yield out, leg yield in, so using a change of flexion).

I always like to try and find a new exercise every week or so that we can do out hacking!! ;)
 
I once found a little grass clearing out hacking that I used as a school... Keep an eye out for places like that and you may even be able to put up markers so that you can practice whole tests and accuracy, as the restricted space is the one thing it's hard to prepare for.
 
What a timely thread - I was about to post the same thing tonight :) There isn't a school at my yard but I would love to have flatwork and jumping lessons, I was wondering if these would be possible on grass?
 
Lévrier;12984483 said:
What a timely thread - I was about to post the same thing tonight :) There isn't a school at my yard but I would love to have flatwork and jumping lessons, I was wondering if these would be possible on grass?
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Yes, but with the proviso that you may have to cancel if the weather is poor, and the field gets slippery. As long as you have an understanding RI, you should be fine.

(I have an arena now, but coped for 25 years without one).
 
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