Excercises Whilst Schooling

C

chessi

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 November 2005
Messages
482
Location
Lancashire
Visit site
When im riding bill, he gets bored of figure of eight,circles and serpentines..
What other excercises can we do? walk,trot or canter.
Help mucho apreciato!!
smile.gif
 
Try riding on the inner track rather than around the edge - a true test of whether your horse relies on the surround/fence for balance.
Have you done lateral work? How about some simple leg yields in walk - you can do one stride sideways then one side straight which is a good exercise.
Or - ten metre circles followed by leg yield out in trot.
Or - shallow loops from the track to the centre line and back again, if you wanted to be clever you could ride these loops in canter which would effectively be 'counter canter'.
Transitions are very important so you can never stop practicing these.
What about pole work?
Walk pirouettes/turns on the forehand?
Shoulder in?
Extensions of strides - e.g. short side of the school collect, long side extend....
the possibililities are endless....!!
 
OK. Best thing to do is to ride down the 3/4 line of your school. Start in walk, nice and straight with horse working from leg to hand. Then flex horses head to the outside (only slightly), apply what is now your inside leg. Think of your horse moving forward and sideways at the same time (ie not just sideways). Your horse should move away from the inside leg (tap with inside leg if required). Keep hold of what is now the outside rein to stop horse falling out through shoulder. Also keep outside leg supporting just so horse does not fall out through it. Does that make sense at all???
Remember to go forwards not just sideways or you will make it too difficult. If you get too much angle and horse falls out straighten up before trying again. Finish with some straight strides.
 
Great!! Wasn't sure if that made sense. Carl Hester has done some good articles on this kind of work in the past if you are after written guides....
 
Leg-yields, lengethening and shortening of strides, different sized circles.. can't think of many at the moment!

Have you got any dressage tests lurking about? Cos then you could have a play about at them - or make up your own!
smile.gif
 
This confused me a tad... Are you yielding towards the centre line or the track here?

If you're yielding towards the track (which is the easiest to begin with), then flexing to the outside is asking for halfpass not leg yield.

If yielding towards the centre line then yes, this is correct but again, Id go towards the track first purely for ease. (That is to say, horses hang to the track anyway, so this can be used to your advantage when teaching leg yield)

But yes, the rest is correct (and i suspect im just not sure which way you're going here so you're prolly right there too !
tongue.gif
)

Either way, for leg yield, make sure the horse is flexed away from the direction you're moving. If you flex into, you're going for halfpass.

Aside from that for exercises... lots of transitions... shoulder in (can start with shoulder fore and build upto this) and leg yield were both mentioned already... lots of circling for suppling and lots of riding your horse in different neck carriages. Warm up long and low, pick up for a while for more intense schooling, then drop long and low again to cool off
smile.gif
 
I was talking about leg yielding from left to right, so from outside to inside....half pass is indeed where horses head is flexed in the direction of travel...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top