expectations of a 5 year old Belgian wb

grayv

grayv

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I bought a 5year old 16.1hh bw last summer and for the most of the time have been hacking out due to shool being flooded,hacking she is great, very brave also have done some schooling. Although her canter is very well established ( think she did a bit of jumping in belgium before importing and probably not talented enough for them to keep!!) she is not particulary forward on the flat, transitions from walk to trot, are a lot of effort, slow walk too...in terms of training what would you expect a 5 year old to be doing, I am hoping to do more dressage on her than the jumping... just ordered 2 books! do have an instructor too but only twice a month..

the other day we were doing trotting poles one placed at the c, a, e an f, we did a few circles in trot, came to go over in canter and she jumped it like i was 6ft!!...now nursing a sore bum!! do you think this may have been too much for her??? would really appreciate you thoughts and ideas on what sort of schooling you would do.. thanks
 
I wouldn't worry too much, it's quite common at that age for them to not be particularly forward in the school. Keep sessions short and sweet with lots of praise and also do other things (as you are, like hacking, polework, etc), and it'll come.
 
My 5 yo dutch warmblood has spent the majority of last 3 years hacking with me, working on schooling now but can work in a basic outline walk trot and canter and jump a 2ft course (rider issues here not horse!)
 
Hmm, well I would expect a 5 year old to be doing an awful lot more than that, presupposing a steady progression without setbacks of course. I'd expect my dressage 5 year old to be competing Novice/Elementary, and schooling solid Elem - Med. Potential showjumpers would be competing 90 - 1m, schooling higher and doing basic flying changes by now. Hunters would be in their 2nd season, Eventing I know very little about.
 
Rosie has had a couple of BW horses and now has another, all youngsters and all different in how advanced they were at the beginning. They have all evented as will the new boy, Stan (he's mine by the way and I love him to bits ;)).

I'm sure you're not doing too much and the huge jumps at the start seem to be par for the course. I gather the system in Belgium is to get them started at everything at quite a young age and then sell on.
Warmbloods are notoriously slow to mature but hacking out bravely is surely a great start to any horse's career. Good luck with her :)
 
If the horse has come from the continent, and with a SJ background, then IMO it's perfectly normal that the canter will be streets ahead of the trot. The horse will have been worked primarily in canter.....as that is what is required for SJ.

If you purchased as a rising 5 year old, I would guess (if it has come from a semi professional background) that it would have been jumping 1m minimum as a course and considerably more at home.

Re transitions.....I guess that walk/canter is spot on....hence anything involving an intermediary (trot) being more difficult as it is less accustomed to it.

Forget what a rising 6 year old should be doing! Ride the horse in front of you! If you want this horse to do dressage, then treat it as a recently backed youngster and work on the quality of the trot and transitions.
 
thanks everyone for the reassurance...:) off out later for a lesson, here comes lots of trot transitions..
 
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