help please schooling a horse with no facilities

[482739]

heya my friend ahs kindly loaned me her horse intill the summer as she hasn t got time for it at the moment but she is 5 and just back and cant jump i can get to a arena once a week. I was wondering what exercises you could do on hacks etc to school then and help them leran to jump many thanks xxxx

 

[Blizzard]

There is a book out called schooling while you hack, might be useful?

other than that, transitions etc, you cant really teach her to jump without a school, horse doesnt want to be learning over logs that dont move when she hits them.

 

[madhector]

i have a similar problem, used to take my mare to an arena once a week, but have found it isnt really enough for her, so now i go twice a week for half an hour, seems to suit her better, the rest of the time i hack , trying to make the hacks more like schooling sessions, but she is a funny one, and doesnt really think work unless she is in a school or field, have a nice quiet lane that we prctice lateral work on, which seems to be sinking in

 

[sunny123]

I have this problem aswell, wont be so bad when i move because i will have an almost flat field but at the moment i just make every hack into a schooling session, working on both my position and the nutcase. You can do pretty much everything that you can do in a school apart from circles and it is more interesting than just going round the school because you have scarey things aswell! I do lots of transitions, lateral work, bending everything really. However, for me, the circle issue is a problem because that is what Sunny really really really needs to improve ... i cant wait to move!

 

[The Original Kao]

[ QUOTE ]
heya my friend ahs kindly loaned me her horse intill the summer as she hasn t got time for it at the moment but she is 5 and just back and cant jump i can get to a arena once a week. I was wondering what exercises you could do on hacks etc to school then and help them leran to jump many thanks xxxx

[/ QUOTE ]

most of the places i've worked we never had an arena we just used a corner of the field. its harder work for the rider cause u really need to keep the horses attention, and pay a lot more attention urself. but its a very good alternative

 

[WallisM]

Hey there !
You sound like me, I am moving next weekend wooohoooo

I can't do much riding in the winter due to know facilities, And my field owner who I rent off would go mad if I started riding in the field.

I can't wait to get on my boy in the arena.
Roll on next Saturday.
Wallis
x

 

[evsj]

Hi. I used to have this problem because the school at my yard was always water-logged in the winter. luckily i had the whole of salisbury plain to exercise on so i did most of my scooling there. you can do pretty much the same things that you do in the school with you horse, just try to find a quiet corner of a field where the ground is good (and you are allowed to ride on it). use natural features as markers - clumps of nettles/stones/ fence posts etc and work away! the difference is that your horse may not be as attentive as they are in the school so things like transitions would be good to help get him to listen.

 

[Petrie]

You can teach horses to jump over (little) logs - we used to with the hunters years ago before the days when everyone had arenas!!

We would jump the 4 yr olds over little logs and ditches out on hacks, following an older horse at first. Actually quite good as it teaches them to pick their feet up and be careful as log doesn't fall down, and they're not going to hurt themselves over a tiny log.

Then they would go cubbing, and continue their education in the hunting field. Most of them ended up being awesome jumpers, but they weren't ever schooled much on the flat or over coloured poles - for that you need a school, or a good field.

You could also get some poles and do polework with her in a field - start with trotting poles on the ground, then you could raise one end alternately.

While you're hacking, you can do leg yielding and all those kind of thing, practise your outline, shortening and lengthening strides.

Hacking is fantastic for young horses, and I think if you have the use of the school once a week and hacking the rest of the time, it sounds perfect for a horse that has only just been backed. You want her going forward off the leg before she starts doing lots of circles.

 

[clipclop]

Ditto the others.

I have no facilities either just a slopey field.

Out hacking I tend to do leg yielding, shoulder in, bending, transitions, quick transisions, transitions within the gait (Shorten walk, lengthen walk, shorten trot, legthen trot), square halts.

I practice my position a lot. I ride a lot of my hacks with no stirrups. (Quiet areas only) I also ride out wqith different length stirrups. One day I shorten them to jumping length and I will practive my jumping seat whilst hacking. The aim is to stay balanced during transitions. This is a great exercise to improve your balance and strengthen your lower leg.

I also ask my horse to stretch down and do a long rein walk. I do this a few times during the the hack.

I also spend a lot of time playing with my position and seeing how he reacts to slight adjustments.

I suppose all in all depending on my mood I will spend half my time on a hack working on something and the other half just "hacking" and checking out the scenery.

I find "Tina Sederholms" book is really good to find some "Different" exercises.