how to deal with stupidly excited 5 year old.

Piaffey

Piaffey

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Just wanting some opinions on how you would deal with said 5 year old when ridden.

Calm in walk, getting tense in trot and becmoning a coiled spring as it goes on in anticipation of canter.

Bucking, plunging in canter and not settling at all. Trot work after just as tense wanting to canter again...

I was going to suggest that, every time she gets tense, return to walk, drop reins and free walk for a period of time. Then pick up again. Opinions on this or suggestions?
Thanks

Oh, all things checked ie back etc.
 
Probably just patience. Doing sessions with no canter, yes going back to walk and giving a long rein and trying to stay v relaxed yourself. In time it will improve.
 
Patience probably your only option. Can you canter out on hacks? Introducing some longer steady canters out hacking might take the novelty away?
 
I backed a youngster once who would only walk and canter like you I tried to keep it calm and return to walk.. One session with a dutch dressage trainer sorted him out!

His advice was instead of holding back and restricting the horse (which encourages them to buck and bounce) to ride him forward in canter, after about 20mins said horse wanted to come back to trot and he made me push him forward into canter again and keep repeating until I was ready to ask for trot and the horse of course was then willing to oblige. It was a long session and I was very fit at the time but worked a treat and a lesson I have used since with the same success.
 
EQUISCENE said:
I backed a youngster once who would only walk and canter like you I tried to keep it calm and return to walk.. One session with a dutch dressage trainer sorted him out!

His advice was instead of holding back and restricting the horse (which encourages them to buck and bounce) to ride him forward in canter, after about 20mins said horse wanted to come back to trot and he made me push him forward into canter again and keep repeating until I was ready to ask for trot and the horse of course was then willing to oblige. It was a long session and I was very fit at the time but worked a treat and a lesson I have used since with the same success.
Click to expand...

I do the above when lunging as my 5yo likes to tank off and go loopy and won't listen, it works a treat after a couple of sessions!
 
Hey hun, how are you? I hope you are well? Sorry to hear shes misbehaving.

Have you tried giving her what she wants and literally as soon as you get on do a small amount of walk then straight into canter - canter her in a forward seat round and round, lots of circles and changes of rein with a quick leg change through trot. Do this until she gets tired out, even if you have to do it for half an hr. She will soon get bored of cantering and want to trot, but when you feel her tiring you must push her on as she cant just stop when she wants to just because shes a bit tired.

What is she being fed out of interest?

Id love to come and have a sit on her and a catch up sometime maybe?! :D
 
Thanks everyone.

I've just been over to give loan owner a lesson. Trouble is, she hack to the school (15 mins) then lunges and she is STILL loopy. I think she is just terribly fit now!

So we went into the school, lunged on each rein for a teeny bit and then she got on. Walked around calmly but spooked at the jumps (nothing unusual there). When I asked her to ride her into a trot she immediately started chucking her hed up, attempting to do mini rears, bucks etc. So i asked her to bring her straight back to a free walk. it became evident that, as soon as she started, loand owner was holding her head. This, I think, was making her very tense and upset. So told her to just let her have her head more, give and retake and she did start to calm down a bit. Canter was the same but after a lot of giving and taking and also half halts, the canter improved. She is just quite a hot head and doesnt like too much contact.

Tempi, name a day to come and ride her as you have been meaning to for AGES now! LOL.
 
A couple of pics of her today-
222172_10150159440838655_526633654_6566330_1426896_n-1.jpg


217716_10150159441148655_526633654_6566335_255294_n-1.jpg
 
VERY nice!
my natural inclination is to get her into canter and not let her stop and to make canter work hard e.g. lateral work, changes of rein and tempo etc etc. however, that doesn't work with my stupidly excited 6 year old and didn't work when he was a 5 year old :rolleyes:...all it did was get him fitter and fitter so he could mess about for longer the next time:eek:. only way i can deal with him is to ignore it and just make him do things in walk everytime he wants to be naughty. also have to intersperse schooling sessions with galloping/cantering on hacks to get it out of his system
 
Tempi, I forgot to answer your Q's. I have tried the cantering on before but she doesn't seem to tire! But maybe I hadn't done enough of it?!
As for food, she is only on grass!
 
Diggerbez, thanks I think she is quite nice hence the reason I don't think I'm ready to give up just yet.
Lots of cantering seems to just hype her up more, although. As I said to Tempi, perhaps I'm still not doing enough?

As you can see in pics, I got rider to really give and take alternate reins until she was in self carriage more and it seemed to work.
Said rider fell off her in that school at end of last year and fractured the bottom of her back so I can understand why she is holding on a little too much which Ad's does not like. Yesterday was a real success I felt as by the time we had finished she was lovely and soft.
 
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