how to make work in aschool more fun - for me and my poor horse

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narkymare

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Me and my daughter bought our horse last year but he became very nappy and strong with her - totally put her off so i have started having lessons on him but im only at the trot stage
We are doing really well thanks to a fabulous instructor - but, i am sick to bloody death of the school and i know he is
Our yard is on a busy main road and im not ready to take him out yet (my instructor knows this is my aim and will let us know when we are both ready)
So - considering i can only walk and trot - is there anything i can do to make it more fun????
Its so boring going round and round in circles - any ideas????????????

ps my instructor has done so well with us - our horse has completely changed, i can control his napping and spooking. My daughter sat on him bareback last week and was amazed at how much he has improved - so she is restarting lessons on him next week which im well chuffed about x
 
It's great that you are controlling his napping!

Anyway, there are loads of things that you can do in walk and trot - turn about the forehand/turn on the forehand - it might seem a bit complicated at first, but comes in useful for opening and closing gates and getting the horse to move his quarters, leg yielding and plenty more. Do you do lots of school movements? You can ride circles spiralling in and out, changing the rein on a circle with an S shape, half voltes, serpentines, etc, etc.

Practising transitions, and even acute transitions once your seat is good enough so halt-trot-halt.

For a bit of fun good old gymkhana games can liven things up, so bending through poles, having potato races, you can use stones and a bucket or even a fence post to put the potatoes in, all help with control while making things a bit more 'fun'

Another thing that can take away the boredom factor is to work on exercises for you without stirrups/reins.
 
Half halt,poles on the ground small jumps that you can trot over or how about the western Barrels, you could start off at walk as it's figure of 8, go on to trot and as you get better canter, but you would need good brakes for that, but at least you would be on correct diagonal and at canter, correct foreleg and a lot of riders do very well at it.:D:D
 
My chap likes going round obstacles, otherwise he tends to get bored (as well as me!). We do serpentines round jumps, and practise turning on the forehand and haunches round cones. We have also started experimenting with shoulder in - this is a useful thing to be able to do out on hacks as well, to get past scary things!
 
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