Improving the medium trot… Dressage people!

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spotty_pony

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My boy is conformationally quite short backed and finds collected work easier than extended work. Having just read an article about the thoughts on teaching medium trot too early. The writer of the article believes that medium trot shouldn't be introduced until at least Prix St Georges level because of the stress it puts on the horse. It is believed that this is why so many horses break early on in their Dressage Career (as obviously medium trot is introduced at Novice Level, which is considered too early, and before the horse is physically strong enough.)

I am in too minds as to what to do as he finds it difficult. Don't want to put unnecessary stress on him but as I'm planning on moving up to Novice Level at some stage I would obviously need to be able to do medium trot, he is now fluent in passage, shoulder in and half pass and we are working on walk pirouettes and introducing Piaffe at the moment (he finds the collected work easy! and has built up the correct muscle over time to be able to hold himself correctly.)

I have been introducing medium trot from passage to make the difference moving forward and bringing back clear. We have also done some lengthened trot poles. Anyone have any advice? And how much quality does the medium trot need to have at novice level?

Thanks :)
 
If you are doing proper passage and piaffe at the moment, then a medium is not going to do the damage you are fearing - especially as it is a more natural movement for a horse (they do it in the field), compared to the piaffe and passge. These, IMO, will be doing more damage to your horse if introduced incorrectly or too young :(
 
At Novice you only need to show a few strides (it doesnt have to be the whole diagonal or long side). So providing there is a clear difference with a few lengthened strides then that is all you need.

I would take the article you read with a pinch of salt - one person's opinion vs years of the agreed structure to dressage (which is similar all over the world including from the Germans). Heck the Germans introduce mediums (canter and trot) at the very first level of dressage!

I appreciate different people have different views, but surely the levels of dressage, around the world, that have been in place many many years cannot be so drastically wrong? Equally there must be a reason why piaffe, passage etc is not introduced until the upper levels - because of its sheer difficulty and demands they place on the horse.

Not saying you are wrong with your horse, after all you know your horse best and if he finds collected work easy then so be it. But it doesnt mean that asking him to do something he doesnt find easy is going to injure him, nor does it mean easy work wont injure him either.

Suspensories seem to be the most common dressage injuries (hind) and that could easily come from piaffe, passage, medium strides, extended strides....generally anything that is putting a lot of pressure on the hind legs. Dressage is based on the use of the hind, this is deemed as the horse working correctly if they are using their hindquarters and hind legs - so naturally that is where the majority of injuries are going to occur. Dressage is by nature quite repetitive, we train the same movements week after week to see improvements. This repetitive nature is what tends to cause the injury, not one particular movement like medium trot.

Looking at horses who have fewer injuries than DR horses - often they are the all-rounders who lead a varied life. All horses can get injured, even out in the field anything can happen. But if a horse has a varied life, doing lots of hacking, flatwork, pole work, jumping etc then there is a much reduced risk of 'repetitive' injury because they do different things.

This article is very much based on common sense - http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/training/avoiding-dressage-injuries/#

So it shows that extensions are just as bad as collected work like pirouettes IF they are performed incorrectly before the horse has built the correct muscle to perform the job.

Was this the article you read? If not I presume it was something similar:
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/31...es-could-be-linked-to-excessive-extended-trot

Even this article, which details a scientific experiment (albeit a TINY sample group of horses) shows that whilst the extended trot (note extended not medium) does place more strain on the hind suspensories - it is the same issue for most movements, the horse needs to correct muscle prior to performing these movements in order to minimise risk of injury.

Introduce mediums slowly, dont repeat too often and as Novice only requires a few strides, perform a few strides at home then reward and move onto something else. I'm sure you introduced the high level collected movements slowly, and it is simply the same principle for the medium strides. Slowly, without too much repetition.
 
i would say dont worry too much! (unless you absolutely want to go out and win) my welsh cob seriously struggles with the mediums and we compete at novice with scores averaging around 65% - at most you have two movements with the medium trots in- there is plenty of other places to make up marks - slowly slowly over the past 6 months as he has gotten stronger over the back and can take more weight behind his marks for the medium have been creeping up - we got a 7 for each last time out! if in doubt, i was advised by my instructor to ride the working trot before hand a little more collected so when you do go for "medium", its actually more of a big working trot but the difference is still shown, not entirely correct, but serves a purpose! :) good luck :)
 
I moved up to Novice about 6 months ago, as my lad was getting bored at Prelims. We have by no means mastered the Medium Trot, but the tests give us more to work with, and in some tests it's only one movement.

I say don't worry too much, go for it. As someone above says, at Novice, it's only "show some strides"
 
It's worth reminding yourself that if you show a good transition into and out of the medium and show a difference in correct way it's hard for the judge to give less than a six .
Don't obsess to much about it , show in the tests what he can do in as correct a way as possible .
 
Article sounds interesting - I personally work on the assumption a horse should only be asked to extend as much as they can collect - otherwise you run the risk of just running them on to the forehand which can't be good for the legs if you did it a lot! However if your horse is already playing with piaffe & passage I would imagine he should already strong enough behind to start working on producing some longer trot strides in balance with a good transition back and forward.

At novice you don't have to maintain the medium trot from 1 marker to another and don't forget that the quality of the transitions will also affect the marks you get. If you demonstrate some difference in stride length without falling on forehand and can transition back again without the horse bracing, hollowing or changing tempo you'll get a good mark.

My horse has a natural ability for extension so I though medium trots would be our highlight on a test - and sometimes it is - but I soon realised that if I asked for too much stride length/power than he had the strength to balance behind, he would fall flat or the transition back was rushed or tense meaning we'd still end up with a 6 in a test despite showing 'significant difference' in stride - it's not just what you do - it's how you do it too!

Rather than viewing extension as the opposite of collection I now concentrate on improving his elasticity with lots of forwards and backwards transitions within the trot - you don't want to ask for more forwards than you can bring back and balance as it's the quality of the transitions that produces the benefit. As elasticity improves you can start asking for bigger more powerful strides (and more of them) and conversely more shorter/upwards ones - but it is a gradual process. It totally makes sense to me that collection comes before extension personally - as you can't have a correct extension without collection.
 
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I too have a short coupled horse. Part of his training is to ask for a variance of pace ( I hesitate to call it collected, working and medium!) as well as asking him to stretch then back up etc. My trainer has started to introduce pole work as well. This is 2 fold, one to reintroduce him to poles again as a precursor to him jumping again and the other is to help him sit more. Her aim is to have him able to offer a truly collected trot really using his back end over raised poles as he builds up strength and he can show a difference in pace now. I should caveat this by also saying we are where we are with training as he tried to remove his front leg by sawing it in a haynet and it has been a long and horribly frustrating journey (since last August) to get him back up again. His training is also reflecting what the physio/vet and farrier are doing as well.
 
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