Just dreading the dressage!!!

[Miss Tipps]

Any advice, thoughts, shoulders to cry on are most welcome.

My boy jumps, lives to jump, loves to jump. He is also more than capable of riding a decent dressage test. So I started to event him last season (I've had him 18 months now) - mainly unaff and then did a BE towards the end of the season (before he and I went lame).

His problem is that he just has a major crisis as soon as he get in the the dressage arena - spooks, head comes up and he's practically catatonic at some points. The worst came last week when I took him to do an unaff prelim and got 48.8%!!! - worst ever. Now I only took him for 'desensitisation', but instead I've come away with demoralisation - not one nice word was said on the score sheet. I have our first ODE of the season next week and now I'm on a total downer.

I know I should just shrug my shoulders and move on, the whole idea is to 'just keep doing it', but its really bummed me out :-(

 

[eventersrus]

Do you have an instructor? If so could they come with you? Maybe get them to ride your horse in a test and see if they can pinpoint the problems/answers

 

[catembi]

Oooh, I SO know where you're coming from with this! I BD & BSJA in equal amounts & my horse flips in the dr. On Sat, he was fine in the warmup then 2 seconds later in his test, he was being just as you've described ie brain in neutral & not responding to the controls. He thinks the white boards are jumps so it sends him over the edge.

I'm trying to desensitize by taking him to as much dr as possible & on Sat I did 2 tests, 90 mins apart, & rode him quite a lot in the break to take the edge off. He did actually have 1/2 a brain for his 2nd test, which is 1/2 more than usual.

My last horse (in my avatar) was an out & out showjumper & was exactly the same. It took me about 18 months to persuade him that when the *dressage* bell rang, it didn't mean that he had to run off & jump something...

I don't think there's a shortcut - I think you have to do as much dr as poss until he chills out.

Good luck - I know it's disheartening getting rubbish marks, but you *will* come thru the other side!

 

[Nosey]

I totally empathise with you on this one!! Just a thought have you ever considered trying your hand at a harder test than a prelim for practice? Only suggesting cos mine also loves her jumping but is a complete twit in her dressage. I have recently gone out and done a few Novice and even an Ele and amazingly she was so much better cos she had to concentrate! Prelim allowed her the time to prat about..she'd do some lovely bits then do a massive spook or similar!
Don't be demoralised - I am sure its not that bad. If you can find a good instuctor i am sure it will make all the difference and you will improve. Don't beat yourself up and think its all bad - work on improving one or two things at a time then move on. Def. lots of outings helps too but with a supportive trainer you should at least see the improvements inbetween events.