Lazy youngster help?

[alice.j]

I slightly feel like all I ever do is post on this forum but it's been giving me lots of good answers so I'm just going to carry on

Little bit of background: I currently ride a 5 year old Appy x NF, who we brought in from the Forest in Feb. Their Forest-run herd tends to spend the winter months hanging around home (because they get fed!) so he wasn't very fit, compared to the ponies now (we've just brought another one in and he's got the biggest bum ever!). He's been under saddle since early April, and been ridden at least 5 times a week since then (apart from some time off for an abscess a couple of months ago). He's a lot fitter than he was, we can go for long hacks, over an hour, with a lot of trotting (we've only just started cantering this week) and he doesn't really start to get tired until the very end - I can tell because he always starts head shaking when he's tired!

For the past six weeks or so I've been schooling him twice a week. To start with, 20 minutes was more than enough, and he'd start head shaking towards the end, but he'd always be forward going and trying to work. Recently, after ten minutes (if that), he's begun to get lazy, and I have to keep pushing him forwards, even in walk, but he doesn't head shake at all, even if I'm in the arena for more than half an hour. I'm trying to keep adding new things, and I make sure to space out the schooling sessions and keep them short but active - which is difficult when your horse doesn't want to be active! I'll give him lots of time to walk around in between trot work, but we do a lot of circling in these walk periods (to keep it more interesting and to supple and strengthen him); could this be part of the problem?

Next time I school him I'll take a long whip in with me (although if he does move forward it may be because he's convinced the whip will eat him!), but is there anything else I can do? Is this just a youngster phase (I've had youngsters before, but not in this part of their training), is it to do with his fitness and he'll get more forward as he keeps getting fitter, should I be doing more or less schooling?
Any help is greatly appreciated, as always

 

[BethH]

Hi - just an observation that he is doing a lot for a just backed pony (am assuming he is backed this year?). Do you think he needs a little bit of time to think about what you've taught him so far? I was taught to be guided by age, so when my boy got to 5, he was ridden no more than 5 times a week, max 1hr hack and only 20 mins max in the school twice a week like you. I wanted every session to finish on a good note and for it to be an enjoyable learning experience so we used some ground poles to do lots of patterns and transitions to and to help balance as that is the most tiring thing for a young horse especially when learning how to carry a rider. I should add that my horse had been in work since a 4yr old after being backed and turned away for a while, so he was more established and able to cope with this, I would have done less if it made the sessions better quality - so I wonder if he is feeling a bit overloaded?

The other thing I would be doing is spending a lot of time on ground work, getting him long reining and moving his body where you want it and also learning voice commands as this helps when you start to ask for the ridden aids. I think if you threaten with the presence of a whip you could make him stale unless you go carefully. Good luck, they are all so different it's sometimes hard to work out if they are just genuinely lazy, you do want him to be listening and sharp off the leg, but if you can teach him to give you an immediate response from long reins on the ground it should help him understand when ridden !!

 

[JillA]

Like Beth I suspect he is really young to be doing that much, and he is finding schooling not only hard work but pointless and boring as well! He is also probably still adjusting his balance. He will most likely be on his forehand and struggling to drag himself and a rider along - give him time, hacking, up and down hills if you can find them in your area, let him find and adjust his own balance before you give him regular schooling. Next year will be plenty soon enough, feed him decent amounts of protein in the meantime to help him build soft tissue and muscle

 

[alice.j]

Ah, see, I was always taught to keep them working! The friend I ride with (whose stepfather actually owns 'my' pony) tends to back them very quickly, which I didn't do with mine; we did a lot of groundwork because I wanted him as fit and strong as possible before I started to ride him (without being too fit and strong, just in case!), so he's very good when long reining and lunging. He is quite balanced in walk and trot - not in canter yet, which is why I'll wait a few weeks before cantering him in the arena - although more so on one side than the other still. Apart from being quite spooky, he's been so well behaved that we haven't needed to spend a lot of time working on the ground since backing him.
He's never been lazy when out hacking, so maybe cutting back on schooling sessions - the length of time, if not the number a week - could help him; I appreciate that endless circling can be tedious and hard work! He does seem to enjoy being ridden, and due to certain complications (his owner's personality) I don't know how long I'll be able to keep him for, so I can't really make plans for him next year as I don't know where he'll be!
Thanks for your responses, I'll start giving him an extra day off a fortnight at least, if not every week, and see if that helps!

 

[Charlie007]

Like others have said I think he may be doing too much. In comparison my 6 yo tb is hacking twice a week in walk only for 45mins to 1.15mins. One lesson per week 30 mins, one schooling session per week 20-30 mins and one lunge session on the pessoa incorporating poles again for 20 mins. He gets 2 days off per week.

 

[BethH]

My horse is now 16 and I still spend loads of time doing ground work with him, it is a big part of our relationship and allows me to see how he is moving from the ground. Groundwork is invaluable at any age, I find it useful in so many different ways, it is part of his working life and allows us to maintain a really close bond, it has also probably saved his life several times over and I thoroughly enjoy it too, a strong recommendation from me to keep it as part of your schooling routine. Good luck.

 

[flirtygerty]

He's a baby, fat and unfit, this I know cos I have one just like him, my 5yr old cob, sees food and puts weight on, I only work him in short bursts, he will pootle about hacking and love it, (while losing weight and getting fitter) schooling is done little and often, I do more groundwork with him than ridden as I don't want to overface him with hard work, he has the rest of his life for that.
Ps, Hacking is a max of 1 hour at walk, 40 mins with walk and trot

 

[shortstuff99]

He only schools twice a week? I wouldn't class that as a lot. What is he doing the other 3 days?

 

[alice.j]

Like others have said I think he may be doing too much. In comparison my 6 yo tb is hacking twice a week in walk only for 45mins to 1.15mins. One lesson per week 30 mins, one schooling session per week 20-30 mins and one lunge session on the pessoa incorporating poles again for 20 mins. He gets 2 days off per week.

If I may ask, when was your horse backed? With the exception of the lunge session (pessoa + poles = hard work!), that seems like very little work for a 6 year old!

My horse is now 16 and I still spend loads of time doing ground work with him, it is a big part of our relationship and allows me to see how he is moving from the ground. Groundwork is invaluable at any age, I find it useful in so many different ways, it is part of his working life and allows us to maintain a really close bond, it has also probably saved his life several times over and I thoroughly enjoy it too, a strong recommendation from me to keep it as part of your schooling routine. Good luck.

While I see how groundwork is very important, especially early on, and I do lunge my pony occasionally, I don't know why it would help him more than riding? He's very responsive to my voice, both when lunging and long-reining, and responsive to the aids when long-reining. I've never needed to use a whip when lunging him, he's always forward going (unless it's raining!). It would build his strength, but me riding him for 10 minutes will do that a lot faster than me lunging him for 20, and he wouldn't get as tired. What other benefits are there to groundwork? (Excuse me if I'm being thick and missing something important, I haven't had much sleep the past few nights!)

He's a baby, fat and unfit, this I know cos I have one just like him, my 5yr old cob, sees food and puts weight on, I only work him in short bursts, he will pootle about hacking and love it, (while losing weight and getting fitter) schooling is done little and often, I do more groundwork with him than ridden as I don't want to overface him with hard work, he has the rest of his life for that.
Ps, Hacking is a max of 1 hour at walk, 40 mins with walk and trot

Haha, my pony is the opposite of fat! But I know a lot of horses like your cob!

He only schools twice a week? I wouldn't class that as a lot. What is he doing the other 3 days?

I hack him 4 times, twice in walk and trot and twice with a little bit of canter. Nothing too long but enough to keep working on his fitness and stamina.



I guess the main problem for me is that I'm looking at this like I'm training him for a marathon. He's been training for a few months now, and while the end goal is still far away (as it should be!), I feel like we should be at least able to walk-trot 5k (if you get my meaning!), but I'm not sure we can even do half that. Maybe I'm underestimating him, or overestimating what we should be doing, but a lot of the best horses I know were doing more, comfortably, by the time we're now at, even when you consider he had three weeks off with an abscess. Obviously every horse is different, and I wanted to take it slower with him as I'm not 100% confident in my training abilities, but I feel like after 4 months he should be able to trot two 20 meter circles in a row without getting lazy!
He doesn't get exhausted when I school him (no head shaking) and he doesn't get lazy when we're hacking (always forward going), so I'm just getting confused!
I will begin by cutting back the length of time I school him for, and giving him another day off every other week or so, and see where we go from there.

Thank you for all the replies, it's given me a lot of ideas of what to do now!