Making a good new start! Schooling advice please?

[Sol]

Just been thinking, now it seems that Danny is *fingers crossed* all fixed, we might actually get some decent work out of him!

But, I'm well known (if only by myself) for being schooling crazy - to the point where I'm more than a little boring and repetitive

I know that he's got at least some ability hidden away some where, and want to make the best of it. I'm just not entirely sure how to go about it!

How can I make sure that I keep schooling sessions as effective as possible, and don't end up doing endless circles achieving nothing??

 

[Sal_E]

Guess it's about having a plan & sticking to it, bar unexpected problems...

So decide how many times you should school a week, how long those sessions should generally be & what you're working on/wanting to achieve. Endless circles don't really achieve much, so just think about making your sessions constructive & keep asking yourself 'why am I doing this?' - if the answer is 'just cause I enjoy it' then maybe it's time for a different exercise or an early finish! If you're lacking inspiration in times of variety, there's loads of books with great exercises or a few lessons may be a good idea...

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

plan your sessions.

i generally find that horses like a routine in the warm up section as this settles them helps them relax mentally and thus be in the best state of mind to loosen off the muscles easily and effectively.
i generally work my horses in a long and low , or lower and deeper outline dependant on conformation and that horses particular *issues*.
some long but shallow leg yields and some transitions stretching down form the basis of my warm up.

the, pick a couple of trot based things to work and a couple of canter based things, and although you have to be open to change try and stick to your plan.

dont do more than a cirlce without changing something, tempo, pace, direction, outline etc.

do progressive and direct transtiton

once the horse gets stronger vary the trot or canter within the lateral work-go medium-collected in shoulder in to help the trot and go leg yielding in collected canter then straight in to a medium canter.

change the flexion to build supplenes-flex and counter flex in all 3 paces

if you can give me some more specifics of what your horse finds hard i can give more detailed ideas

 

[Sol]

Thanks

I have a lesson at least once a week usually, and will be starting a bit of dressage & maybe jumping again soon which also helps, and the idea of joining Pony Club is becoming more and more attractive as that'll give us both something else to do!

Hmm, maybe I'll try and work out some things that we can aim for every month or so to work towards?

 

[Sol]

ooh, thank you!

Off the top of my head... he struggles a lot with his canter still - very unbalanced, rushed, and he likes to try and lean on your hand (or so I find, because I'm very light handed it SEEMS heavy), any attempt to slow the canter usually ends up with him leaning until he falls back to trot.
He also tends to like to bend too much to the inside and fall out through his shoulder

And generally pay more attention to everyone else than me!