Medium Trot Aids

L

Loubiepoo

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During my lesson today we've been practising medium trot and my instructor says that my horse needs to learn an aid or signal for when I'm asking for some medium strides, e.g a bit of tongue clicking or a couple of taps with the whip on the hindquarters. So, I was wondering if anyone else does this and what signals you use to help your horse.
Thanks.
 
for a start, i would not encourage you to use a vocal aid as in dressage this is cheating and is penalised.

The horse i ride responds to my leg moveing back coupled with pressure from both legs and a half halt on the rein to contain the pressure. i suppose i must do something with ma seat.. but i dont know what!!!!
LOL
Lou x
 
From a showjumper...

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Kick harder and hold on
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BTW Can someone tell me, we used to use the term 'extended trot' where the horse lengthens their stride and appears to flick the toes in each stride of trot. I don't hear that term used very often these days if at all, so is it now called something else
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Extended trot is different to Medium, normally extended means that not only the pace is extended but so is the frame of the horse, often the carriage of the head is lower compared to medium (i think but its been a long time since I had to think about that!) Toe flicking is not correct and would marked down as it often doesnt show the back end engaging and therefore is not "true"
 
I go with allowing hands forwards a bit and moving legs forward and on.

Mostly though it comes from the setting up, half halting i guess, before asking. Just wakes him up to what he's doing. Oh, and thorugh repetition he knows the med trot mostly happens across the long diagonal and is ready as soon as we turn
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[ QUOTE ]
Extended trot is different to Medium, normally extended means that not only the pace is extended but so is the frame of the horse, often the carriage of the head is lower compared to medium (i think but its been a long time since I had to think about that!) Toe flicking is not correct and would marked down as it often doesnt show the back end engaging and therefore is not "true"

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Thanks for the clarification
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I never knew that about the toe flicking either...I thought it was the desired result
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Just as well I don't 'do' trot eh
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I have been teaching my horse this recently and have settled on letting him have his head slightly so he lengthens his frame, putting my leg on a bit and rising higher and over the pommel more so that he doesn't just rush. It works well at home but we need polishing for tests
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Desired result may have a look of flicking the toes, however if the horse is only flicking the toes then its not medium or extended.

If you watch the top dressage horses, the power you see will always come from the back end which then pushes the horse forwards in to a bigger pace

Great place to practice getting your medium trots etc is on a set of gallops with another horse alongside, it takes a while but once they get the hang of it, its a great place to practice as you have no boundaries like in a school
 
I normally lift my hands slightly higher to encourage him to lift his frame and try rising higher and really closing my pelvic muscles when I sit.

Whatever u do just try to be consistent and eventually it will click - it took a while for my horse but now he understands what I am asking.
 
I'm trying to learn this too at the moment!! Amazingly enough, the dressage judge I have 'ttop-up' lessons with once a month or so got us to do it better than ever before in one lesson! Where I have to hold my horse's trot from rushing by using my core stability muscles, she advised that to get medium trot all I need to do is set him up properly (almost gather him together) just before asking, then relax my stomach muscles, little bit of leg and allow slightly with my hands and .....whoosh, off he goes! Actually, whoosh is probably the wrong term, as he doesn't speed up, just powers through from behind!
I'm lucky really as he is very off the leg and if anything I had to tone down the aids I was using to ask for it as our main problem was that he would break into canter/rush the trot.
However once we got the hang of it, we just applied exactly the same principles to canter and straight away had medium canter. Brilliant, and so not what I had been taught before!
 
My WBxTB is generally v lazy but we taught him medium trot by playing 'chase the pony' in the school and now he associates the aids (legs forward/pelvis forward) with the meduim without the need for a pony to chase! He loved learning medium as he saw it as a way of being naughty and doing what he wanted!
 
mary king does that "dddrrrrdddrrrrdddrrr" noise at the back of her throat (a bit like a tiger growling) which i can't do, but it certainly is a different noise that the horses learn to associate with the medium trot. she did it in a brilliant demo i went to.
 
[ QUOTE ]
mary king does that "dddrrrrdddrrrrdddrrr" noise at the back of her throat (a bit like a tiger growling) which i can't do, but it certainly is a different noise that the horses learn to associate with the medium trot. she did it in a brilliant demo i went to.

[/ QUOTE ]

She also goes 'mm-mm' for canter!
 
The key to a good medium is all in the preparation - you really want to have them sitting on their hocks, so then it is just a case of 'releasing' the trot.

You also need to make sure the horse is in front of your leg - the leg should not actually be doing anything when you are riding along, it should only come into play when you want the horse to do something different. So I like mine to go into the medium off a single leg aid, remembering to give the rein forward as the horse needs to lengthen their entire frame.
 
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