Medium trot breakthrough!

[tatty_v]

So thrilled with Spooky this morning - we had our first lesson in our grass “arena” (a nice 20x40 patch of flat grass in our field carefully measured out and the letters put in by my fab livery) and not only did he go really nicely, but for the first time ever we cracked medium trot across the long diagonal! A small victory, but such an exciting one. Can’t wait to practice it some more so we can put an end to the “none shown” comments on our novice test sheets 😂

It did get me thinking though whether he prefers the grass arena. He seemed to have more spring, as if the surface of a traditional arena saps some of his energy. Anyone else find this or do I just have an old fashioned pony?!

 

[Wheels]

Brilliant

I get a few steps out hacking but haven't managed it in the arena yet. What marks do you tend to get when it says 'none shown' on your test sheets?

 

[milliepops]

I think not having a boundary like the school boards/fence helps some with less of a natural extension. Similar to how they often pick it up better when out hacking.
Hopefully it will carry over to different environments now you've switched the lightbulb on 💡😁

 

[tatty_v]

Brilliant

I get a few steps out hacking but haven't managed it in the arena yet. What marks do you tend to get when it says 'none shown' on your test sheets?

Depends on how generous and kind the judge is being - 0 from the strict ones, 4 or 5 from the really kind ones! We only compete at unaffiliated though. I’m sure BD would be a lot stricter!

 

[tatty_v]

I think not having a boundary like the school boards/fence helps some with less of a natural extension. Similar to how they often pick it up better when out hacking.
Hopefully it will carry over to different environments now you've switched the lightbulb on 💡😁

Fingers crossed! We first cracked it round the outside of the school after watching your CdJ lesson extract about going at it like roadrunner! This is the first time we’ve cracked it as a specific movement in a specific place rather than having half a circuit of the school to “rev the engine”. Hopefully it’s repeatable! Good tip from my instructor today was to always finish the movement even if it didn’t happen so that he has confidence I’m not going to run him into the corner. Onwards and upwards!

 

[Wheels]

Do you have a link to the CDJ vid?

 

[tatty_v]

Do you have a link to the CDJ vid?

It was in Milliepops’ retrospective thread for her lovely mare Millie I think. Not sure if this link will work?

[video=youtube_share;9aMvge0uGOo]

If not, I think if you search “Millie retrospective” on the forum it should come up. I found it really helpful as we’d been doing all the classic exercises for medium trot e.g. circle in the corner to activate hind leg before turning across long diagonal and asking, but not getting results as I think he just didn’t know what I really wanted. That video gave us the idea of going large and just building and building the trot until he sort of accidentally moved into medium so as to avoid tripping over his own feet! Really helped as it was like the penny dropped and he understood what I wanted 😊 then we got it all the time out hacking and round the school, today the first time we got it in a specific place without a “run up” 😂