Dressage Schooling help!

[Harrietk]

Hi,

So i bred my 15.1 mare she is welsh x warmblood, shes chestnut... not your typical chestnut as she is quiet soft and no nastyness in her. She is 8 years old now and through the years we have been on a few yards where i have not had a menage and have had to travel out for lesson, clinics etc. I now keep her on my partners farm and i can hack to a menage 15 mins away. i manage to get to the the menage around 3 times a week if i'm not busy or alternatively hack her. Bit of an insight on my life.... i work monday - Thursday in an office and run a livery yard of 6 horses on full livery, so i try to ride where i can.

Maybe i am being too hard on myself and my horse but i feel now with my horse being 8 years old she should be able to keep a consistent contact in walk and trot and be able to go large without spooking and constantly coming back at me. Typical schooling session with previous instructors would be on a 20 meter circle transitions, flexing, shoulder in etc to get her into the contact but sill she was never confident going large around the school. my old instructor would say she needs to be kept busy with different movements to keep her thinking, however i felt like i was over complicating the situation and when i would go out to dressage competitions i was the one doing complicated movements to keep my horse with me and everyone else would be there with their horses in a connection just trotting round. Unfortunately the lessons with this instructor was getting expensive at £60 for 45 mins so i stopped before the winter came last year.

My new instructor who i have just found where i use the school that is a 15 min hack away says i need to concentrate on her neck relaxing and stop her resisting just by using my leg and seat. Once she is relaxed in the contact we can join her back legs up. She is very sensitive, forward and has big movement. i wouldn't say i was a bad rider however i feel its just a constant battle when i go and use the school. Is it because i'm not consistent enough with my schooling, is it because shes had the winter off just hacking? or is it me?! i cant say that after each of the lessons i've had we have never finished with what we have wanted as she always submits but i feel by now she should know what i'm asking instead of looking a mile away at a walker, or looking at what the cows are up to in the next field or spooking at F which she has gone past a hundred times.

Her saddle fits fine, i am a light weight tall rider, i would say i could do a little better with my balance however soon as she dips her back and her head is back at me i lose my balance a little. My new instructor has also said my leg is a little unsteady at times and i need to keep the bend in my knee and my heal to her back legs.

As previously mentioned when we go out to unaffiliated dressage competitions she is always in the top 3 with marks at 70% however i feel they are maybe swayed by her uphill movement especially in the canter as i feel that she is not with me 50% of the time.

I do have another welsh c pony that is her half sister who is only 5 and i don't have the same problems with her. I know they are all different.

If any one has any positive feed back id love hear what you think.

 

[maya2008]

If you are otherwise a competent rider who is able to train horses and achieve good outcomes, then I would give this horse an MOT and check there is nothing physical going on.

As I say to my kids, “If every horse you ride does a specific thing/goes a specific way, it is you! If only one of them does, check they haven’t hurt themselves and that everything fits properly.”

I have seen people pay a fortune to instructor after instructor, only to find there are sacroiliac issues or kissing spine or their saddler isn’t actually that great, or...

Equally, some horses are just spooky. But that does usually abate a little with age, and riding consistently in an outline no matter what is going on, is usually achieved age 4 or thereabouts, if you are aiming a horse at dressage or similar. My 4yo still spooks, but she has no issues going in an outline. Some days when the wind is blowing and the rain is horizontal that outline is more tense, but she knows what is expected!

 

[Harrietk]

If you are otherwise a competent rider who is able to train horses and achieve good outcomes, then I would give this horse an MOT and check there is nothing physical going on.

As I say to my kids, “If every horse you ride does a specific thing/goes a specific way, it is you! If only one of them does, check they haven’t hurt themselves and that everything fits properly.”

I have seen people pay a fortune to instructor after instructor, only to find there are sacroiliac issues or kissing spine or their saddler isn’t actually that great, or...

Equally, some horses are just spooky. But that does usually abate a little with age, and riding consistently in an outline no matter what is going on, is usually achieved age 4 or thereabouts, if you are aiming a horse at dressage or similar. My 4yo still spooks, but she has no issues going in an outline. Some days when the wind is blowing and the rain is horizontal that outline is more tense, but she knows what is expected!

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. Yes i think when we are back to normal i will get saddle checked and some xrays to illuminate anything possible.

I mean she has never been a long and low horse, she very short in her neck. for example if i lunge her her head is up in the air so i don't lunge. tried to upload a pic of the horse said but it wont let me.

What do you do with your horses when hacking?.... obvs i don't have a school so when hacking i try to keep her in the contact until she spots something and then her heads up or i push her into the trot and its head up again.

You are right with regards to the instructors, its hard who to know is saying the right thing etc and again yes i feel like by now she knows what im asking.. its not as if its something new i,m trying to teach her. Do you teach your young horses to go in an out line first then ask for push from the back legs once you have that consistency?

Thanks!

 

[Pearlsasinger]

The outline comes from moving correctly from the back end. You can't get the outline first! If you get an approximation, it will be a false outline. TBH it sounds as if your mare isn't getting enough consistent work to develop the correct muscles to move in an outline, which is't your fault but is due to your work pattern and other commitments.

 

[Harrietk]

The outline comes from moving correctly from the back end. You can't get the outline first! If you get an approximation, it will be a false outline. TBH it sounds as if your mare isn't getting enough consistent work to develop the correct muscles to move in an outline, which is't your fault but is due to your work pattern and other commitments.

Yeah this is what i've always been told and taught. My new instructor has said that with regards to her muscles. I suppose i couldn't expect myself to be running a marathon if i only train 2/3 times a week .

Thank you for your opinion

 

[milliepops]

it's so hard to tell without seeing the horse. I agree with maya that in principle if a horse is receiving regular training and not making "normal" kind of progress then it's worth looking more closely for physical issues. I have a very sweet kind mare who I worked so hard to train but just never really seemed to learn - turns out she has an injury in her neck that no one knew about and is now a wobbler. The last one I had to ride that had that failure to progress thing going on, despite being a generally nice easy horse, when I asked the owner to work it up as it wasn't improving, turns out it had ringbone.

WRT the instructor telling you to concentrate on the front end and add the hind legs later, well, I can see a case for that in some instances - if you have a horse that inverts beyond the contact as a matter of course (distracted, tense, spooking etc) then just concentrating on the hind legs is not necessarily going to teach the horse to go correctly. You can end up with a bit of a chicken and egg thing because you need the horse to be fairly educated and accepting of the contact before it can really make use of energy coming from behind. There's a time and a place, like I say it's very hard to tell from the written word but in general I would say that the more distracted and reactive horses do need a bit more in the way of guidance from the rider to insist that the contact is maintained. You need something to build on (and you need to be safe!). With my spooky ones I can't work them correctly until they basically agree to keep the neck down and concentrate. On a bad day I will ride the front end to achieve that first, only then can we add the hindlegs otherwise my input is totally tuned out by whatever has caught their attention.

Not every horse has read the book

 

[Harrietk]

it's so hard to tell without seeing the horse. I agree with maya that in principle if a horse is receiving regular training and not making "normal" kind of progress then it's worth looking more closely for physical issues. I have a very sweet kind mare who I worked so hard to train but just never really seemed to learn - turns out she has an injury in her neck that no one knew about and is now a wobbler. The last one I had to ride that had that failure to progress thing going on, despite being a generally nice easy horse, when I asked the owner to work it up as it wasn't improving, turns out it had ringbone.

WRT the instructor telling you to concentrate on the front end and add the hind legs later, well, I can see a case for that in some instances - if you have a horse that inverts beyond the contact as a matter of course (distracted, tense, spooking etc) then just concentrating on the hind legs is not necessarily going to teach the horse to go correctly. You can end up with a bit of a chicken and egg thing because you need the horse to be fairly educated and accepting of the contact before it can really make use of energy coming from behind. There's a time and a place, like I say it's very hard to tell from the written word but in general I would say that the more distracted and reactive horses do need a bit more in the way of guidance from the rider to insist that the contact is maintained. You need something to build on (and you need to be safe!). With my spooky ones I can't work them correctly until they basically agree to keep the neck down and concentrate. On a bad day I will ride the front end to achieve that first, only then can we add the hindlegs otherwise my input is totally tuned out by whatever has caught their attention.

Not every horse has read the book

Hi Millie,

Yeah again a really true and agreeable response..... as she is very uphill and has good hind leg action and yes thats how i feel when her neck is not down and shes not concentrating. With my new instructor once my mare has submitted to the contact we can carefully push the behind more. but again with me not having the school i think she isn't receiving enough consistent training and things could be different if i had my own school possibly. I feel like she needs to learn that once i've put her there she should stay.... i mean shes one of them that she will see into someones house and spook at the person in the window lol i can also go down the long side twice and then the 3rd time she will spook and spoil herself. Think i'm going to have to try my hardest to put in the time this summer and see how we go.
my welsh c cob (My mare half sister) is different shes more on her forehand to start but once i've got her on her back legs she comes to the contact and i can put her anywhere in the school and shes with me.

Thank you v much for your reply.

 

[Harrietk]

 

[Kat]

She looks lovely in that picture and if you are getting 70% scores at dressage it can't be THAT bad.

It is worth a back/saddle/teeth check of course. But I wonder if there could be a bit of gut discomfort, not necessarily ulcers, perhaps a bit of acid splash or hindgut acidosis. It might be worth trying some limestone flour in her feed (or something like equine america ULS gard) and making sure she has a bucket of chaff before you ride.

 

[oldie48]

FWIW the secret to getting Rose properly through and on the hind leg is to soften the front end before putting the leg on to ask her to come through, it was also what worked with my previous horse and I wonder if this is what your trainer is suggesting.

 

[Littlebear]

If it makes you feel better i dont have a school to use for about 8 months of the year, i go to the odd clinic but everything is done hacking and we have been pretty successful at BD without an arena so it can be done!
The picture is obviously a very brief moment in time but although she is built uphill she is very much on the 4hand in the pic and you are on your fork not quite the right place to be able to push her up and into the contact rather than having to draw back from the front end to keep the contact, it will never be consistent this way, imagine there was a pole coming out between her eyes - you want that to point straight ahead, if it was there in the pic it would be down to the floor, think about bringing her more up and forward than down and round, the underneck or sternocephalicus on her is a bit of a give away that she uses that to brace, could she be building that up another way? Hay nets any other exercise, maybe genes but i would think thats built up over time, obviously you need to vary the frame alot to build a supple horse but imagine shes fairly locked through the front end?

 

[maya2008]

That picture looks very much like my pssm mare tends to look - trying hard, to do what Mum is asking, but on the forehand with hind end not engaged. I would definitely get an MOT just to be sure.