Schooling suggestions

[r0450111]

i ride a 14.3hh connie in the riding school i go to. He's got a very thick neck and can really set against you, ie if he wants to go one way, and you dont he 'locks' his neck so the rein is totally ineffective. He is very 'backwards' and pretty dead off the leg. He's pretty stiff on the left rein. He's cool to though cos he's tricky. He riden alot by beginners which i dont think helps.

My plan for my next lesson is to spend some of my warm up in canter with a light seat. Try to encourage him to work thru the back and hopefully getting him thinking and moving forward. Transitions are vital for him plus lots of circles.

Do any of you have any tips/suggestions for helping him to do leg yeilding properly? He falls out thru the outside shoulder thats if i can get him to bend at all.

This makes him sound horrible, but he is so cool to ride cos when you do get him working alittle you feel on top of the world! He can work properly with a strong rider, which i'm not.

 

[Booboos]

Sounds like he is quite stiff which will make him tough to ride, but the answer is not to get stronger but to get more effective.

One thing to try is to make sure he bends around your inside leg. Do loads of circles, large ones to start off with and in walk, then try trot, then smaller circles and eventually start adding in changes of rein. Through-out ride him inside leg to outside hand, i.e. your inside hand does not pull him round the circle.

If you can encourage him to bend a bit he will find it easier to stay straight in the leg yielding.

 

[tangotime]

I also have a Connie with a short thick neck, which he can use effectively against you if he doesnt feel like "stressage". The trick with him is not to get into an argument, he is stronger... So if he doesn't want to work it helps to get him to do lots of things he has to concentrate on.

As for leg yielding excersises, you can try to come of the track at the 3/4 line and leg yield back to track and the change the rein across the diagonal and repeat on other hand. Rememaber leg yielding only requires a little bend, the main movement is forward not sidewards.

Put out 3 poles along the track, so you can ride a 10 metre circle around each of them. Start on the track on left rein, ride a left circle around first pol, then leg yield across and do a right circle around next pole, leg yield across again and do a left circle around last pole.

To get him more of the leg, try lots of transitions, including halt/trott and halt/canter or backrein/canter and insist he immediately moves of your leg.

Have fun