Schooling without circles

[AntiPuck]

Does anyone have any good exercises to share, that can be done out hacking in (mostly) straight lines?

A couple I already use and like, picked up from Youtube and various other places:

- 10 strides walk, 5 strides trot - repeat for 10 mins - this seems to wake my horse up as a good warm up at the start of the hack
- Rein back a few steps and then straight forward into trot
- Leg yielding across lanes

I'd love any suggestions, as i'm not great at coming up with new things to do on my own, other than attempting the various terrain obstacles we come across

 

[Love]

I like to use shoulder in and shoulder fore when I have to distract my 16 year old baby from monsters in the hedge

 

[TheMule]

Shoulder in/ quarters in and just transitioning between the different positioning is really easy to do out hacking

 

[tda]

Leg Yielding in and out of parked cars
Use street light poles as walk trot markers for transitions

 

[Tarragon]

I used to use grips in the Road or telegraph poles as a regular point to change or do something, like a transition, or change of rate. Not so many telegraph poles around these days, but anything regular will do

 

[AntiPuck]

Thank you for the ideas, everyone

I don't know how to do shoulder in/fore or quarters in, so will have to teach us both how!

 

[paddy555]

I do serpentines (half circles) on the road, I also do figure 8 at a walk. I do lots of bending. On the road I choose different coloured road, or bits of twig on the road, gravel. Anything to bend in an irregular pattern as we go along forwards. On the common I do the same bending around gorse bushes, if you have a field or grass area I would choose tuft of grass or trees or anything else and bend around them.
I do lots of stands, For a minute each at least or longer. We just halt, have the reins loose, head down and relaxed and stand without fidgeting etc. Also squares on the road. ie turn 90 degrees across the road one stride and stop, walk 2 strides and stop, back 2 strides, 1 stride forward and turn 90 degrees and so on. Very very slowly, I am looking for precision and relaxation.


I also do them all with just voice aids (no reins or seat) just makes it a bit different for the horse to think about. We also practise our emergency stops on the voice. Anything to get keep him listening to me.
I don't have a school so the road and common is my school. Obviously these are very quiet roads or tracks.

 

[Gloi]

There's a quiet road near me that is suitable for using the dashed white lines in the middle for bending.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

I use pine trees in the woods to do bending, lateral work on the tracks heading home - leg yielding, shoulder in, renvers and travers. Turn on the forehand and rein back for the wide gate on the bridleway.

 

[oldie48]

Giving the horse a good stretch in walk then bringing back into a more advanced frame with a collected walk, transitioning between the different walks whilst keeping the horse soft and forward through each transition.

 

[J&S]

Climbing up and down banks if you have them, opening and closing gates good for lateral work and turns on fore hand or hind.

 

[splashgirl45]

All of the above plus get your halts properly square every time you stop, not just in a dressage test . So many marks are available if you do a square halt , I have done lots of writing for dressage and even at the higher levels square halts are not that common

 

[spotty_pony]

I do a lot of neck flexing - left, straight, right, straight, left, straight, right etc

also do the same with shoulder in

 

[scruffyponies]

I use the centre stripe on a quiet road to practice leg yielding. Keeping the horse parallel to the line, I ask him to step from one side of the broken line to the other at each gap. Anyone watching probably thinks I'm a bit simple.

 

[Squeak]

It sounds so obvious but I also use hacking to make sure the horse is actually going straight, no banana'ing one side or the other, using both hind legs properly and evenly to step under etc. It's easy to get caught up going in circles when you're in the school and hide fundamental straightness issues.