Trying to calm an excitable horse? (dressage)

[vikkiandmonica]

Hey, I was wondering if anyone can give me some advice on how to calm Wings when doing certain dressagey moves?

I'm doing a dressage next Sunday, Prelim 19 and Novice 30. Now, he can do the mediums really well and come back to me nicely, but we are really struggling with the canter over the diagonal, trot at X and canter on the other rein. Now, this actually blows his mind!! We haven't done it too much so that he doesn't anticipate what we're going to do, but as soon as we come off the track onto the diagonal, he fires up the diagonal, comes into a medium trot over X and pops into canter on the other rein. Once we have the other canter, he relaxes again, but the whole transition and movement is just far too hyper!!

In Novice 30, we have to do 2 of these, 1 on each rein. Can anyone give me any tips on how to get the excitable beast... less excited? I mean, he finds mediums exciting, but nothing compared to this! I've tried not coming back into trot over X and just doing counter canter, and he does relax once we're back on the track, but just while we're going over the diagonal, it blows his mind!!

Do any of you lovely people have any tips on how to make him relax?

 

[Emily91]

Can you do canter to walk transitions?

The way I would tackle it would be to start the canter and then a few strides across the diagonal come down to a walk, the walk to the corner and canter again.

Then I would gradually reduce the amount of walk steps. And then do the same with trot strides in the middle until he is listening to you and coming back to you nicely.

once you have got it mastered vary witch transtion you make and for how long you make it so he doesnt know what you are going to ask him to do. This will keep him concentrating on you and your aids.

Hope that helps! Best I can do without seeing him

 

[ChesnutsRoasting]

Go back to walking the diagonal, both reins, once he does that sensibly, proceed to trotting. Any rushing or pulling come back to walk and start again.

 

[vikkiandmonica]

Thank you both!! Yes, we can do canter to walk, so will definitely try and do this for the next couple of days until he settles