Dressage Warm up advice for a horse that gets distracted easily

[emfen1305]

Buddy the turbo cob and his incompetent owner (ie me) are finally making our first appearance on the competitive circuit - Intro C at the local unaff RC! We have been practicing our socks off in hope of coming home with a coveted shiny (even if it is one for "nice try") however my real aims for the day are to 1) stay on board and 2) stay within the boards. He has only been to the venue once before for some showjumping but never in the dressage arena which has mirrors. He is not a spooky type so not too concerned about that but he does get verrrrry distracted by other horses and unfortunately the arena is boundaried by fields as well as others waiting outside. What can I do to maximise the warm up to get his attention and then keep it in the test? At home he gets equally distracted by other horses walking by but its fine because we just carry on doing whatever I want him to do until he refocuses but I only have one chance in the test.

 

[paddi22]

just work on riding every single step. A good tip I got is that if their ears are forward then they are ignoring you. When mine do that I do something to kind of go 'oi, gcome back to me!' - it can be a half halt, a squeeze, a tap on the shoulder, a flex or a transition. I break it up with walk breaks to let them relax, but when they are working, they know they have to work and be fully focussed. i totally blur out anything that is going on in the ring and just think about constantly asking the horse questions, and expecting them to reply. Don't let his attention wander, demand that he refocuses on you.

 

[Nicnac]

Good advice from paddi22. If I trot around mindlessly we get very distracted so I do lots of different things - transitions every four strides, small circles, change the rein, halts etc. to make sure he's listening to me as he doesn't know what's coming next.

 

[tallyho!]

Oh mine does this all the time and calls constantly too! Gah! She's a real stresshead type too... the type the poo goes all watery. Anyway enuff of that.

The way my trainer tells me to do it is to ask loads of questions! e.g. can you bend? can you turn? can you stop? can you yield? if you keep getting "no" then ask if they can do it in trot... much harder actually so most horses ime tend to slow down and go "oh ok, sorry, what did you say?". It semms to work for most of our clinic and there's 20 seemingly stresshead horses

 

[silv]

just work on riding every single step. A good tip I got is that if their ears are forward then they are ignoring you. When mine do that I do something to kind of go 'oi, gcome back to me!' - it can be a half halt, a squeeze, a tap on the shoulder, a flex or a transition. I break it up with walk breaks to let them relax, but when they are working, they know they have to work and be fully focussed. i totally blur out anything that is going on in the ring and just think about constantly asking the horse questions, and expecting them to reply. Don't let his attention wander, demand that he refocuses on you.

this

 

[Denbob]

Good advice! And also good luck!

 

[emfen1305]

Just wanted to say thank you very much for the advice and sorry I didn't reply sooner, the new forum logged me out randomly and didn't know my details to get back in! I was actually very surprised with him to be honest, he was very looky at the horses in the field on the way down (first time hacking by ourselves to the venue) but once we got into the warm up its like his brain switched into gear, then he was being very looky and shouty again when walking over the the main arena but as soon as we got in, not a problem at all so think he knows his job! He got a bit distracted by the mirrors in the free walk which led to us getting a 5 but got 68.12% and 4th and only 1% off first place so really pleased for our first competition! Here he is modelling our favourite colour (might have shed a little tear when I saw my sheet with a shiny attached!)

 

[paddi22]

aw brilliant! glad to hear

 

[silv]

That's great, well done, his rosette matches his haynet!