What do you consider to be 'working at a level'?

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rockyxrio

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Just a general question here, a few people have asked me what level I'm working at and I'm really unsure what to say. IYO, is working at a level being secure in every movement at that level (aka could go out and do, if not a world beating, a decent >60% test BD) or is it playing with the movements at that level?

If I have a mare that finds 4x tempi changes and half passes easy, but has rubbish (as in a 4/5, but improving) rein backs, walk piris and extended canter, what level would she be working at?

Also, how many levels below the 'working at' level do people compete?

Chocolate chip cookies for anyone answering :)
 
It's a weird one. Pip CAN do half pass, leg yield, rein back, walk to canter, canter to walk etc, but firstly, he does all of those things at a prelim level of carriage, and secondly, he totally looses his cool when away from home. I'm tempted just to say elementary and pretend I'm a capable rider, but that would be stretching the truth. I guess it depends on how likely it is the person will see me ride ;)
 
I think I would consider the level being worked at to be the one where you can go out and compete to minimum of satisfactory/good, i.e on a very similar par as the rest of class of competitors.

Sometimes the horse is more qualified than the level or the rider is, or both are progressing together.

As far as the actual classifications go again would believe that all of the manoveures within that level range would need to be completed to a minimum of satifactory/good.

So the working level would be the one where decent scores are consistently achieved. I think, imo!
 
Mine 5 year old can do leg yeild, shoulder in, rein back, walk to canter, canter to walk, counter canter & 3/4 strides of med trot (school isnt that big) but shes been out twice at prelim as a 4 year old & twice this year soon to be 3 times

I wouldn't consider her at anything more than prelim level because she freezes when she goes out... she is getting bettter but wouldn't dream of trying anything more than prelim atm
 
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Monty is successfully competing at Elementary and is now working on the movements for Medium. He could probably just about go out and get 60% at Medium at the moment but I want the movements a lot more secureand confident before I try. So I would say he's working at Medium level. We are attempting to teach him changes but until he's got them I wouldn't say he was working at Advanced Medium. Normally people seem to use the "working at" term to mean the level they're working on at home rather than the one they are competing at which is usually one to two levels lower.
 
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Pretty much what star said. I'd say the horse is working correctly at the level for the most part but not quite established or strong enough to produce a consistent quality test.

From an advertising point of view it often seems to mean the horse can kinda, sort of produce an approximation of a couple of the requirements with a fair wind at its back but even the seller knows better than to go in front of a judge with it. ;)
 
star said:
Monty is successfully competing at Elementary and is now working on the movements for Medium. He could probably just about go out and get 60% at Medium at the moment but I want the movements a lot more secureand confident before I try. So I would say he's working at Medium level. We are attempting to teach him changes but until he's got them I wouldn't say he was working at Advanced Medium. Normally people seem to use the "working at" term to mean the level they're working on at home rather than the one they are competing at which is usually one to two levels lower.
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Exactly this, IMO.
 
Agree with Star re the "working at" v "competing at". I would expect a horse that is "working at" to be performing all the required movements consistently, but not established enough to do a test at that level. If a horse is "competing at" a level, he should be out doing just that, and getting decent marks.
 
Although most drop a level when out, I don't with Fabio. He's consistently scoring 65% + in novice, but wouldn't say we're really working elementary at home, although working towards it. Medium trot is no where near good enough and our simple changes although we do them are still a bit hollow and sloppy. But I think going out and doing prelim is a bit of a waste of time now as not pushing us enough. Totally depends on the horse and no set rule that you have to be working higher than you compete.
 
Pigeon said:
It's a weird one. Pip CAN do half pass, leg yield, rein back, walk to canter, canter to walk etc, but firstly, he does all of those things at a prelim level of carriage, and secondly, he totally looses his cool when away from home. I'm tempted just to say elementary and pretend I'm a capable rider, but that would be stretching the truth. I guess it depends on how likely it is the person will see me ride ;)
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Exactly the same as my girl. Although when out competing she's totally fine. We've done quite a few prelims now and are consistently scoring 60% +. We are deffo ready to step up to novice now competing wise. We've not long been schooling elementary movements at home, so wouldn't say she was quite at that level yet. Novice is definitely where we are at at the moment in terms of next steps competing wise, and comfortably schooling at that level at home.
 
I also agree with Star's interpretation.

In the early days I think it is harder to judge where you are as some horses take many outings to get used to working in competition environments which can really affect their scores but have no reflection on what they are working on at home. In the space of a few months we had a score of less than 60% at prelim and a 70% at elementary simply because the horse was very inconsistent and took a while to start relaxing away from home however we'd been schooling at elementary level the whole time.

We are now schooling all the medium level movements but until we can perform them consistently with better balance, more power and ease we'll compete at elementary there's as no point paying for a judge to tell us what's wrong when I already know it's not good enough! However I also don't see the point of competing at novice level anymore as the feedback on a novice test wouldn't be as relevant to my schooling at home as the feedback from an elementary test would be.
 
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