Winter Training

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Dyllymoo

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I will be hacking at the weekends, hopefully for longer amounts of time when we get our new saddle and shoes sorted.

I don't really want to do too much in the school ridden wise as he is unbalanced and its quite dark in our school but I don't want to not do anything in the week.

I am thinking of some agility/ clicker training/ polework but I didn't know if there were any specific things you do that are in hand?

I do not want to lunge him either, but I am happy to long rein, but then our lights are really only good enough for half the school so this possibly wont be of any benefit really :)

TIA
 
Straightness training or really any type of classical inhand schooling could be a good option, you could incorporate poles into it as well I'm sure for a bit of variety.
 
Actually walking (without rider) over high cavalettis has been shown to have almost the exact same effect as water walkers. So that's definitely something you could do. An added bonus of building the topline is that it also helps with proprioception.

At the moment my mare is injured and can only be walked. To make it a bit more interesting we have started working on picking up the legs for a light touch with the whip. Some day she will hopefully do the piaffe, so it's a good thing to teach early on. Also for spanish walk, just for fun.
 
AUB said:
Actually walking (without rider) over high cavalettis has been shown to have almost the exact same effect as water walkers. So that's definitely something you could do. An added bonus of building the topline is that it also helps with proprioception.

At the moment my mare is injured and can only be walked. To make it a bit more interesting we have started working on picking up the legs for a light touch with the whip. Some day she will hopefully do the piaffe, so it's a good thing to teach early on. Also for spanish walk, just for fun.
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Thank you, will definitely try that with him. I just want to have an arsenal of things to do so he doesn't get too bored.
 
straightnesstraining.com is worth a read through, in particular signing up for the free ebook. There's lots of videos on youtube about inhand work and a lot of books written about it too, best would be to find someone to come out to help you in person but there's enough out there you could probably make a start by yourself. The whole thing is essentially a series of exercises, it's just schooling a horse on the ground.
 
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