Contact me at [email protected]
Every month I will be posting a different exercise that you can do to improve your horse.
Count Your Strides Transitions
This month's exercise is designed to help you if you have a horse who is heavy on his forehand, going too fast at the trot or canter, or not listening to your aids, especially half-halts. It is also a good exercise for the young horse who is just learning to trot or canter.
Put your horse on a 20-meter circle. (For non-dressage riders, this is a big circle; one your horse can comfortably canter on.) Ask for a trot . Count your strides, at the fifth stride, give a half-halt. At the sixth stride, ask for a down transition. Continue to count your strides. At the fifth stride, half-halt again; at the sixth stride, ask for the trot again. Continue alternating every six strides between trot and walk until your horse has responded promptly to the request for both an up and down transition at least three times. Change direction and repeat the exercise.
Once he is good at six strides, you can start to increase the number of strides in the faster gait in future training sessions. The exercise should also be done alternating between the trot and canter or the walk and canter (only if the horse is already familiar with the canter-walk transitions). But don't go to the canter variations, until he responds instantly at the trot. Always remember to praise the horse after each transition.
By alternating gaits with very few strides in between, the horse will soon realize that it must pay attention; something is going to happen very soon. Also he will learn to stay more balanced at the faster gait, because he knows a down transition is coming. The half-halts are to let him know the transition is coming. He will soon connect the half-halts to the request to do something and will start to pay more attention when you do one. By gradually increasing the number of strides through several sessions, a young horse will soon learn to regulate his rhythm in the faster gaits for longer and longer periods of time.
If you have a young horse who is just learning to trot or canter, do this exercise every day somewhere near the beginning of your work. You no longer need to do it every day when you can increase the number of strides until you are doing the whole circle in the faster gait.
I f you have a more advanced horse, do this exercise periodically for a tune up on rhythm and half-halts. You will know you need to do it when you are doing your warm-up. If he is heavy on the forehand, going too fast, or not listening to you, immediately go to the exercise. Don't try to do anything more advanced until he is responding well to the exercise. More advanced horses can also do the variations listed below.
If you are using the exercise for a tune-up, you can do the exercise in any pattern you want, you don't need to stay on a circle. This is especially true, if he does fine while on the circle, but goes back to not listening or speeding on the long straight lines. You could also do a serpentine.
This exercise can also be done with transitions within the gaits for more advanced horses. Go from collected to medium or extended gaits for instance. In these variations, pay particular attention to the rhythm of the gaits. It should be the same no matter what the stride length is. These variations will help your more advanced horse maintain rhythm when doing transitions between gaits and will help you get more prompt transitions which should increase your scores on tests. It will also help you as a rider if you have trouble organizing your aids for the transitions. The quick succession will improve your response time and coordination, too.
Always make sure you do this exercise in both directions to equally develop your horse's muscles. This exercise can be a lot of work for a horse's muscles especially if you are using the more advanced variations or if you are on a young horse. It is a good idea to let the horse do a stretch on a straight line after this exercise.
The major problem you probably will run across is that the horse does not promptly make the transition. After all, that is one of the things you are trying to correct. This is normal; the horse does not want to stop immediately after going into the more fun, faster gaits. To deal with it, you will have to repeatedly ask for the transition using stronger and stronger aids until the horse responds. At first, you may have to get very strong in the aids. If the horse knows voice commands from lungeing, use them along with the stronger aids if he doesn't respond. But try the softer aids the next time you ask, eventually he will learn to listen to them. If the horse ignores your aids for a while, it is hard to remember to praise him when he finally does respond. After all, you are probably mad at him by then. But don't forget to praise him after every transition; you want him to clearly know what the correct response was. Keep trying to get it on the sixth stride, it will come eventually.
Although the exercise says not to stop until you get the instant response 3 times; this may not be possible in the first few sessions. If your horse was particularly bad in responding at first, you can stop after you have had a significant improvement in response time at least three times. The instant response will have to wait to a later session.