Schooling exercises for young horses

silverfox88

Ok, so I recently acquired a new horse. He's a four year old piebald cob, has basic schooling, but very little finesse

He is very good natured, nice and forward without being too much so. I want to keep him sharp and responsive. I'm working on the flat only for the moment, and just working on getting him flexing on each rein, balanced and bending on circles and school figures. He is good in trot, starting to come along nicely on each rein, listening when i ask him to bed and soften etc.

canter is an entirely different kettle of fish - we have one speed he belts along at a fair pace, but its just that he's unbalanced, when you ask him to slow down he often falls back to trot. not surprised by this , he is a baby and im aware he needs to become much more balanced before i can ask for much from the canter!

I'm also doing plenty of lunging, sometimes with bungees/other training aids as well to change things a bit and get him balanced without me on his back.

i want to try to avoid the flat schooling becoming to boring and turning him (or me!!) sour, as he does enjoy it as it is! so what im looking for basically is some flatwork exercise plans that anyone may have found online etc that arent too taxing, but just offer a bit of structure and difference for schooling.
for example, i found this this morning:http://www.artofriding.com/articles/workout.html
the preliminary exercises do have some things i can work with but i feel at this stage its a little out of his league!

would appreciate any articles/videos etc anyone can recommend, or your own methods!!

Thanks you!

Ave Sodalis

Don't really have much time to elabourate greatly so will probably come back and type more when I have more time but working between poles is great for any level of horse to change things up and improve straightness.

This involves walking or trotting your horse between two parallel poles, having them wide at first and then closer and closer. You don't have to go too close at the beginning, just to get them used to the idea.

Also, corridors seem to work well, again working between a pair parallel poles, this time with several, making a path around the arena

notsobusy

He is just unbalanced and the canter will just take time. try not to canter him in the school just yet. just do loads of walk and trot transitions. is there anywhere you can take him for a canter somewhere with a long straight area like a stubble field?? Start off by trotting round the field and this may take some weeks. He will often just pop into a canter himself and it should feel more balanced.

Another thing to do is work with poles in the school and pop up a couple of small cross poles ans if he falls into canter after then let him but dont push him into canter....he will canter when hes ready :-)

doctor evil

I like the book below

http://www.amazon.co.uk/101-Schooling-Exercises-Horse-Rider/dp/0715319507

Have you thought about long reining? Otherwise I would hack, hack and hack and do some schooling excerises while out and about.

Any pics of him?

silverfox88

Oooh that book looks great doctor evil, ill have to see if i can get my hands on that! seems to be fairly common opinion that hacking is the way to go, the more i work with him i can see how that would definitely help in canter! was planning on a bit of roadwork anyway to build up his muscles a bit, we've great hacking around our place but the wind lately has been so strong i havent been able to get out!

definitely going to try working on his canter outside then, maybe two hacks a week weather permitting and then two days in the arena. I have another horse as well so splitting the time is still something im getting used to!!

Here's a few pictures of him, he largely resembles a fine Fresian cow - I'm slightly worried that when i go hacking ill be asked if he's a good milker

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73584074@N08/6634829313/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73584074@N08/6634827253/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73584074@N08/6634825233/

Esroh

Silver.
Get out hacking and be proud of him. He is a smasher:D

silverfox88

thanks esroh ah, im delighted with him really, mad about him!!

wosheen

Congrats and best of luck with him, silver!

Agree with the other posts re: work between poles and hacking.

Last year I was also looking for something to increase responsiveness with my 4-yr-old, and I found focusing on transitions at poles very good (sup_dude - this may be similar to what you recommended re: parallel poles?). Set up 2 poles parellel and approx 30 feet apart. Approach the middle of first pole at a brisk walk and stop dead at the pole (don't let him slow for a few steps before the pole, but also don't let him walk over the pole). Then move onto the second pole and do the same. Circle around and do it again, this time at a trot. I used to do this again and again, and at different trot lengths as well i.e. lengthen until first pole then shorten between the 2 poles, and vice versa. And eventually at canter, transitioning to trot or walk between the two poles, or flying lead changes between the 2 poles (though you probably want to focus on canter speeds outside of the area first, as someone else recommended!) My fella can be a bit fizzy, but this exercise really got him focussed and listening, you could really see him concentrating on me, and also made me more conscious of fine tuning my commands as well.

Enjoy your new horse!

byhookorbycrook

Pretty chap, hope it goes well. +1 for hacking,as long as you are not tempted to do little bits of schooling on the hack!

Esroh

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Pretty chap, hope it goes well. +1 for hacking,as long as you are not tempted to do little bits of schooling on the hack!

I would have to disagree here.
Hacks dont have to be days of no work.
Spending time working in an outline on a hack never did my horses any harm. I would have seen them as a change of scenery. Last 20 min would have been a long rein switch off.
Working on straightness.
Even little bits of leg yielding to get him going away from the leg will not be a problem.

Ave Sodalis

wosheen wrote: »

Congrats and best of luck with him, silver!

Agree with the other posts re: work between poles and hacking.

Last year I was also looking for something to increase responsiveness with my 4-yr-old, and I found focusing on transitions at poles very good (sup_dude - this may be similar to what you recommended re: parallel poles?). Set up 2 poles parellel and approx 30 feet apart. Approach the middle of first pole at a brisk walk and stop dead at the pole (don't let him slow for a few steps before the pole, but also don't let him walk over the pole). Then move onto the second pole and do the same. Circle around and do it again, this time at a trot. I used to do this again and again, and at different trot lengths as well i.e. lengthen until first pole then shorten between the 2 poles, and vice versa. And eventually at canter, transitioning to trot or walk between the two poles, or flying lead changes between the 2 poles (though you probably want to focus on canter speeds outside of the area first, as someone else recommended!) My fella can be a bit fizzy, but this exercise really got him focussed and listening, you could really see him concentrating on me, and also made me more conscious of fine tuning my commands as well.

Enjoy your new horse!

Nearly but not quite. I meant go between the poles (as if walking down a corridor, so you're riding parallel too) and move them closer each time so the space is less and less, making the horse concentrate on where it puts its feet.

Wosheen, just out of curiosity, how does that affect the horses' jumping?

ordinary star

doctor evil wrote: »

I like the book below

http://www.amazon.co.uk/101-Schooling-Exercises-Horse-Rider/dp/0715319507

Have you thought about long reining? Otherwise I would hack, hack and hack and do some schooling excerises while out and about.

Any pics of him?

I love this book too

timewilltell

Silver he is absolutely smashing!!! Reminds me of my little mare

well I can't reccommend long reining enough, made my pony what she is.

silverfox88

Thanks timewilltell (wasnt sure how i could shorten that ) he's coming along very well at the moment, have been using a lot of the tips from above.

On the riding front, trot and trot transitions massively improving, he is grasping bending v well and is lovely and flexible for a horse his age. Canter itself is still a bit hairy, so definitely going to take him out hacking as advised to try and work that out a bit. However, he really is improving when it comes to actually transitioning into canter, much quicker off the mark now and more balanced.

He really is an angel to work with on the ground as well, bar lunging, where he gets bored after about 10 mins and stops, and spins around to look at me as if to say "seriously? enough?!"
he was drinking out of the power hose the other day, i definitely looked like the biggest eejit in the world grinning and gooing at him

adamant3

Just seen this thread, think I might buy that book might just help with my guy:D