Making more of an efffort

[clipclop]

My horse is quite talented at dressage and has now excepted her new job as a dressage horse instead of a showjumper which was what she was as a youngster before I got her.

She does okay but I feel as if she is not putting 100% into her work, any ideas to inspire this mare to put more effort into her work.

I can get some lovely work at times but it takes so much energy on my behalf that I can't keep it up for more tahn a minute or two, and my lazy cuss thinks well if you can slacken off so shall I.

The difference woould make the points difference I am sure from a 5 or 6 in a test to a 7 or 8.

Any suggestions.

 

[Rakeli]

Take the time to really establish a bond with her - I've just recently started to ride Jazz again after finishing my Parelli Level 1 and he's SO much more willing and co-operative, it's amazing. I really wish I'd done it sooner.
Also, check that she's not got a physical reason for not being able to do her best, get her checked out for any pain, tension etc.

 

[clipclop]

I have had her for several years now so we know each other quite well. BUt she is also naturally lazy, built down hill and would prefer to go on her forehand given the choice. Typical Thoroughbred.

 

[Rakeli]

I still suggest Parelli Natural Horse-man-ship, I'd had Jazz for about 2 years before I started, and even though we already had a bond, it deepened it enormously.

Do you have an instructor/trainer? It sounds like you would both benefit from having someone there with you, who could suggest what to do.

 

[virtuallyhorses]

Try some PLAY instead of work all the time. Give her the opportunity to 'win' your praise instead of constantly being 'told' to do more.

OK that sounds very airey-fairey What I mean is try a session like this - loose rein, on the buckle and let her go forward. Don't worry about what her head does or any of that stuff, just play with getting her to listen to your VERY QUIET legs - a little 'brush' with your legs and shift of your weight to ask her to move off the track or go in a circle - praise her AS SOON AS SHE MAKES ANY move in the right direction. If she doesn't move at all, just the lightest jiggle of the rein to ask her in the required direction.

Also try riding in 2 point (or standing whichever you prefer) - still on the loose rein, let her really stretch out and move that back! A couple of canters in 2 point.

Ask he for a little flexion and bend on the loose rein - just with a little jiggle of the bit - if she reacts , lots of praise - make it a game to see how light you can be and don't worry about sloppy circles etc just go forward and try to see how much fun you can have.
Play with things like - asking her to stride out more using just your hips - only do this while sitting and only after you're both warmed up and into the swing of things - just let your legs hangs by her sides and try to imagine her hind legs are directly connected to your hips (close your eyes if you can) - dance, play, she may surprise you!!

 

[Lgd]

TBs can be amazingly lazy for a so-called 'hot' horse. I'm sure my advanced mare has a PhD in how to be idle and sit behind the leg while looking elegant and obedient to the untutored eye.

Some of the things that work to improve her forwardness.

Do most of your early riding in in canter. Work in a bit in walk and trot then canter off her back for the first couple of circuits and get the canter a bit onward bound - easy with mine as she used to event. Gradually take your weight back into the saddle and work within the canter asking for a bit of lengthening then back to collection then back to lenthening or working - lots of 'forward and back'. The degree of lengthening and collection will depend on training level. Remember to use small half halts for balancing before each transition.
Once you get a good forward feel go back to trot and start your trot work.
Transitions between paces all help in getting the horse more forward for example go on a circle and do loads of trot-canter, canter-trot transitions. Trot-halt, halt-trot is also good. Halt-canter, canter-halt if horse has sufficient engagement and doesn't find it too exciting
If horse is far enough on do some leg-yielding and shoulder-in in rising trot and think of almost asking for medium strides i.e. think big as TBs are very good at giving dainty little steps without using their shoulders.

Once they cotton on to the fact that they ARE going in front of the leg and have to STAY there it becomes easier. Peri does now generally go in front of the leg immediately (unless she's having a stroppy day) and if she sits back at me a bit it just takes a few canter on and backs to get her forward.

Hope that helps a bit.

Another thought that struck me - what are you feeding? Most folk don't give TBs the higher energy feeds because they are worried about fizzing them up. I used to have the problem of a fizzy horse in the first test and then she conked out very quickly after that. I solved the problem by using a high fibre competition mix which avoids the fizz and gives more consistent energy. I'm using the Spillers Response slow release energy mix now and getting good results with it.

 

[clipclop]

Thanks for all your replies.

Firstly I do vary her work quite a lot, for instance today we did some loose schooling over raised poles. She likes this. We also do some lunging and off road hacking when its not toooooooo windy. (Super Spooker)

I think you may be right lgd about her feed though. I have always had her on a high fibre diet which included a balancer because of her stroppy attitude, but i have had to introduce some topline conditioning cubes this winter because she does appear tired after her work compared to her days off and she has also lost more weight this winter than normal. She is a good doer in the summer and I never ever thought that i of all persons would be giving her a conditioning feed. She has also been on blue chip pro for the past two months (usually on lo-cal during the spring summer and Autumn) and just started reintroducing soya oil again after a period of her going off it. She is also fed haylage and AlfaA.

I do find on and back usefull mainly in the trot though as her canter gets a bit flat. I also have found it usefull to to ask her to imedietly go off my leg into trot when i ask as she prefers to trickle into the trot, (been doing this on the lunge lately as well.)

Shoulder in is one of her more difficult manouvers alway get too much neck bend and loose tempo) but a teeny weeny bit of half pass in coming along nicely. She also quite good at walk pirouettes which i find lightens her forehand but doesn't really help with the forwards stuff etc.
Halt to trot is another one i have been playing with too.

For a tb she has got large paces funny enough (quite long backed mare) its just getting her to use them all of the time instead of just some of the time. She did find lenghtening the trot difficult to start with and while we can now manage a medium trot quite well I do feel that she would probably never manage an extended trot.
She prefers to collect in anything rather than extend more of a piaffe passage horse.

 

[Lgd]

Don't worry about the lengthening too much. Peri had an awful medium and extended trot when she was at lower levels as she had a tendency to sit wide behind rather than step under with the hindleg, nice flashy foreleg action but not correct extensions. One eminent trainer did actually comment that you could drive a bus between her hind-legs when she did it. Fortunately said trainer also provided a cure. Two sets of poles set lengthways and parallel to each other or one set parallel to the wall to create a narrow 'path' just slightly wider than the horse's normal footfall width and practice your lengthening's down your artificial 'alley'. Horses have a very good sense of where things are on the ground and she never stood on the poles with her hind feet, what she did do was learn to lengthen more correctly. She will never have a really top class extension but now routinely gets 6's or 7's for her extended trot, we've even managed to scrape a very rare 8 now and again.

As she can do walk pirouettes there is a very good exercise to get her forward and improve your lengthened trot. Start on the track of the long side facing into the corner with the short-side (dunce position ) then ride a half walk pirouette so you are facing up the full length of the long side and immediately you have finished the pirouette go into medium trot. Collect at the second quarter marker, walk and repeat the exercise. Once you are a bit more confident do it on the quarter lines and centre line. You just need to be insistent that she is sharp off the leg from the pirouette. I actually used it in a freestyle test last year as a sneaky way of getting a better extended trot (it worked) while also theoretically increasing the technical difficulty.

Feed wise you wil be surprised how much you can feed without blowing their brains out or getting yourself killed when they are doing dressage. Peri is only 16hh (although quite wide and hefty from the dressage work, so weighs in at just under 600kg) and she gets 7lbs of mix, a level scoop (4lb nut scoop) of readigrass, 2½lbs of oats divided between two feeds. Supplements are Cortaflex, selenavite E and Fasttrak (last one is a feed-balancer/pro-biotic). Haylage ad-lib. When the grass is good the mix usually goes down to about 5½lbs and the oats to about 1- 1½1bs. Must admit she is a doddle to feed because she only ever eats what she needs. (Unlike my other mare who would eat anything you put in front of her).

 

[clipclop]

Well. We atempted the walk pirouettes to medium canter and she got the forwards idea and went to canter instead. lol.

However cantering is one of her ways of getting out of performing an good trot.

After trying the pirouettes to trot routine she picked up on the forwards intention of the lesson and we did make progress if fact we managed some lovely medium trot but I think that was down to me tapping her on the shoulder for trying one of her other old tricks of falling in on the circle. Hasn't been tapped there for over 2 years and wiggled her bum all over the place to show me how she felt about it. So I growled and then of she went. Brilliant.

Good job I have a good sense of humour and also had my full seat clarino breeches on to. lol

About feeding again. I have tried a few balancers. How much is the Fastrak?

Blue chip Pro is rather expensive and It would be a bit contradictory at the moment to put her back on Baileys lo-cal while still feeding top line condditioning cubes.

She is 16.2 and weigh about 537kg at the moment according to the weigh tape but she is big boned for TB so I expect she is slightly heavier. She works about 5 days a week and does need to put on more top line and still needs more energy so I am slowly increasing the cubes.

 

[Lgd]

Good to hear the exercises helped.

Fasttrak is £25 for a month supply, they only need about 50g a day. I get mine from my equine dentist's wife, she gets it from Egsport (sp?) in Hexham for me. Not sure about other suppliers in the UK. She is bringing some for me tomorrow when Noel comes to do their teeth, so I will ask her when she comes. Word of warning - if you get it make sure you cut your feed quantities down, my trainer didn't and her horse was pretty lively until I realised what she HADN'T done. Peri was on Equilibra before I switched to Fasttrak and I still had to cut her feed back because she piled the weight on very quickly.