Schooling exercises for an inexperienced 9-yr old?

Chessy

New Member
Dec 4, 2009
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Hertfordshire
Hi all!

Rosie and I are mainly happy hackers; hacking is definitely her purpose in life as she absolutely loves it.
However the winter months are here and it's getting dark when I get home from work, meaning hacking out is just not doable except at weekends.
There's a floodlit outdoor school at my yard that I've hardly used because Rosie is so much hard work in the school. She doesn't buck or rear or anything majorly naughty, but once in the school, she naps towards the gate, getting her to do more than a walk is exhausting, and generally she seems to not have a clue why she's there. It's like she's thinking "what's the point in this confined little arena, can't we just go for a hack in the forest now please?" It doesn't help that the school is right smack bang next to her field, and most of the time she can see her friends in there - she looks at them as if to say "I'll be with you soon, just got to get this numpty off my back first!"

Rosie is 9 years old, I've had her for 6 months and I don't think she was ever schooled much by previous owners, she'd changed hands a lot unfortunately.

Can anyone recommend some simple schooling exercises that will get her listening to me more?
 
Hi Chessy, good luck with the schooling!

I would suggest keeping it as varied as possible as Rosie doesn't really seem to get the hang of going round and round! Apart from the normal starts, stops and transitions - and I would do lots of those so that she pays attention - you could try including some poles to walk and trot over, doing complex steering moves like serpentines and loops, adding obstacles to work round like barrels (Ziggy really enjoys barrels once he has stopped staring at them) and if she will canter in the school then you could even try getting her to do walk-canter transitions and changing the canter lead.

I don't know if you jump, but since she likes variety you could also introduce cross poles etc.

I find transitions are the best way to get Ziggy's head back. I can always tell by the position of the ears!

Looking forward to hearing how you get on!
 
That's really useful Jane, thanks so much! Especially barrels and popping a few cross poles, will have to see what I can come up with.

She used to canter in the school at my old yard but doesn't want to at this one :-/ I think a lot of the time I am way too soft with her. Am hoping to get some lessons on her in the new year once I've paid off a load of other stuff!

How are you doing with Ziggy? :D
 
I think I had a similar issue with Flipo, he didn't seem that well schooled when I first got him (and still isn't:redface:). I struggled to keep him out on the track and found it helped to have someone shout instructions at me for the first few sessions, it gave me purpose and thus Flipo had a sense of my direction and kept focus. If I was left to make it up alone I didn't think further than my next move and we lost momentum, Flipo could feel my lack of forethought and started to take matters into his own hands! Now I'm getting better I think.:unsure:

My instructor got me focused on the rule of five, doing five moves on every circuit (I manage about three! We're not that good!) - be that transitions, shallow loops, circles, spirals, change of rein, serpentines, figures of eight, flexing in/out. Simple stuff. I really started to feel we were getting somewhere when I could turn my head in the direction I wanted to go and Flip would follow. Not quite as good as one of the RS horses I ride but it was encouraging to feel the difference! If someone had left jumps out then we used these as obstacles, as well as cones, barrells, poles, tarpaulin, gym balls. I towed Flip around while I dragged the barrells, all part of the work as he hated it and would freak at first. We also had mounting problems so I got on and off a couple of times in different places in the school.

For napping to the gate (we did this ever so slightly) I was told not to ever do a downwards transition towards the gate.
Sometimes I found Flipo didn't seem to listen, watching back the footage I had filmed, I can see that actually his flexibility or lack thereof was to blame, he fought me less as his range of movement improved. As it gets easier for her maybe she'll enjoy it more?
 
Zigs hasn't worked for nearly 3 weeks and it will probably be 4 before I get back on - a combination of work busyness and being away. He doesn't care a bit! so I'll let you know when I ride him quite how mad he has got.

He is fat, fuzzy and dirty, and happy as a clam :wink:
 
My lad has gone from hating going in schools to loving them :biggrin:

The main key as jane said is to keep it as interesting as you can.
Flipos Mum said it brilliantly, 5 moves on every circuit is a fab idea. Although i would probs start low and build up.

Before you ride in the school have a go at lunging her or free schooling her in there. And just have some fun, use poles, jumps, cones etc anything that makes her think.

Today i had 2 cones in the school and that kept us entertained for 45mins! Me & OH just thought of as many way we could to use them, did figures of 8's with them making them bigger/smaller, using them to do circles, big & Large, we even did a mini gymkana with them LOL!

You get the gist!

I find if im having fun, he will have fun. Thats what its all about :biggrin:

Also i like to write out some fun & easy dressage tests on the computer, print them out and get OH to read them to me.
They can be anything, just draw yourself a little box on a piece of paper to represent the school, mark the letters on and just let your imagination run wild! :biggrin:
 
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