28/11/2023
Yesterday we wrapped up warm and headed off to the Equestrian Management Agency British Dressage National Convention at Addington Equestrian. It was a good day with lots of insights, great to see so many talented and well trained horses. And a lovely bonus to see the wonderful Valegro.
Here are a some of my initial notes from the day...
Charlotte Dujardin - working with four year olds.
✅️ When training a young horse you are putting in the foundations for the future. ✅️ When looking at a young horse you need to value good confirmation not flashy movement. Buy a good walk and canter, train a trot. Look for natural paces that are in balance. You can then develope the trot. Once you train in suspension to an average trot it will look spectacular.
✅️ Big horses take more time to develope, smaller horses tend to be stronger.
✅️ The key is to find a horse who can easily sit and push. These are the qualities you need to make Grand Prix. If you buy a hind leg that naturally pushes the horse uphill you are half way there, confirmation can make training easier.
✅️ Some horses by nature are good in the contact. It's easier to have a strong horse who you make lighter than one that doesn't go into the bridle to take the rein. Tricky contacts take time to develope.
✅️ In the walk you want to see the head drop and neck swing infront of saddle. Take your hand down and forward in the walk and don't interfere at this age. Make sure not to over collect too early as you could lose the walk rhythm. Hacking improves the walk, do hill work.
✅️ Four year olds should work no longer than 20 minutes at the most.
✅️ Trot walk trot transitions.. train a small trot then go down to the walk. This values good balance and urges horses to step forwards to walk. Use half transitions within the pace, almost to the walk then ride forward again in the trot.
✅️ Do rising trot on young horses, don't sit on them too soon, not strong enough.
✅️ Don't go too deep into corners with young horse, they will lose balance.
✅️ Within leg yield you should only have a small flexion, not a bend. Leg yield increases inside leg to outside rein connection.
Ride leg yield on a diagonal line, this exercise encourages horse to stay upright and balanced rather than falling over outside shoulder. Make sure you look up on the turn.
✅️ Young horses have their whole life to collect, its a working trot, allow it forwards.
✅️ Use your voice with Young horses.
Laura Tomlinson- working with five year olds.
☑️ Don't do flying changes till simple change is good.
☑️ Don't do half pass till shoulder in both ways is good and the horse has equal suppleness.
☑️ Make a habit of riding the basics every single time you ride. It gives a better feeling later on if horses have been taught to be supple over the back.
☑️ Transitions are there to focus a young horse and put their body in the right place.
Open hand as you come down to trot.
☑️ If the hand stays on too long in the downward transition it has a negative impact on hingleg.
☑️ Slow the rising if the trot gets too speedy.
☑️ When going from stretch to picking up the reins the trot rhythm needs to stay the same.
☑️ Pat on the side that there is something scary.
☑️ The more obvious we ask a question of our horse, the easier it is for them to give us the right answer.
☑️ With young horses never push them above their limits. Adapt the plan to how they are feeling rather than doing 'X' amount every day. This will develope confidence in their ability.
☑️ Create expression through athleticism, not pressure.
Maria Colliander- Judge
✔️ She was working with a horse didn't have so much steam for canter work, so she started with the canter work.
✔️ Judges are looking for precision. Your judging position in the arena will affect the view of the movement and therefore the comment/mark.
✔️ Show your horse off on the short sides.
Gareth Hughes Dressage - advanced
✅️ Atmosphere can create nerves and tension within the horses, this is not something we can practise at home...if there is a particular trigger (i.e a spooky end of the arena) start working the horse away from where they are spooking. Start by getting them focused on you then the relaxation should come.
✅️ When warming up it is our chance to see how the horse is feeling that day. This will dictate what our session is made up of. Might just be working on balance /shaping the horse/suppleness /getting horse on the aids through exercises.
✅️ Some horses find their canter through transitions, some find it through shapes.
Easy ways to get horses through their middle is spiralling circle in and out.
The shape will collect them and then you must ride forward within the shape. The shape makes the horse fall in and out, which then makes the rider shape the horses body with the inside leg and they start to pick up round their middle.
✅️ Simple changes, be proactive but be patient. Wait in the walk. He would rather see a few jog steps down to walk but the walk then becomes fluent and forwards than a horse doing an upbrupt downwards transition and a very tense walk.
✅️ In collected canter think front legs slower, hind legs quicker.
✅️ You need to be able to see and feel test lines. Practise lines, break it up into pieces to practise.
✅️ Steepness of a half pass line is dictated by the ease of canter on the line.
We need to care about how and where we start, not where we finish when teaching the half pass. In between the lines always playing with on and back transitions as the quality of canter is the foundation of the movement. Once the training line is easy then focus on the destination and ride marker to marker.
✅️ Consistent canter = consistent line = consistent bend.
✅️ Training lines improves quality of the movement. Can't ride test lines everyday, it doesn't build confidence as it's very hard. You must build the confidence in the horses ability and adjustability within the lines to then achieve good test lines.
✅️ A good walk can often feel like free marks! We usually ride our best walk at the end of a test!! Mainly because we have relaxed...
✅️ in advanced work the extended walk is the biggest and most forward walk. It's an impression of a contact, don't over hold the contact. Ears need to be the height of the wither. Thinking of pushing the shoulders away from you creates ground cover in the walk.
✅️ Medium walk, you want the same walk with a shorter contact and hands forward. Still ride shoulders and hands away from you. Medium walk should feel like you need to shorten your reins to trot.
✅️ Collected walk, shorter rein. This is where you want to start to thinking about riding hind leg forward. If you do this in medium and extended walk it rushes the walk. If collected walk gets tense, create slight shoulder in on curve.
✅️ Ride lateral work to improve horses acceptance of the leg.
✅️ Mistakes are part of learning, its about having a system and going back to it.
✅️ There is a fine line between guiding and holding with the contact. When doing shoulder in and the horse stops following the line, do a 10m circle. The circle puts the horse back on the line and following the aids. The inside leg is a controlling aid. The 10m circle reminds horse how to react to the inside leg. As the horse relaxes into the movement it looks more quality and supple and the athleticism increases.
✅️ When you feel as a rider you are doing too much walk. You shouldn't be doing it for them. Re group and then go again.
✅️ Riding with a whip, it is an aid to ask the horse to try harder in what they are doing. Don't rely on it to make the horse go, its a listen aid.
✅️ Add half pass within a good trot, don't half pass hoping to keep a good trot.
✅️ Rein back is not natural. Difficult to teach some horses. Easiest way to start a rein back is to flex one way and ask horse to step back/slighly sideways. Horses rein back straight when comfortable to go back Allow the horse to learn about going back, then ask it to be straight.
✅️ When you feel tension it's easy to start panicking. You must trust the training system. Just waiting for them to calm down is using tiredness for focus. Giving them a job gives by doing an exercise gives them confidence in you. Create a habit of using movements for focus the horse and this will translate into test riding.
Knowledge gives you confidence.
✅️ Exercise- 20 m circle with 10m circle every time you cross the centre line. Then add travers to 10m circle (huge pirouette). Throughout this exercise looking for the confidence in the canter. If the canter is good reduce the circle to 8m, then with travers on the circle. This helps create a quality canter, bend round inside leg and adjustability. It gives the horse confidence in the movement and they learn to see the line in and out of the pirouette. The shape gives guidance on how to hold the canter and shape around your inside leg which will then create consistency in the pirouettes.
The horse must not turn small just because you go travers!
✅️ Tempi changes, wait for the good canter, you might ride 4 strides inbetween or 400 strides! If canter good can push through the tempis.
P.s thank for the 📸 and a great day Charlotte Fogel Judy Fw
