Fun exercises for the greenie?

[Cataluna]

Within the last month or two, my 4 year old has really started to come together (we can steer, solid walk/trot, she understands contact, understands leg, etc). What we’re working on now is keeping her through both reins, bending, and balance, and I thought all you superstars on here might have a bible of exercises that you might be willing to share to help us mix things up a bit.

My mare has two modes:

A) Nice and forward, but gets unbalanced and tries to rush. On these days we do a lot of circles and changes of direction, serpentines, and riding from the wall to the 1/4 line, and back again

and

B) Is more content with napping, fakes contact, and getting an engine out of her is a bit more of a struggle (common with our early afternoon rides). On these days we do a lot of transitions to quicken her response to leg and to keep her thinking.

I ride with my coach twice a week, but am a confident intermediate rider at best and feel like I lack creativity under saddle in-between our lessons. I’m worried that my girl may be getting a bit bored! I’d love to introduce more trotting poles and other fun exercises that she may enjoy into our program if anyone has any suggestions?

Thank you in advance!

[beowulf]

four loop serpentine, but rather than along the length entire ring, confine it to the short-side (so between X and A.). been doing it with my gelding, it’s very small and controlled - keeps him balanced and supple and very attentive. it’s a very small area to work with, so it’s useful for doing TOF/TOH. and if your horse doesn’t know them yet, useful for getting him introduced to them.

[Pocket_Pony]

Are you able to get out of the arena and hit the trails? I think riding out is so great for all horses and I like it for young horses to work on forward. Going over varied terrain is good for teaching them balance and how to carry themselves, going up and down hills is great strength training, and it is good to get out and see the sights.

As far as arena exercises, I am a big fan of cavaletti. There are a million ways you can set them up in the arena. Here’s just one example.

Put one cavaletto at each 1/4 point on a 20-m circle and walk through each pole on the circle. Then go out of bounds, so to speak, if she’s not balanced enough to trot through all four. Walk through one (on the arena wall), pick up the trot and go 1/2 way down the arena and make a big half circle and trot through the one on the other arena wall, again avoiding the two on center line and doing a big oval. Do this a few times, then see if you can add in the third one - if not, it is okay. Switch it up and trot the one that is on centerline and turn away from the rest of the poles (changing direction, so basically you’d do a figure 8 over the cavaletto on center line), and then do one trot circle over that middle pole away from the other cavaletti, and then when you come back to change direction, then either walk over it or come to the walk after you go over it and circle back through the cavaletti circle.

I could go on and on and on with a million different exercises with the cavaletti, they are a great training tool. I find that when the rider (ok, well, at least for me) has something else to focus on, the natural riding comes through and the rider doesn’t have to think so much about what leg or hand to put where. The horse also has to pay attention and I find it makes them quite keen and attentive.

[netg]

You sound like you’re on a good track for how you describe the way you adjust based on the horse that day.

I rarely do an exercise AS an exercise, but rather adapt based on who my horse is at that moment. It has turned out she doesn’t get bored. We do also go out on trail rides, play with cavaletti, etc., but by focusing on where her weakness is that day she keeps improving and that keeps her interested. Think about the things you already said you do, and how you can expand upon that by shrinking the circles or enlarging them with your inside leg, think about using circles to get honest contact in the outside rein on slug days, use transitions when she is higher energy to make her think about downwards. If necessary, ask firmly getting an abrupt downward, then try again and see if you can improve to get her more attentive to the slowing/downward aids as well. Almost trot from the canter and almost walk from the trot to slow the tempo when she’s energetic. Likewise, on lazy days almost canter from trot and almost trot from walk to get her thinking about the upward transition even when you aren’t doing it.

When you start on a loose rein, identify which way she’ll bend off your legs and which she won’t, and use that knowledge to target your circles and other figures to stretch the tight side. Test during your stretchy rest breaks and see if it has changed at all. You’ll find that you really are mixing it up even more than just the two varieties in rides you have if you keep the focus on the horse you have at that moment of your ride.

[TheBrownHorse]

Let’s see. When my horse was a green bean (9 years ago!)…

I love doing serpentines from quarter line to quarter line, or perhaps a traditional serpentine with a transition on the center line (say, ask at the quarter line, be prepared for the transition to occur at center line, and the movement to be picked up again and the next quarter line).

10-15ish meter circle at one end proceed to a slight shoulder for. Or, if you do the circle at the prior corner, say about 10-15 meters, take it into a brief leg yeild, maybe to the quarter line, straighten, and proceed down quarter line and halt before the end of the arena.

Trot polls are always fun. I myself (ex-dressage rider now H/J) use them a lot in my training as I’m not over fences every ride. I like to set a pole on the center line, and do a 20 meter circle over it. It’s always fun when you have a bit more coordination to set up a fan looking set up in the corner (so the poles all meet at one point, but are going in a circular fashion) and doing that. But, for now, you might use two trot poles instead of five

Doing a 20 meter circle at one end, “spiraling in” to about 10-15 meters, then “spiraling out” (leg yielding out) back to 20 meters.

Take parts of a test an incorporate it into your ride. Enter at A, halt at X, turn right at C, 20 meter circle at B, then add like, a quarter line with a leg yield, with a canter transition at E, a 20 meter circle at A, working trot at A, long and low 20 meter at E or C or… you get the point!!! And pardon my letters, I haven’t ridden dressage in YEARS so I don’t know, they’re probably messed up a little

What I do (because I do not “do dressage” anymore) in my flat work is look at the arena and how it’s set up with the jumps, and make a course, only no jumping. I alternate where I would hand gallop, where I would collect, where I’d do a flying change. I’ll add some transitions in there, ask for a leg yield, a shoulder in, put a serpentine in it, and then finish the “course”. It’s helpful for me to have like, a stop and go point. Otherwise I tend to give up before my horse does! But when I look around the arena and go “where can I strengthen my weaknesses?” it really helps. For my horse and I, it’s getting a bigger step at the canter, so, I alternate between a working canter, collected canter, and lengthened canter between fences (that we’re not jumping haha), maybe add a few flying and simple changes in there, along with some circles. Work on the expression of the movement, the quality of the step rather than the “frame”. That will all come together in time, but if your horse is being a bit lazy, or faking it, forget about what you look like and ride a forward, balanced, tempo where you can eventually get to the point of being on the bit. However, without the basics, you’re going to be fighting a losing battle!

Sorry this was a lot longer than I thought it would be. Hopefully it’s not all gibberish, and may be useful at some point