Get out of the arena. Great for mind and body for both you and your horse.
Wow! I downloaded Ride IQ and did one of the flat rides on my 4-year-old baby dino hunter today. It was amazing! I now have collections of rides to try with all my horses (ranging from said hunter to made 1.30m jumper to 6-year-old OTTB mare) and am actually looking forward to flatting them all tomorrow. Very, very cool app - highly recommend!
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How old is the horse and what is the horses goals?
That will influence what I suggest for flatwork days.
For instance, if youâve got a 18 YO jumper who knows the job, isnât moving up in height, and has zero issues winning all the things in competition, Iâd probably say on non-jumping days WTC both ways, do a few leg yields, do some collected to extended gait transitions, and do some two point for yourself and get off. Shouldnât take more than 15-20 minutes; you donât need to teach any new tricks or habits, just keep up fitness and stretch.
If you arenât blessed with a perfect school master, poles are a great way to break up the monotony.
Also, IMO if you canât do all of the things Iâm about to list well, you need to work on those with the horse:
Forward working walk
Stays on the bit pretty much all the time if asked
Collected trot
Extended trot
Stretchy trot
Leg yield at every gait
Haunches/shoulder in at walk and trot
Back up straight
Collected canter
Extended canter
Clean flying lead changes
Add or take out strides in a line consistently
Walk to canter transitions
Counter canter
And, if all of that fails, I will make one last suggestion; make every day a (very low) jumping day. Once youâve successfully done your flatwork jump a few small jumps (like 4-5 efforts max)before you call it a day.
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I love this book. I keep it in my car so I can peruse it for ideas before my rides.
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