I was thinking of posting this in the dressage forum, but feared that some of my dressage friends heads may explode:lol:
I think that hunting this year has improved both my horse’s dressage. (or my riding :lol:)
horse#1. 17 ottb. competes novice eventing and moving up has 3 lovely gaits. he has always just pissed and moaned about dressage. we would get decent scores in competition but alot of “against hand or needs to be more through” comments etc.
it has always been an effort to get him to stay soft, leg yields were easy peasy but he just hated lateral movements and acted like a shoulder-in was just a HUGE pain and effort to do (pin ears, swish tail and groan). he rarely would do a lead change without running into it, etc. (but on xc / hunt no problem). He was never a bad boy, but sometimes keeping his attention on the flat work was an effort. … I haven’t had a dressage lesson since october and have been schooling many movements but nothing outstanding has happened…then yesterday OMG.
finally did some indoor arena work (lately been practicing dressage in the fields, arena gives me asthma probs). He was round, soft, through the back, huge trot strides even for sitting trot. Unbelievably attentive… I could collect, extend, shoulder-in that were perfect and light (no groaning, hollowing or fighting)…i even got a correct half pass (bend in the direction but not as deep cross-over as one sees in Grand Prix but correct). I could half pass to centerline, change bend and half pass back to wall without losing temp or bend. He gave me a perfect right to left lead change up and through his back. the other direction is his harder direction and only got the back to change at first…but still. Then he’d stretch way down for stretchy trot and walk. he rarely attempted to hollow his back too. a friend was there who has seen my past rides. she watched us and when I finished we looked at each other and said " WHERE THE H*LL DID THAT COME FROM?" It was a blast and he was so happy. I worked him half the time i usually did, but he was so wonderful I wasn’t going to jinx it and stopped!
horse #2: young wb first year hunting. she just couldn’t figure out why the effort for a half halt or that gaits weren’t walk, trot and run like mad. she has learned that a half halt to rebalance isn’t something to get all mad about and ignore. now she could whoa on a dime and that wasn’t a problem. She learned that she was half-halted that it was to rebalance before a fence (which made it easier to jump) or to slow down/listen/collect up…she was tripped a few times due to running up on horses due to ignoring her rider. lately she has been easy peasy, stretching out for trot work, lovely balanced canters and no flat runs. she is so sensitive to the rider now that i just need to barely wiggle my pinky and sit up and she’ll half halt…and not run around like a nut! she’ll collect and lengthen without getting too fast. she loves to jump and has gone from “weee lets jump” and go at it mock 5 to waiting for her rider. she will leg yield and is learning shoulder-in and is understanding the bend and not just throwing her shoulder out. I believe that the hunting helped her connect the dots why we school things.
can’t wait for my next dressage lesson just to be brought back to earth :winkgrin:
eek::no:
