You first need to remember that she IS trained. She also knows how to work, and how to work hard. She’s been trained from the ground and on her back. She has certain expectations of YOU.
Since you will be sitting on her and using more seat and leg, you need to be patient and teach her what you want when you ask with those aids–actually, the rein aids are a bit different too.
If you’re into holding on to a horse’s mouth, you’ll need to stop doing that right away. That just means GO FASTER to an OTTB. You want to be soft, but have a nice consistant feel so there are no surprises in the contact unless she’s doing something like leaning or running through the bit. Then you need to take a hold and then drop her, then do it again until you get her attention. Break the cycle with her and get her refocused on you.
The only thing that’s usually difficult about lower level dressage for an OTTB right away is the circling and the balancing during circles. Take the time to make sure she is comfortable with those and with moving in and out on a cirlce at the trot via a leg yield. Once she has it at the trot, then go to canter circles. But do the trot to build muscle and to develop a strong line of communication. The canter is always there on those horses. They were trained to run all out at a gallop AND to run with a shorter and engaged canter that is just a bit more on the forehand. When teaching the canter I always put together solid trot work under saddle and only do some nice forward canter just in warm up to get them out in front and going around the rail.
Once they learn more balance and how to use the trot, then I go back and put in a canter with quiet aids and asking them to start on a circle and then go straight ahead and later come back to a circle if they are still maintaining their balance between my aids. (Meaning the inside to outside, etc., that they learned at the trot.) They usually make that connection quickly, but have to develop even more confidence in doing the circles WELL. They can all do a circle but a balanced one with a horse that is waiting and listening is what I am aiming for in the initial retraining stage.
You can read a blog and other things, but your horse will handle and progress following it’s own level of confidence in you, in itself, and it’s ability to process new training and the new language of a dressage seat and legs.
Don’t compare your horse to any other horse. Since you don’t have experience at the upper levels it’s hard to believe you would push her to fast at anything–especially if your initial goal is Training Level. :yes:
Ride her and LISTEN to her. Figure out what she’s thinking and ask people out here why you might get a response that doesn’t make sense to you. Often those of us who have retrained many OTTBs can tell you why she’s doing that thing and have ideas on how to work around it. You need to be flexible and make sure you let her do pieces of the things she was taught and is comfortable with at first when mixing in new concepts. That way she’ll always end feeling that she’s done a good job and is proud of her accomplishments. Slowly you wean her over to the new ideas and concepts and make those the things she’s even more proud of doing when under saddle. 
I just thought maybe reading and seeing other people’s experiences in their retraining process might help me gauge where I should pick my battles and when to be satisfied with a little less than my greediness is screaming for.
