Lesson Recap 4: Part Two - On the Bit

Continued from Lesson Recap 4: Part One - On the Trails

Dressage Lesson: On the Bit

After four consecutive days of both mentally- and physically-intense workouts, our lesson on Sunday was relatively low-key, however nonetheless very important. While we ran through one of our tests for our upcoming combined show (now less than 3 weeks away...double eek!), we spent the majority of the hour working on getting Charlie on the bit. At this point, even though our lesson was outside, we were back to our double-jointed snaffle.

Previously, to encourage Charlie into the contact, I asked for it rather gently. It worked, well enough - taught him where I want him to be - but now it is a matter of asking him to stay there. This involves a little bit more active riding on my part. On one exercise, we worked on a circle, yielding in and out between 10 and 20 meters. For this exercise, I had to, above all, keep a conscious effort of maintaining my outside rein contact steady and firm, and using my outside leg in concert, to prevent him from drifting or becoming crooked. At same time, I have to encourage a bend to the inside with my inside rein, be to be giving within my contact and follow his mouth. My coach walked beside Charlie on the ground to help fine-tune my rein aids at the start of the lesson, to help more accurately communicate with Charlie what I wanted before I quite got the hang of it myself. It was tough for both of us; I would work on my inside rein and forget my outside, or I'd remember both my hands but forget my legs; and Charlie, though we were just at the walk, was working hard both physically and mentally to try and figure out just where I wanted each part of his body to be.

On the next exercise, we worked between the halt and walk. Charlie knows the position I would like his head at the halt, yet he does not keep it there, and when I ask him to walk on, he pulls his head up and out of the contact. To discourage this, I would ask a few times for him to be on the bit at the halt, and release in between. After repeating this 2 or 3 times to my satisfaction, I would ask him to walk on, but if he tried to pull the reins out of my hand, I would ask for more forward. This will be our homework for the week; he improved after repeating this many times in the course of our lesson, alternating it with the previously described exercise, but he still prefers to walk on with his nose above the vertical.

While I will be the first to attest to the versatility of this breed, these horses are not natural dressage horses. You simply cannot expect them to "get it" as quickly as dressage-bred horses do; it does not come natural to them, at all. What might take only a few weeks to communicate to a horse who is naturally more inclined to dressage, could take a standardbred double the time, if not longer. And, even within standardbreds, some are more inclined to dressage than others. The importance in this is that you must have time, patience, and dedication to make a dressage horse out of these guys. They certainly have the work ethic, determination, and dedication themselves to give it their best shot, but in fairness to them, you need to be realistic with your expectations in terms of both their innate ability, and a timeline of your goals.

Birthday Boy

Charlie also celebrated his 5th birthday last week, on April 14. Happy birthday handsome man!

Happy trails!