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Re: Re: Endurance and Dressage



"I won't mind warming up less, but Roo has to work out the kinks, decide
that it is okay to not have his nose stuck in the air, decide that no, we
are NOT an English Pleasure horse with our neck cranked up and nose stuck
behind the bit, and generally do some stargazing before he wants to
concentrate.  Walking with some trotting does this for him.  Without a long
warm up, a free walk on a loose rein is impossible."


It's just a different kind of "warming up".  When I warm up for XC or SJ, I
do what you describe, if I'm gonna do the dreaded dressage thing (when Toc
says "yippee no martigale, let's see if we can dance cheek to cheek!") I
generally do lots of flexing and bending - get him bending around your leg,
flexing his poll, his neck, and right through, so that he engages his hocks
and "comes down".  Fortunately, he's now realised that if he drops his nose,
I stop playing with the bit, and he's more comfortable, so it doesn't take
as long now.



"This is what I'm hoping the dressage lesson will "cure" for him and I."

Your instructor will probably teach you what I described above - how to get
him to work correctly through his body without tiring him out.  The other
thing you have to realise is that, to perform a good dressage test, your
horse must be obedient, to perform a great one, he must be obedient and have
some sparkle, which means that he can't be "tired out".  It's a very fine
line, and one that, unfortunately, only the great riders can see.  The rest
of us just have to bumble along and hope for the best!


"The local dressage horses at the training barn (all TBs and WBs with one
Percheron) are such pampered/coddled lumps. that 45 minutes in 90+
temperatures are all they can stand for one day.  Yes, they do move well
during their short lessons, but would never pass a vet check as fit to
continue another 30 minutes of work."

Nope, but they'll never be asked to.


"But they come out of the barn mentally ready to work with minimal warm up."

You have TBs like that?  Gosh, mine might be physically ready, but mentally
they're out in the field, playing catch.  The other problem with TBs, and
one of the reasons I leave my dressage warmups quite short, is that they
generally have the attention span of a 2yo who's forgotten his Ritalin!
After half an hour, if I don't start jumping, or take Toc out, I may as well
get off, cos he won't do much more!


"Trade offs, I guess."


Doesn't have to be.  You can do great dressage on an ultra-fit horse : watch
some of those 3 day eventers sometime.  It is just that much more difficult
for the rider, as you are sitting on a potential time-bomb, whose first love
is NOT the 20 metre circle.  I think that someone who can perform a good
test on an eventer / endurance horse is a better rider than someone who can
do it on a dressage horse - the training is the same, but my god the mind is
something else!


Tracey
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