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Re: [RC] trot/canter - Diane Trefethen

mkrumlaw@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Because you are using the visual guide of the trail to aid the horse in the direction, transition, and correct diagonal/lead...

To correctly *ride* the horse he should be on *your* aids not the trails... When you're in a flat dressage ring there are no visual
barriers to guide the horse. It's all rider.


MKS

So how does the ring differ from the trail other than mindset of the rider?

While it's true that the ring provides no guides, it is also true that you can teach your horse the correct cues more easily if he finds that it is less comfortable to not listen to those cues. Then once you know HE knows, you can practice the cues on straight portions of trail or at trail junctions, which in the National Forest can often be 60'-80' across. We who don't have a ring can thus train our ponies to respond to "our" cues, not JUST the trail's.


Another point is that eventually you want your horse to do some of the decision making out on the trail. When I first started conditioning for Endurance, I was very much a RIDER. I came from eastern hunter/jumper training, cavaletti, jumps, basic dressage. My very first conditioning partner told me to stop steering the horse and constantly telling him what to do. "You don't want to have to do that for 50-100 miles every time out," she said. While you can't let your green horse make decisions, you also want the end result to be that he DOES make some decisions so you teach him the right way to do things and then as he matures, you can give him more and more of the responsibility for going down the trail safely and sanely.


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Replies
Re: [RC] trot/canter, mkrumlaw