Trotting Out and Ribbing Us Newbies, Truman.

[Susie Wimberly <suzieqc1cr@yahoo.com>]

Alison:

Me thinks thou hast cast thy lot with fools!

Tez & I are working on the extended trot thing as we speak. 
Occasionally, and mostly when I do not ask for it, he strikes this
very natural, balanced, comfortable, long-reaching extended trot.  It
is his very own version of an overdrive and it is absolutely smooth. 
And, this is a horse that was intially schooled to the collected,
Western Pleasure show ring jog trot.

When I try to push him into his extended trot, he resists, I
inevitably do some little thing to foul up our balance, and Tez breaks
over into a canter to escape my nagging.

What we are going to do, as soon as we have a little more time &
organization in our schedule (and permitting the added expense) is to
hire a dressage trainer (we have an excellent woman locally) to come
out and work with Tez & me.  Also, I will go to her farm to lesson on
her very experienced dressage school horses.

My training objective here is to ease into the rider/horse equation
which will yield a relaxed, natural extended trot.  Tez needs to be
comfortable learning to give to my leg and hand to gain the length of
stride, AND most importantly to maintain the gait consistently for
several miles at a time.

Don't think speed ("how do we speed things up?").

Think length of stride, absolute balance, and relaxation.

Wish I could. . . .

Susie & Tez







---AliFarr@aol.com wrote:
>
> I love the stuff - well soaked.  Made the mistake of feeding ONE
HANDFULL of
> dry pellets and watching the horse eat it.  Then I watched him choke
on it and
> I have the $200 vet bill to prove that this is NOT a good idea.  Not
to
> mention scaring the living daylights out of me.
> 
> My training question (having now pulled from two rides for various
reasons
> that started with getting lost and ended with hooves stuck in the
rocks, but
> all somewhat beside the point) is having taught my horse a nice
quiet road
> trot as a baby, how do I teach that really extended trot, so when we
do lose
> time, we can make it up and when we don't lose time, we could
actually be
> competitive?  I should mention that we don't have other endurance
riders to
> train with - we already trot faster than anyone else around here. 
What do you
> do to speed things up?
> 
> Alison Farrin
> 
> 

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