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Useful Dressage Exercises
Anyone with an important competition date in the diary will appreciate how much preparation goes into the build-up and how too often, no matter how much you plan, things can go wrong (lorry breaking down/horse going lame etc). So, it's time for us to keep our fingers crossed and crack on with the horses’ training (and get the lorry serviced, ha ha!).
One of the things that judges look for is a nice supple horse that works over his back and has a good swing in his step. Keeping your horse or pony nice and supple is no easy task but having a nice, easy and supple horse means that even if you don’t do dressage, you will have a better chance of getting that turn into that fence, as well as making him a more pleasurable ride.
There are lots of ways that you can help transform your horse from stiff into supple and these are some of the exercises that I do with my horses on a daily basis as part of their exercise programme. With a stiff horse, it is important to allow them to warm up properly before you attempt any of these exercises and tailor your warm up to how they feel at that moment. Some horses warm up well with lots of loose trot work, whilst others find a good canter, with the rider out of the seat, helps the horse; however always start with at least 15 minutes of walk work as a rule.
Exercises
Once the horse has warmed up his muscles, the simplest exercises that you can work with are transitions on a 20 meter circle. The key to riding these well is to keep the horse moving forward into the down ward transition as well as into the upward transition – this helps get the horse to engage his hind leg and help ‘power’ him along and allow him to step under and work over his back. Start with simple walk, trot-walk transitions and then build in trot-canter-trot and so on, but don’t work too long on these if your horse is not used to them, as they can tire the horse out quickly.
Any show-jumper will know how important it is to be able to change direction and speed without a huge fight! So, the next exercises are a good one to try:
Try riding different changes of direction, from serpentines through to figures of eight and loops back to the track – the key to riding them well is to keep a good rhythm and ensure that the horse is not falling in or out.
Next you can try changing the speed within the gait, going from working trot to collected to medium and the same with the canter work – this helps get the horse working over his back as well as getting a stuffy horse to really start to think about motoring on and is especially good with stiffer horses. Don’t ask for too dramatic change in pace – just build up slowly and even if you just get a few strides of each when first teaching the horse, this is fine.
Remember to allow plenty of walk breaks in-between. Stretch the horse down in-between these exercises and allow him to stretch over his back and seek the contact down, rather than you pulling back in an attempt to find his mouth! You need to think about encouraging the hind legs up and the horse forward into the bit – many horses, especially if they are stiff, will find this hard so don’t ask at the beginning of your schooling session but try after he has worked – you might be pleasantly surprised!!
Finally, my Carl Hester Joint & Muscle supplement is designed to look after your horses’ joints and muscles and we feed it to both the older more advanced horses who might need a little extra help but also to the younger horses, as an investment in their future careers.
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