enjoying dressage

[cameo976]

I had a wonderful ride on my future dressage pony today and just wanted to let people know - people who understand dressage and can appreciate my joy :)

I broke pony in around 4 months ago and am just so happy with how he's coming along. We do a lot of long and low with focus on moving forward and straight so I know it doesn't look very pretty - but it feels great!

I'd been having a lot of trouble balancing the canter away from motorbiking around corners without losing the forwardness. Today I let the reins out and he took the contact all the way down without changing speed and just FELT good.

We also opened and closed the gate without dismounting which is an achievement (I hadn't tried it yet but always teach my horses to do this).

Anyway, I am just smiling in the wake of a lovely ride that reminds me why I ride and train dressage. I hope everyone else has had equally brilliant rides recently. Feel free to share

:) :)

[scribbles]

excellent its always good to have a great ride on a greenie!

[Gloria]

Congratulation!!! I remember when I was just a dressage rail bird, I thought dressage were bunch of stuffed up ladies doing endless circles. Just prove how ignorant I was then:cool: Then I decided to give dressage a try and attended a Eddo Hoekstra clinic, and Oh My Goodness, That is what it feel like to have a balanced horse underneath you!!! How can I ever live without it!!! I was hooked and never looked back since. :D

[Reiter]

I had a wonderful ride yesterday on my boy. He's starting to get a bit of collection and we did some nice shoulder-ins. I also remember when he first started seeking the contact and did a nice stretchy circle. Feels so wonderful to bring along a young horse from scratch and feel him become one with you! Today we're going trail-riding! :)

[LarkspurCO]

Good for you! I know how you feel.

After struggling all summer, my horse has all of a sudden figured out the trot lengthening. He is not a big mover anyway and when I would ask for a lengthening he would either try to rush faster or sometimes break into a canter, with his best being a barely perceptible change.

I had actually quit practicing this for several weeks. Then in a lesson a couple of weeks ago his motor finally kicked in, and not only did he lengthen but was approaching a decent medium. Now he is a big trotting fool.

Of course he always knew how to lengthen, so what really happened was HE finally taught ME how to do it.

[Invite]

I'm so happy for the excellent rides. Nothing feels better then having a huge breakthrough with a horse you have started. I still remember the day my green gelding cantered properly. It felt so good and I was so proud. Those little moments give you butterflies in your tummy and you feel on top of the world.

I'm still recovering from an accident, have one who is greenbroke and one who has a torn DDFT, so I love living vicariously through the victories of fellow COTHers! Keep the happy stories coming!

[cameo976]

Thaanks for the replies! It's great to enjoy success with other people who can relate to it!

After chipping away at dressage on a OTTB mare who was too hot and set in her ways to really be ideal, I decided to start afresh and have never looked back!

Like everyone, some days are better than others, but I am definately enjoying dressage so much more than ever before.

Of course, it helps now that I have a good dressage trainer who can help me feel what is correct and what is not - on the TB I rarely got 'correct'!

Glad to hear a shout-out for trail riding too. Makes the days in the arena far better in my opinion when they've been broken up by a trail ride or a round of jumping :)

Good to hear you've got a true lenthening on yours Larkspur! Isn't it one of the best feelings in the world? I know my boy is far from ready for true lenthenings, but I know the feeling and can't wait to get that far with him!

Glad not all the posters here are only interested in discussing the doom and gloom of dressage!

[Reiter]

Here's how my trail-ride went: This horse has been on less than 10 trail-rides and being in CA, water hasn't featured in any of them...until today! Took a trail I haven't been on in years and didn't even give the little creek we would have to cross a second thought. Then horsey decided the rushing, clittering water was a monster out to eat him. After an hour of convincing, he finally gave in and went through! Went back and forth through the water and then back home, since that was all the time I had! There's young horses for you, you never know what happens next! ;)
(Okay sorry, not quite dressage related, but for me it's all part of training a young one!)

[quietann]

... didn't even give the little creek we would have to cross a second thought. Then horsey decided the rushing, clittering water was a monster out to eat him. After an hour of convincing, he finally gave in and went through! Went back and forth through the water and then back home, since that was all the time I had! There's young horses for you, you never know what happens next! ;)

Well, you are on the wrong coast, but if you ever came to New England to show at GMHA, you'd be happy to have your horse water trained... they need to cross a stream to get to the show arena!

[LarkspurCO]

After an hour of convincing, he finally gave in and went through!

An hour of convincing. Oh, how we suffer for our art!

My horse had an out-of-body experience on our last two trail rides. He is terrified of cattle, and there is a big herd of bison smack in the central valley of this 3,000-acre park. I figure he thinks these are sinister, terrorist cows with nuclear bombs strapped to their backs.

His tricks included running sideways up a huge hill, running backwards down a huge hill, and later running backwards out of the trailer and bolting off. Fortunately he ran through a gate into a fenced area next to the dog park. It took a half hour to catch him, but only after he tried every possible way to get out of the enclosure and into a very busy Interstate 25.:eek:

But he made up for that in our lesson today by doing two flying changes, one each direction. It was our first time performing this in front of my trainer and our first time getting the left lead to right lead change. He was so very proud of himself. Big dork.