What are you working on?

It might be interesting to see what everyone is working on with their horse's dressage training at the moment. Any minor training hiccup, feel free to post in here and get some help etc.


I'll start :)

I picked up my new little WB gelding on Saturday, and have started gradually working him. He has a tendency to plow along on his front legs, so at the moment it's all about getting him forward, off the leg and doing millions of trot-canter-trot transitions to get that back of his swinging. He has already improved significantly, in just 3 rides. I have a lesson booked with my regular coach this weekend, and then a 2 day clinic with my coach from interstate in mid-May.
Sphiggi is quite the princess, everything is going to kill him! So as far as that goes, its just been a matter of riding confidently forward, and on the ground handling him in a very no nonsense manner. He has yet to spook with me under saddle, he's thought about it a couple of times but as soon as I put my leg on and ride forward, he snaps out of it.
I am looking forward to working with this horse more, he is so eager to please :)

Congrats on your new boy! I saw the post where you were looking to purchase him! Glad to know things are going great!

Right now I'm working on straightness and relaxation. My now retired TB gelding was always too straight and too relaxed, so this is a completely different issue now with my little QH paint haha. His previous owner only trail rode him and believed in ALWAYS riding with draw reins, so I'd say we have a lot of retraining to do..

Right now with Victress we are working on keeping her in the right frame in all her moves. It is my fault because I tend to forget about her hind end in change in hands mostly. We are also working on relaxation in tempi changes. That's about it as of last week! :)

With Oliver I am working in trantions trantions trantions! Keeping him forward and responsive to my leg and just to stay relaxed and forward through each and every transtion. Also working some small lateral work, leg yields and some shallow loops. I'm throwing in one pattern each ride ti help him stay alert and ready to change things up. With jumping bits just rythem, and staying blanced and not sucking back and chipping in. He's doing so good, such a hard worker and happy camper to be back at work!

With myself, and Zulu, I am working on improving my following hands. I have a tendency to stop following softly with the outside rein when I am doing something with the inside rein, suhc as softening the horse to the inside.

I learned at my one and only lesson so far this year that to think more of asking for the softening to the inside by asking with my whole inside arm, from the shoulder and elbow kind of squeezing back toward the core muscles along the rib cage, instead of just vibrateing or milking with my hand.
The first gives the horse a very smooth signal , the second is more like "dot, dot, dot". Horses like smooth better.

For Honey and I we are at the basics - keeping forward whilst asking for a bit more of a connection and working under herself more. So far we've come a wee way but contact is still an issue for her. It gets better with each ride though, so I'm rather pleased.

For myself, I'm trying to fix a few issues to help balance better and ride more forward thinking myself. Just today I enjoyed the trot feeling effortless to keep up with - so either I'm getting fitter or her trot is improving. Probably both!!

Great thread idea Kayty :)

We are working on loping without stopping/slowing down & perfect circles :) pretty basic but it's worth it in the long run.
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Making Selena actually use her hind end! Grr! So frustrating, feels like she doesn't even have hindquarters sometimes! She almost has it down at the trot....The canter is still pretty strung out though. Bleh.

Daughter is working on lengthening stride (new for her), loops, and was introduced to turning on the haunches in her last lesson.

One hiccup we are having is the horse cantering when asked for lengthened stride. It is very new to my daughter still so she is learning the correct aid to give and our horse is really wanting to canter. My daughter was riding yesterday, no in a lesson, and asked the horse for a very slight lengthening and it went well so she left it at that and worked on other things. I think part of the problem is that my daughter is barely 11 and is still learning how to deal with frustration, so she gets tense and it feeds directly into the horse.

Same as always, Ro and I are working on increasing collection and suppleness. Before June I want to have the PSG/I1 stuff solid and am aiming for scores above 65% this season.70% and some championships would be nice too!
For myself, working on keeping my legs down and hands pushing forward, riding to the contact. So lots and lots of core strengthening at the gym and on my yoga mat!
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