[knaskedov]

Has anyone tried the Clinton Anderson techniques on dressage horses?
I'm buying a green broke Half Arab (a little bit of saddlebred, but mostly Arab) and have been watching his series on RFDTV.
I'm wondering if it will work.
The idea of having a horse with great ground manners is very appealling, but do you stop there? Not apply any of the under saddle exercises?

 

[mom2pride]

Has anyone tried the Clinton Anderson techniques on dressage horses?
I'm buying a green broke Half Arab (a little bit of saddlebred, but mostly Arab) and have been watching his series on RFDTV.
I'm wondering if it will work.
The idea of having a horse with great ground manners is very appealling, but do you stop there? Not apply any of the under saddle exercises?

If you'd like to apply more of his methods, I would start with his DownUnder Horsemanship book...:wink:

 

[kevinshorses]

Good horsemanship is good horsemanship. It doesn't matter if you do dressage or polo or reining all the principles are the same. Most important is that you learn the 'why' of what you are doing instead of just the steps. If you ask 10 die-hard NH followers why they insist on doing roundpen exercises on thier horses after they have been riding them for a year 9 of them wouldn't have an answer and the other would probably be wrong. Read my sig line and think about it.

 

[ridergirl23]

i do a lot of groundwork with my dressage horse, and i like to try a lot of the under saddle stuff, its gives both of us a nice break from dressage and also improves our dressage a little bit (depends on the excersice) if your really interested i would look at a bunch of different natural horsemanship guys, listen to all of them and just gather that information so that if one persons trick doesnt work well with your mare then try another, I try and get as much information from whomever i can and mash it all together so that i sorta make my own training way with all their ideas. Some things that work on their horses might not work on yours tho

 

[Scoutrider]

Good horsemanship is good horsemanship. It doesn't matter if you do dressage or polo or reining all the principles are the same. Most important is that you learn the 'why' of what you are doing instead of just the steps. If you ask 10 die-hard NH followers why they insist on doing roundpen exercises on thier horses after they have been riding them for a year 9 of them wouldn't have an answer and the other would probably be wrong. Read my sig line and think about it.

AMEN!!!

I personally do a lot of CA groundwork with my gelding, and while it would be a stretch to call him a dressage horse at this point, I plan on essentially "following" classical dressage with him as a way of building a solid foundation. What I do is follow the groundwork and get control on the ground. Scout was fairly green, so I did delve into some of the "respect and control" type exercises. Once I had full control, steering and brakes, I started working more on "proper" dressage exercises. Right now we're working on rhythm and relaxation, and me bettering my equitation and use of my seat as an aid. I'm not sure what the result will be, but my hope is that Scout will become/remain a calm and respectful horse, a willing partner, with the education, refinement, and control that I see in so many classically trained dressage horses.

There you go! The blueprint of my "grand experiment," ha ha. :lol:

 

[knaskedov]

Thanks everyone for your ideas!

Groundwork is new to me, I really only cared about how they behaved under saddle and put up with bad manners everywhere else. But since this little guy is only 4 and I plan on having him for a long, long time, I'd like him to behave everywhere. Also at his age I don't think we should ride every day, so we'll have plenty of time for ground exercises.

I'm really impressed when I see the horses sidestep either towards the handler or away from them on TV. That stuff is hard when you have reins and legs on them and they are making them do it with a halter and rope only. Getting there will take some time, but it would be so cool!!

 

[Allison Finch]

Good horsemanship is good horsemanship. It doesn't matter if you do dressage or polo or reining all the principles are the same. Most important is that you learn the 'why' of what you are doing instead of just the steps. If you ask 10 die-hard NH followers why they insist on doing roundpen exercises on thier horses after they have been riding them for a year 9 of them wouldn't have an answer and the other would probably be wrong. Read my sig line and think about it.

I totally agree, too.

Buck Brannaman is VERY popular with the dressage folks here. I use whatever, by whomever, as long as it makes sense.

 

[Scoutrider]

I'm really impressed when I see the horses sidestep either towards the handler or away from them on TV. That stuff is hard when you have reins and legs on them and they are making them do it with a halter and rope only. Getting there will take some time, but it would be so cool!!

You'll be surprised at actually how quickly some horses will offer moves like that once they get to "following feel" and you learn to read each other. My little guy and I were working on sidestepping away, and on a whim I tried flagging the stick under his belly and ckicking as I walked backwards, and he sidestepped three steps toward me.:shock: It was probably a fluke, I haven't been able to replicate it since, but shortly after that I left for school and haven't gotten a chance to work much more at it.

Remember, it's all a progression, built on a foundation. Groundwork and dressage (and all training, really, but NH groundwork and classical dressage seem to emphasize it more, IMHO) put a lot of focus on having a solid foundation and building from there. Not intending to take away from the skill and experience it takes to train a horse for any discipline, most can be boiled down to a very general set of steps that is tweaked to suit the needs of the horse in question. Dressage has the training scale, Parelli's 7 games have a definite progression. CA doesn't exactly have a concrete "Exercise #1, #2, ...", but there is definitely a recommended order to the tasks. You and your horse will get there, I'm sure.

I definitely think that NH has a place in the dressage world. Maybe not to revolutionize... I don't think we'll be seeing GP Freestyles done in rope halters, but to complement, especially in the groundwork department.