CANTER Mid Atlantic’s Dixie Rumble

What a great week it has been for Dixie. It’s a little over a month and he is coming along faster than even I had imagined he would. One of the main goals of my flat work with young horses is to teach them to stretch low and long and really seek the contact. Dixie came with a nice feel in his mouth but he was very stiff over his back and laterally and would not go any further than just a tiny bit of roundness in his neck.

Teaching a horse to really stretch is something that can take time and might need to be done with side reins/vienna reins until they can understand the concept. Dixie had a good feel in his mouth but just didn’t have enough strength in his hind end at first so the basic work we have done has really helped him. I am a strong believer in lots of trails, low jumps and trot work to build strength and of course nice stretchy trot work for the babies. Each ride Dixie has started to stretch more and more. One of the reasons I find it hard to get him to stretch is that you have to provide a bit of resistance in the mouth and teach them to yeild. His reaction to the rein pressure combined with leg was to open his mouth and pull against it.

I start each ride at the walk doing very simple bending and suppling exercises and repeating the concept of leg to hand until he softens and starts to relax his neck. Then I move onto the trot. Finding the proper trot rhythm is hard when they don’t want to come into the contact. I posted a video critique on one of the dressage forums and some people said more trot and others said less. I always do what I think is best for the horse and with the Tb’s I am a believer in slowing it down first because they tend to run from the leg you must first slow it down and teach them leg means over and then once you teach them that it seems like the concept of stretching and relaxing will come next. Dixie is not always reactive to leg but he did not want to come into the contact and when I asked for more trot to push him to the receiving contact he ran around all out of balance. Okay, that won’t work let’s try slowing it down and doing slow slow trot. Mmm..yes there he is starting to supple in his neck and then I could finally start pushing him to the contact.

I could have done a dance today because when he finally let go of his back and started to seek out my hand the trot was fantastic. His shoulder began to reach and the back was swinging under me. I could have ridden for hours

The canter is still a work in progress. I think it is harder for him to engage the hind end at the canter and come into the contact but each ride we get more. I think today was the first time I even had him slightly round in the canter. He still struggles to the right but again I consider that very normal for where he is in his training. He will even out with more trail work and strengthening work on the flat.

If you want to see pictures of how he has progressed you can check out his full album here- http://pets.webshots.com/album/562846383RVbsSd?start=108