Need Some Schooling Exercises!

[Rachel C.]

Hi!

Some of you may know that I have my new horse, Ferdie now. I have been able to ride him twice now, and although he has been quite good there are some things that we need to work on.

It would be great if some of you could give me a hand with WHAT things to work on first, and then some exercises to help with his schooling, targetting these mini-problems. I want to start working on them sooner rather than later, because I don't want them to increase.

ON the flat, he is a bit TOO sharp to the leg when I start riding, and he only gets used to me having it agaisnt his sides are 15mins of riding. Is there any way to improve this? It just means I have to walk for 10 minutes before I do much more. Also, he is much better to strike off into canter on one rein than the other, and he sometimes resists the bit to go from walk to halt. Otherwise he generally works quite round, and carries himself quite nicely.

Over jumps he is a bit novicey with fillers, but I have a few at the yard which I can work on, but over the few jumps I did today he almost always stood off, which exercises would help with that?

Thanks in Advance...

Rachel

[Mehitabel]

with most horses, a good exercise for eiother being too sharp or not responsive enough to the leg is to do lots of transitions in quick succession. it seems to work on the sharp ones as they realise there's no point shooting off if they have to stop again in 5 strides, and the lazier ones realise they might as well not bother switching off on the downwards transitions because they're only stopped for a second. it doesn't work with all horses - petal blows her stack if she's feeling goey and i make her keep stopping, with her i just keep trotting and keep her going forward until she calms down. but it works on a lot of them, so worth a try. striking off in canter problems are usually realted to stiffness in general, so plenty of changes of bend and don't work for too long on one rein, try to change every few circuits of the school.
as for resisting the bit, try to make your transitions come more from your seat; resist with your seat, close the legs and use your voice rather than reins. if he's going at an active walk, you need to stop the back end first to get a smooth transition.
have you tried jumping out of a line of trotting poles? that usually helps the mto get the right stride and take off in the right place.