HELP AND ADVICE Driving to Collected advice please

[Dummer&Drummer]

Hi, I would like some advice, tips and opinions please, anything welcomed.

i have my first pony (adult rider) he is an arab cob 7 years old and i have had him since january. he is excellent fun, great at jumping 4ft and excellent at XC, (we recently went up to a XC course and did 35 jumps, stopped at 2 and missed 2, ditches and everything so that is a fantastic horse to do all of that as i have only been riding 8 months total). a relation of mine who is a great rider said without out a doubt if he was shorter to ride him :) he would win XC hands down on him. my horse is a very fast jumper, we believe he used to do a bit of driving, alot of muscle in his front end which makes it easy for him to jump fast and make up time jumping. The faster he is the better he jumps and he gets his stride spot on.

my horse is great, but is the most uncollected little elephant stomping round in lessons ever :rolleyes: - with my instructors tuition i am thinking of trying to make him collected, eg he pulls himself forward at the moment with his front end instead of bouncing on his front end and using his back end to go forwards -Tips on how my instructor is going to get me to change this???? (we are going to have to temporairliy use spurs as i have a bad leg - god my horse and spurs, that is going to be entertaining :) :)

also i am worried collecting him may slow him down when it comes to jumping XC ???

will it alter the way he jumps???

will it mean i have to sort his stride out prior to jumping?????

pros and cons of collecting him?????

once he is collected my spears come off, so i presume once he is collected he would stay this way or until he was trained otherwise???

one of the reasons for doing this is one, this is the only thing i feel my horse lacks skill wise within in himself with his flat work

and two, much as my horse is fantastic and is great for allowing such a novice to do what i do on him eg XC and show jumping competitions, i sort of feel as though it does not take much skill to ride him anymore, he is a sort of kick and go pony and i thought that by making him collected it would bring my riding on more and make him more challenging to ride (also i thought it would be beneficial if it improves him and helps bring him on being only 7 (and i also believe he was not that good at a driving), for him and for when i sell him, my fantastic first horse was only ever going to be with us for 2 years maximum before i up grade :( :( - (Im gonna find him the best home ever)

any view tips, obviously re training him would be done under close instruction

Thank you

[cvb]

it shouldn't slow him down - if anything he will learn how to engage his hindquarters and may be even faster and/or tire less :D

If it alters his jumping, it will be for the better as he learns to move his weight around !

Overall I found - when i did something similar with my "onward bound" cob as a pony clubber - that what it did was give me a broader "range" within which to ride. So I could collect up when needed, but equally well kick on and cover the ground.

[Dummer&Drummer]

thanks cvb - im going to obviously attempt this under supervision obviously- how do you go about changing this??? - just want some ideas prior to my lesson :) looking forward to starting this, i know it is going to be hard work but it is a great challenge, esp someone at my level - but love the thought of being to able to ride him different ways, i dont feel he can bring my riding on anymore, confidence wise he can, and there is a lot obviously we have not done and there is still loads of room to improve on him the way he is, he just requires minimum skill :-) he is excellent and great fun, kick and go sort, sorry nudge and go :-) but i dont have to think very much to ride him, but i love the fact that he loves jumping heights and fillers and i no he would have so much more to give if he were collected

how did you do it??? basic horse terminology please :rolleyes:

[cvb]

imagine your horse is a spring, held between your two hands. When you are "collecting", you shorten the spring up - which puts more energy into a smaller area !

When you collect, the stride gets shorter, but the aim is to keep the temp the same, so there is more elevation - more time in the air.

Now whatever "frame" you ride your horse in, you should be riding leg into hands, and they should be listening to your aids (for change in pace, direction etc). This may be way you will need spurs at first - as often when you ask them to slow up, they drop behind the leg. And what you need to do is "shorten the spring" - imagine if you pushed the spring from one end only - it would not shorten, it would just move backwards. So you want your "leg" to contain the "spring" and create the collection.

The other thing about collecting is that you are moving more of the horse's weight from the forehand to the hind quarters.

So everything you do is about achieving above - your balance as a rider is used to help rebalance the horse. You "ask" for a shorter frame (to bring the nose and the tail closer together).

How you do this - often through lots of transitions, lots of changes of pace/gait, and also by changing within the trot e.g. push the trot on along the long side, and then shorten round the short side - and so on.

The horse has to develop different muscles, and learn to balance - so its a slow process of learning and changing.

Oh yes - the other thing is that to bring the hind quarters under, the back and tummy need to lift. So they need to be working properly through their back and neck - thats where the "rounded" outline comes in.

This is a subject people have written books on - so will stop here for now !

[Dummer&Drummer]

I have not had my lessons yet - but i did ride him last night, like most nights :) and i did experiment with a few things, this is not collected im sure but maybe a start? i asked him into canter, a keen canter, but kept a hold/check on his reins so his strides stayed shorter and squeezed hard with my legs (bit hard with my bad leg, but i think spurs may temporairly help with this) and i pushed with my body real hard. i had someone watching, and they said that he was keeping his front legs off the ground for longer and they were higher in the air to when he 'pulls' himself along, his front knees were bending more as well and a few strides were occasionally bouncey on the front - does this show that he may pick up 'collected'

[cvb]

yes - the ability to shorten and lengthen is a good sign :)

watch this " i pushed with my body real hard" as you are aiming for the "invisible ride" where all you are doing is containing the energy, not creating more etc.

Mark Rashid does a very silly "mime" where he "pushes with his seat" as he walks along. ;) Basically our bodies mirror the horse a lot - so in general, if you wouldn't do it as part of your own normal movement, don't do it on a horse !!

Remember collection is about putting the (same) energy into a smaller space, not about creating more.