How to keep a bright horse busy in the school?

[Em 1]

Well, after just two weeks I've come to the conclusion that my horse is more intelligent than me :D I take ages to get an exercise right but he grasps the idea in two goes and gets on with it!!:rolleyes:

I've now got a very loveable, very well behaved, bored horse! We've just started hacking out together today and he seemed to enjoy it - lots of snorting on the way out, totally chilled on the way back :) - but I need some ideas to build up his fitness, flexibility (he will not bend through the body!) and most of all, enthusiasm!

I'll be having lessons with my instructor asap but she is tied up with moving house and job and settling her own horse in so I won't be able to have a lesson for a couple of weeks.

Any ideas would be gratefully received - at the moment I'm thinking of stringing up a tightrope and getting him to do backflips for his hay, that should keep him busy! :D

[Pink's lady]

They do lose concentration really quickly if they're bright (and also if they're as thick as two short planks :rolleyes: )

In terms of schooling excerisised, I can't really help, I get bored as as quickly as they do :rolleyes: . Lots of changes of reins and paces help, as does transitions. Poles spice life up and can be used for bending round as well. The best thing I find is short and sweet. I never warm up in the school - it's a recipe for bordum. I always take mine out for a hack to do the warming up - it's so much more intersting then ploding round the school for the first ten minutes. It also means that you can start some proper interesting schooling almost as soon as you enter the school. Mean they don't switch off at the beginning and you have to roused from their stupor :rolleyes:
I only school for 20mins of so, with a set aim in mind (i.e improveing flexing or balnce in canter, or better, softer outline). Once it's achieved I then go out for another short hack, maintaining whatever I had in the school.

It all depends on how good the hacking around you're area is though............

[maren]

it doesn't have to be too difficult to keep bright horses thinking in the arena...you just have to do lots and lots of stuff! i'll set up a few small jumps throughout the arena (say, two outside lines and some angled jumps for rollbacks and broken lines) as well as some trotting poles if i'm feeling ambitous. then i warm up my horse in walk, trot, canter. after that, have fun! for example: ask for a leg yield down the long side (horse's head angled towards center of arena, bent towards inside), straighten him before the corner, turn and go down outside line of fences at the trot, canter out and do canter circle and the end of the arena, come back to trot, trot down long side, halt halfway and back up three steps, trot forward, collect and go deep into corners at short side of arena, overshoot circle and shoulder in down long side, etc., etc, etc. i never ask my horse to do one thing for more than a few trips around the arena...he gets bored and fussy way to fast. the key with him is to keep him on his toes and listening to me; just do everything you can think of, and be creative! there's nothing wrong with mixing the more difficult lateral work with jumping small fences. try the cherry hill 101 exercise book...it has some nice flatwork ideas in it. good luck! :)

[Just.Jump]

Make up a dressage course to music using the best of your abilities! Music is a distraction for you and the horse (way funner too! Lots of horses try to match the beat in their paces), plus if you come with choreography in your head, your horse doesn't have to memorize it too :p

Doing pole work/.jumping is great also.

[virtuallyhorses]

Hacking will be brilliant for him - they have lots of enthusiasm for arena work if it's interspersed with hacking.

Don't forget that these challenges don't have to be traditional excercises - the stuff that my horse really enjoys is 'stupid things your owner thinks up that have no earthly purpose' :D :D backing in a figure eight around cones, going laterally along poles, backing over poles, fetching something from the fence, opening gates (or pretend gates) - you can use all the traditional aids and be asking your horse to bend etc but now that there is an actual task he is more likely to see the use in it.

Also remember that most horses LOVE it when you tell them they're good - even a boring arena exercise will be quite fun if you use your voice to sound enthusiastic and make them feel that they've done really well. I sound like an idiot when I'm riding a new horse - lots of talk 'YOu're such a smart boy!' 'OH you are SO clever!' - you can feel them pick up and try really hard when they're being praised :)

[Bertie]

Emma - I'm so glad you've found a great horse, you could try like has been suggesting doing your warming up on a short hack out, then starting your schooling as soon as you hit the arena.

But to improve fitness on hacks lots of walking, with short bursts of a good active trot where he's really working from behind.

Flexibility - loads of circles, serpentines, figures of 8, Shallow loops, leg yielding different gaits, there also something which I call an ice cream :p on the lef rein do a 10m circle at K and when you get half way round go in a straight line to E and change the rein.

Hopefully these will also keep his interest. Loads of transitional work, walk to halt, halt to active walk, halt to trot, rein back, rein back then halt then forward to active trot, turns on the forehand and once you progress you can start introducing walk to canter, pciking up canter at X on a figure of 8.

Poles as others have said are great - trotting poles, centering poles, create a box @ x get your horse to go and do transitional work through there, make him stop in the box then pick up an active walk, then trot in halt and trot out, trot in pick up canter in box.

Just a few suggestions, lunging will help will fitness as well I believe - good luck :D

[Mehitabel]

what do you currently fdo i nthe school?

make sure you have a purpose, plan your movements in advance - and one thing my instructor always says to me is never go more than the distance between 2 letters without doing something - a transition, a circle, a change of rein, anything. so for instance, i might warm up by walking round doing a transition to halt at each letter, change rein after once round the school, same on the other rein, then a 20m circle at A, B, C,and E with a halt at the other 4, change rein again, then swap the halts for 10m circles, etc etc.

you do need to plan these in advance, so when you stand and rest, use that time to assess what you've done and what you need to do to improve it. also remember that you need to ride these thigns properly, even the very simple things, so be aware of what you're going ot do and do each thing tothe very best of your ability. so don;t pootle along and then stop in a hurry because you sudden;y realise you haven't done a movement for half the school - actively plan your ride and what you are aiming to achieve by every single movement.

[eml]

My old horse was just too bright for his own good and often took over in exercises because he had done it a couple of times.

Echo Mehitabel people often unconciously ride round the school doing very little. When teaching an open order group I ensure they never go more than 1/4 way round the school without doing some exercise.

Riding to music helped me, especially the tapes that give you movements to carry out ( not sure if you can still get them?) If you are schooling on your own you tend to overestimate how much work (as opposed to riding around) you are doing

Hope some of this helps

[notpoodle]

haha i know the feeling! especially the bit where the horse takes over :D my pony is quite crafty and doing stuff like halting at particular letters in the school more than once is a no-no as she'll just do it and then act all like 'right, bored now! i have a better idea!'

so now i try to surprise her as much as i can by eg inventing silly figures in the school (spelling out words in longhand for example! anyone watching probablu thinks im mad but hey ...), seemingly random transitions, going along slightly off the track on purpose, the odd traffic cone weave (if i can be bothered to lug them out ...) etc.

julia
x

[Loopslou]

Amber is exactly the same so I either hack her out/lunge or walk out in hand as a warm up then I can get started.

I put 4 or five barrels down the centre line with trotting poles length ways in between, I laugh because she gets faster and faster as she goes down the line and ends up trying to trot with very little balance but hey, it gets her thinking about where she is putting her feet (which are usually planted very firmly on top of me :eek: )

Trotting poles up the arena help and plenty of lateral work should help with the flexibility. Syliva Loch is currently doing a good series in Your Horse which I have found very easy to understand and follow.

I put on a battery powered cd player too, not so much to ride to but to singalong to when Amber is playing up and I'm feeling nervous but it gets her attention as she is so easily distracted.

[notpoodle]

mine gets bored with trotting poles as well :rolleyes: last time we tried that it quickly turned into some sort of kingsized version of KerrPlonk, ahem ...

julia

[Em 1]

Thanks so much everyone! These are exactly the sort of ideas I need. If you plonked me on a school horse I'd have no problem working it for an hour but put me on Hew and I run out of ideas instantly :rolleyes:

I'm going to take your advice and really work on variety. Heaps of lateral work, serpentines, figures of eight, pole work, spelling (great idea notpoodle :D) etc. Reading all your replies I'm being far too slow in all paces (even though I thought I was changing exercises regularly)! Tomorrow I'm going to try another hack and then a fun schooling session over poles, round cones, backwards, sideways, forwards!

Hew is such a good boy I think I've forgotten how short a time he has been with us and I'm expecting too much too soon. We are looking forwards to having some fun now and worry about 'proper' work later on!!

Thanks again for all your advice. Please keep it coming!

I'll let you know how we get on :)