how much can he concentrate?

[Susara]

My 3.5 - 4YO gelding is being backed. We built up his trainging slowly for over a year, and for the last 8 months he's been lunging nicely, doing walk-trot-halt and a LITTLE canter on voice command without problem. Since April I'm working him under saddle, practicing halt-walk-trot, as well as turning (serpentines, 20m circles, figure-of-eight using the whole arena, that type of thing).

For how long can I expect him to concentrate at this stage? I asked my trainer how long his concentration lasts and her answer was "goldfish" :-) Now he is a very 'aware' pony; as we're walking he's constantly looking around at anything that could possibly be more interesting. Asking for a halt he stands beautifully, but looking around at what's happening in the yard. I think he doesn't quite click yet that when I'm on him, we're working and his attention should be with me.

So I want to demand more attention from him, but not push him beyond his capabilities. If I longe him for 10/15 mins before mounting (just to settle him down), how long do you think I can work him mounted? And if I don't longe him first?

[tigs]

see what you mean when you say need more concentration but dont want to push him.could u ride him somewhere quieter or at a quieter time?doing more transition mabye- halt walk halt walk trot walk halt walk trot etc i.e with lots of vary.maybe praising him more would help him concentrate more on you as he will be more interested in getting his praise.if he starts looking simple bending to the inside should be enough to get at least one of his ears from facing forward.another one that i find works well (done in walk and trot as he will probably really struggle in canter)(ill use trot for the example)is to slow the trot right down intil almost walking (if u get what i mean) then ask to go straight back into the working pace with just one leg aid,i.e transitions within the pace.aim to keep him nice and soft during the movement and praise him when he goes straight off the leg, you should find this exersize gets him really in front of your leg and you should feel an extension in his leg as he goes back in to the faster pace again(feels a bit like a jolting ).hope this helps, let me know how you get on.:)

[neen]

Your boy sounds just like my share pony Fluke -- same age, same attention span!

When I school Fluke, I start by doing some in-hand work -- lots of transitions and changes of directions to get him focusing on me (probably wondering what on earth I'm doing). Once he's paying attention properly I hop on and we do more of the same -- walk-halt-walk, walk-trot-walk, and trot-halt-trot (he loves that one). We mix them all up so he never knows what's coming next; also vary the number of strides in the exercise, so you might do 4 strides of walk, 4 strides of trot, then 4 strides of walk, maybe twice, then change to 6 strides of each. We also vary the number of "beats" we sit to at halt in the same way -- not giving him time to look about him! All this gets him buzzing, and then we do lots of changes of direction.

His attention span is getting longer but he still can't take more than half an hour of this before his attention starts to drift. When I can feel him start to lose interest I do a couple more movements then call it a day. It might be an idea to ride him out for a bit after the session if you want to keep working him but he can't take any more schooling; I did this with Fluke once and he behaved beautifully.

I must add that after half an hour I've usually had enough too -- it's all quite fast-paced and a bit exhausting, trying to keep one step ahead of him all the time. Fluke's owner is training us both from the ground and even with the two of us it's hard to think fast enough to keep him occupied. I've even bought some books of exercises so I can do "lesson plans" in advance and not feel so on the spot!

Fluke loves his lessons, though -- as soon as he realises he's headed for the school he perks up. He thinks it's all a mad game -- which I suppose it is!

[KateWooten]

neen, that sounds really neat ... and the pony's loving it ? That's what I need for my joePony. He really doesn't like going to the school, so I'm obviously doing something wrong !!! So you really keep it very short and snappy then - literally a 4 beat rest ? I was thinking joeP would need a decent sized rest - 30 seconds - 1 minute to say, 'yes, you got it right and I appreciate it' ... but maybe I'm really boring him to death ?