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HORSE  DISCUSSION FORUMS

little_welsh

Does any one know any good dressage training exercises. i could do with my horse to build his muscle and tone him.
I really want to start doing dressage

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Beauvelour

lots of transtitions walk to halt trot to halt etc etc. PLus trnsitions wihin the gait. lots of long and low. Mix it -dont jst do circles, add serpintines 15m circles then legyeilding out to 20m circles.

Do you ride under an istructor? If you do your trasitions right your horse will start to listen more and it encourages him to bring his hind legs under him which encourages him to work in a round frame. Good luck!

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little_welsh

yep i do have an instructor, but she is a 'show' (hackie) instructor.

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"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Beauvelour

thts ok because she will help you, her hack horses have to have topline on them.

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Ozzies_Girl

lot of serpentines!!!

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Cheeki

Transitions, serpintines, circles, transitions again, more transitions, transitions within the gait, half halts, leg yeilding, moving the quaters etc ..

A good instructor helps too

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jonty

Trot poles also! to help lengthen and shorten strides....

SomeoneElse

All dressage training exercises are intended to build muscle and tone (and suppleness and strength). If you're only starting out with dressage (and remember, all riding is either achieving those goals you want, or not, regardless of whether it's "dressage" or not) you need to follow the training scale ie work on getting rhythm and suppleness first - circles, turns, transitions, trot poles are all good for this.

frisospilgrim

a good excercise to do is come down the centerline do a circle to the left then back to the center line and go straight for a bit and then circle to the right and keep doing that down the center line.... this will help with suppleness and balence aswell and good muscle tone. and a build on for the excercise is to see how many you can get eventually down the center line maybe start with 4?

Naomi

The Training Scale is good to read, thanks guys!

Does anyone have diagrams of suitable dressage exercises? I'd like to stick them up in my tack shed to remind me, I always forget them.

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