Horse related News Views and Reviews

After a good dressage test of just over 70% and a clear showjumping with a tight and twisitng course on Saturday we were in 3rd place. On Sunday we managed another clear round in the crosscountry, even though the first half of the course was quite twisting with what Occy found as slippery footing. We ended up in 2nd place and could not have done any better.

Arlene “Tuny” Page rides a correct extended trot on Alina. Her 13-year-old Danish mare displays a “controlled explosion with maximum confidence.”

© Susan J. Stickle

I love riding the extended trot on my dressage horses. When I ask my Grand Prix dressage horse Alina to move into an extended trot as she straightens onto the diagonal, it feels like it is her idea—a controlled explosion with maximum confidence. An extreme combination of fully loaded carrying and thrusting power, the extended trot is absolutely fantastic to ride.

While Alina’s rectangular shape makes her well-suited for the movement, her extended trot is the result of a training framework that builds flexibility and impulsion in any dressage horse. When I first met Alina four years ago, she was a Young Rider’s dressage horse with plenty of fire and a great work ethic. I bet that as she developed better looseness and carrying power, I could channel her desire to go while we developed her ability to collect and extend. It was a gamble that’s now paying off in the extended trot.

In schooling for the extended trot then and now, we focus on exercises that require a lot of thrust from the hindquarters and collecting exercises that require her to carry more weight on her hindquarters, hence playing the two ends of the spectrum. As a result, her range has widened to achieve an extended trot that takes your breath away.

Advertisement

Here are some training techniques that will help you safely expand your horse’s range and teach him to perform the extended trot as if he’s thrilled to show off his ability to do what the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) refers to as a lengthening of his steps to the utmost of his capability.

Working Gaits with Integrity
As the cornerstone of dressage training, the working gaits create the basis for developing the qualities and reactions needed for collection and extension. I focus on creating and maintaining my horse’s flexibility, rhythm and impulsion as I warm up in working gaits. I want to feel and reward natural enthusiasm for work, and spending time in the working gaits really helps.

One of the integral ingredients in producing extension is impulsion. The following simple daily warm-up will help set up any horse—from Training Level to Grand Prix—with the all-important desire to go forward and stay relaxed while doing it. It includes schooling simple upward and downward transitions on circles to teach the horse that every transition should have a basic level of carrying and thrusting power. Try transitions by following these steps:

1. Establish your 20-meter circle in a steady, active, rhythmic working trot. Make sure the shape of your circle is correct. This forces you to control the horse’s lateral balance. If you make a wishy-washy circle, you give him permission to fall in or off the track. Anytime impulsion goes left or right instead of straight through the horse’s body, you lose forward power, like a garden hose full of holes. Control and channel all of your horse’s power in a specific direction. Also make sure you have the correct bend, which starts with correct flexion. Crest muscles should be positioned so that they fall to the inside and you can see the horse’s inside eye. His jaw should be loose and accepting of the bit.

2. As you prepare for an upward transition to canter, think about riding with the lightest-possible aids. I know that my horse is truly in front of my seat when it takes next to nothing to change gears.

3. Switch from rising to sitting trot by putting weight on your inside seat bone and whispering “canter” with your inside leg.

4. As you canter, gently increase the swing of your seat, backed up by your leg, voice and whip (if needed), to achieve a prompt increase in the volume of your horse’s gait.

5. Transition back into working trot with the use of your outside rein. Half halt while maintaining flexion and bend to the inside. Continue to encourage and reward enthusiastic forward motion without loss of rhythm.

Continue with these transitions while adding changes of direction until your horse is loose, warm and happy in both his desire to go forward and in his willingness to wait on your downward transitions. There is some magic in this simple exercise to freshen the lazy horse, relax the hot horse and loosen the back and neck structure of all horses.

Coil the Spring
Once your horse can make seamless transitions on the circle in a good rhythm and maintain a relaxed posture, the rest of your session should include any of a limitless number of exercises that build both thrusting and carrying power. Any exercise that you choose based on your horse’s current level of training should incorporate a sense of “coiling the spring.” Here is one way that I do it:

1. Frequently check that the horse has the desire to go forward in an instant. I do this by deliberately swinging my seat while imagining that my horse is increasing the volume of his movement. As I think “forward,” I let my fingers “breathe” and allow for slight lengthening of his frame. I follow through on my original driving aids with an invisible aid, using my upper calf, lower leg, spur, voice and whip in that order. When your horse understands this aid sequence, his sensitivity to the more subtle aids increases, and he helps you by being self-propelled.

2. Check the collecting aids. The basic collecting aid is the half halt. For me, that’s closing my knee and thigh, stabilizing my back and seat, vibrating my fingers and thinking that I want my horse to coil back toward his hind legs. The important point here is that my horse reacts by shifting his weight over his back into his croup and closing the joints of his hind legs. Just as with the driving aids, I must follow through on the collecting aids. If my horse doesn’t react clearly and efficiently to this initial aid, I do three things: Repeat the original aid and, if need be, promptly make a stronger aid. Second, make a downward transition. Third, transition to halt.

By reinforcing my horse’s willingness to promptly expand and contract (like a rubber band), I increase his sensitivity to both aids and I expand his range of motion between collection and extension, coiling the spring.

Extended Trot Transitions
This is one of my favorite exercises for developing great collected–extended–collected trot transitions. The idea is to use your horse’s natural desire to please and his ability to anticipate. I learned it from dressage icon Conrad Schumacher about 15 years ago. It’s a very simple exercise that rewards a horse for beginning to explore the outer boundaries of his range.

1. Start out in working trot, tracking on the long side of the arena.

2. Walk at the letter before the corner, maintaining a good bend.

3. Promptly make half a walk pirouette to the left, which turns you back to the same wall, facing the other way.

4. Using the lightest-possible aids, straighten your horse and transition back to the working trot.

5. Before you get to the corner, transition to walk and make half a walk pirouette to the right. Stay on the long side, heading in the other direction.

• 1
• 2
• next >
• last >>

Even an Olympic silver medallist enjoys a day out at her old (and recently re-started) Pony Club. Sonja Johnson took her ‘ponies’ (including EA Elite Squad listed Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison aka Ben Pony) to Many Peaks Pony Club recently where they competed at all levels for large and small riders