Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Really do need a quiet place where a horse (young or
older) can focus on you and the messages you want to
send.  Sort of like sending a child to school.   Ring
work is school.  You school your horse and then you
take him out into the world and hope he will remember
some of his schooling while being fed all kinds of
stimuli out there.  It is very valuable for "older"
horses that have had no schooling as well. A horse can
spend his whole life not knowing anything just like
some riders spend their whole life not really knowing
how to ride. Some horses end up simply hopped on and
sent out into the world with a person pulling to stop
and kicking to go and yanking the reins left and right
to turn.  Very sad to see a horse treated this way
when it is so much pleasenter when the horse is
schooled and understands what you want.  Yes sometimes
they forget and you wonder what you spent all that
time for but..........in the long run you will find
that for the most part you will be proud of your
horses performance when correctly schooled.  A big
bonus is that the horse learns to carry himself and
you much more easily and you will get comments on how
beautiful your horse looks going down the trail. 
There is nothing more beautifil than a horse with a
well rounded topline, back up, moving from behind
(where the power source is), free and easy long trot,
canter / gallop.   This can only be taught in a place
where the horse can focus, be it in a ring, round pen,
or just a familiar flat spot in the field where you
can do some circles and school figures, do lateral
work, bending , ask for lengthening / shortening the
stride  and  stretching etc.  A horse that only goes
down the trail his whole life gets stiff in every part
of his body and doesn't know how to bend and flex or
even realax his muscles.  You need space for that not
a narrow trail.  HOpe this helps.    
--- sharp penny <penelope_75647@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> For a young horse there are just too many
> distractions out
> on the trail to try to teach them any new things
> there. I
> have found that trying to do this makes teaching the
> skill
> harder and takes them longer to *catch on*. Why set
> you or
> your horse up for failure? Once they have that
> *skill*
> firmly intact then, I'll up the difficulty level and
> ask
> for that skill on the trail. I agree once my horse
> has a
> pretty good knowledge of that skill then using the
> trail to
> work on and refine it is great.
>
> Regards,
> Penny
> --- Carol Stiles <cstiles@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > I still think everything one does in an arena,
> teaching
> > flexibilty, suppleness, lateral moves, jumping,
> etc.. can
> > be done just as easily out on the trail in a more
> natural
> > environment. But if you don't feel confident
> enough about
> > this then by all means use an arena. It's far
> better to
> > be in a controlled fenced in area if you're unsure
> about
> > how your horse is going to react.
> > Carol
>
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