I had a brilliant dressage instructor that gave me this piece of advice when I had started to work on the more advanced moves. She said to me to just concentrate on on the technical part of the move so the horse understands what you want. Then you can move on to make it prettier. Then, if the 'pretty' fails in a test, the horse will always have the technical to fall back on and won't get flustered. I thought that was great, and it has stuck with me .
What have instructors told you? I will pick best answer.
Don't trim the blinders off the bridle on your driving horse.
My grandfather always clipped off the blinders. Every time he saw someone harnessing a horse, he said the horse can't see! He grew up with horses, before cars were common.
Every time he did that, we had an accident.
Our trainer was horrified. My grandfather persisted.
Eventually, we bought him a fishing boat and a membership in a fishing club, and that (more or less) solved the problem.
It's not really a piece of advice, and it wasn't for me, but on Saturday I overheard an instructor talking to her student who was really nervous for the show she had tomorrow (today), and her instructor said, "don't think about messing up. Just think about you and Snoop." (She was riding a horse named Snoopy.) And today, I rode Snoopy at the show, and I just kept telling myself that before both my classes, and I just didn't even care about winning this time, and I ended up getting second in the jumping class , and third on the flat! But if I was concentrating too much on being perfect, I probably wouldn't have. I was just trying to think what would I do if it were just me and Snoop in a lesson.
Two pieces of advice.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
My instructor said "When you are jumping ahead of the horse or teaching a student who is, it will throw the horse off every time. Close your eyes a few strides before the jump and feel the horse under you." It helps.
My other instructor said "Hold the reins as if they were baby birds, you don't want to squish them and hurt them, but you don't want them to get away either."
There have been so many great tips, but I like those the best.
My current trainer has this motto ...
"No lessons should have a set time limit. If the horse has done good, you put him away. If he hasn't impressed you yet, then you better stay on that son of ab * tch!"
Lol, love her.
My grandpa taught me that hitting a horse once is discipline, after that it's just revenge. Always control your temper with a horse.
If you carry a crop it is not a fashion device.
That one makes me laugh every time i hear it. :-)
Your ride doesn't start when you get on, and doesn't end when you get off. You should be thinking about your ride a lot more than that , get in the mood.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com I had a horrible practice ride at a show one time. IDK what was wrong with me but I was in tears. My trainer got after me a little bit, but after I got off she told me it wasn't over. All day we worked at the show but I kept thinking about my ride, she told me on the car ride home and while I was getting ready to go to sleep I should think about my ride and just go throu everything in my head. Like literary when I was brushing my teeth or trying to go to sleep on something, in my mind, imagine my ride, walk, trot and canter, every detail. She said do the same thing in the morning no matter how tired I was. And I did that. And I won a first place at the show!
two things,
1 dont look down haha every time i look down going over a jump or when a horse bucks i end up on the ground and if i dont look down i stay on so thats really important to me.
2 if your horse sucks at something just do it. Like i was talking to this horse trainer and he was saying how he hates it when people say their horse sucks at the canter, and to fix that they ask for the canter and are happy when the horse does a few strides good so they stop and he says to just keep cantering. if you want the canter fixed just canter like crazy. and thats one of those things that are like common sence b/c its just practicing but for some reason i never thought about it like that and that has helped me alot with ridding.
if the horse is free there is something wrong with it
