How to
train a happy
horse
Variety is the spice of life
If you sat at your desk all day, doing the same thing over
and over again and never getting out to do anything else
but that one job, you would become irritable and frustrated pretty quickly. It is the same
for your horse. You can’t expect your horse to want to work hard for you and do his job
well, if he isn’t interested. To keep him interested, you need to keep variety in his work.
Take him out hacking in different places or let your dressage horses have a break with a
nice jumping session. You could even offer variety by doing groundwork and strengthening your bond at the same time.
It works in your favour to offer your horse variety as he will not only work harder for you
but it will desensitise him to different things. Then on show day, he isn’t spooking at a flag
waving in the breeze because he has been there done that.
Get out of the arena
You can school your horse almost anywhere so there really isn’t an excuse to limit your
work to the arena. Try schooling your horse out in a big paddock or even down the beach.
He will be interested and be 100 times keener to work.
Go for a gallop
Dressage and showing horses in particular, require a lot of energy but contained into collected work. They have all this energy bubbling away inside them and don’t get the opportunity very often to have a blow out like an eventer or jumping horse. This is partly why
you see dressage horses blowing up over seemingly small things, they simply have a lot of
energy and need to do something with it. Don’t be afraid to let your horse out of his frame
and go for a gallop, or big canter at least. If you don’t feel confident to begin with, try it in
the arena first and then graduate to bigger spaces.
Reward is key
It can be really tempting when something is going well to keep on asking for the same thing
over and over, especially if it is a movement or exercise that you have been struggling with.
Instead, get the hard exercise right, reward him with a rest and a nice big pat and then go
again. He will be far happier to work and try hard for you if he knows you aren’t going to
drill him for a long time.