Finally today I did what I should have done two days ago. I lunged Ace before I got on. It was perfectly clear that he is genuinely upset and frightened by the changes in the arena, particularly the drainage ditch down one side. After ten minutes on the lunge he was calm and sweet and he schooled very nicely indeed. I also wore my air jacket to give me lots of confidence, to help him with his confidence, and that worked well too. I didn't feel I needed to fall off to test it!
Then I Winterval trained Radar. Fabulous! Fantastic! Amazing!
We interval trained at canter on an inside track, so we will not be overwearing the outer track either. There was still ooodles of room to get a proper rolling canter going, and each lap is about 100 metres, so ten laps is well over half a mile. After Winterval training, we did the "circle in each corner" exercise in trot and then in canter. He found a controlled canter right extremely hard and I have no doubt at all that it has done him an immense amount of good to be asked to balance himself correctly. The improvement in the quality of the canter at the end of the exercise was absolutely huge.
I am SO SO SO pleased that my land made it impractical to fit a 20x60 in, because after three days I have no doubt at all that a 40x30 is SO much more useful to train on. I can keep Radar hunting fit, do a vast variety of schooling exercises and be much more effective with exercises that don't go quite right. For example, I once went to see Chris Bartle training and he said "there is no such thing as falling in on a circle, there is only a circle in the wrong place". I remember thinking at the time "only if you have endless space, Chris". And I was right! Ace was falling in to the right in trot today, so I just kept the bend and moved the circle. Eventually he realised what was going on, pulled himself together, and circled in a proper balance I couldn't do that if I only had 20m wide to play with. I love it!
I can't wait to get out there every day into my new playpen. I've not had so much stressless fun riding since I was a teenager first discovering horses :-)
C
ps we had an absolute deluge last night and the surface was perfect. He has got the drainage spot on, which is a great relief to know, since it is so crucial.
Great news on all fronts. Glad Ace is gaining some confidence in the new arena. His mind is still very "young."
ReplyDeleteAnd good going with Radar. I agree about arena size. But, remember as well to at times perhaps mark off a competition width space as well--you can use poles on the ground--so you don't entirely lose perspective as to the space you have in a regulation arena. That will become important as Jazz moves up the levels--half pass zig zags, tempis on the diagonal, etc.
Otherwise, all that space is heavenly and opens up the opportunity for all kinds of exercise options.
I already have 20 metres of white "boarding" Jean, actually drainage guttering from the local hardware store :-) I will be practising regularly in 20m spaces. When it stops raining long enough and I am not on a horse I am also going to mark the boards every ten metres so that I can judge exactly what we are doing.
ReplyDelete"Heavenly" is a good description :-)
C