The Art of Natural Dressage

Hey all,
Well my name is Kristina, im 14 and currently live in south australia. I started riding when I was 9 at Templewood(seems to be the place most people start:P) then, because Twood is so far away and EXPENSIVE!!I began riding down at the torrens river with a lady called Trudie and her three horses Sundance(age 32 at the time) Telbon (age 21) and Bella (age Last year I joined Belvidere Pony Club on my cousins horse Annie and then FINALLY September last year I got my own horse, the very gorgeous and stubborn Annie(my cousins horse).

And now for annies history which is quite colourful..
She was born and bred here in SA her sire being Crouch USA and her dam being Midland Miss NZ, shes a standie and was trained to race(but never actually competed) untill she was about 3-4 she was then sent off to the knackery but being saved by a vet who then 'retrained' her and sold her on to my Aunty, and for the past 4-5 years shes sat in my aunties paddock untouched and neglected..it was last year that she finally plucked up the decency to try and sell annie on(she was really neglected) she got plenty of enquires, for a give away horse you would, and the guy who seemed most interested we thought he was most likely a dogger so thats how she came to be in my possesion and I absolutly love her with all my heart!!
We've come along way from the neglected girl she was to now but we have heaps further to go.
Her name is Annie, her race name was Swish Annie, and my nickname for her is Anniekins =P

anyways im realy looking forward to getting to know more horsie people on here!!

cheers! and thanks for reading!
Kristina

Welcome, Kristina!!

Looking forward to reading more about you and your horse. What are you doing with her at the moment and what do you want to do together in the future?

Warm Regards,
Romy

Hey,
Well at the moment she and I are working on trying to straighten out her kinks and stuff...and what i mean by kinks is that she tends to buck, head toss, bite all those type of naughty things...i dont blame i spose are those years of neglection she wouldnt really know whats right or wrong...since i got her its been a big roller coaster ride sort of...some times she would be absolutly brilliant and then other times she would tack a bad turn and just act plain stupid...im still young and learning aswell so first were ruling out any medical type problems to her behaviour, we've had the chiropractor out and shes all up to date with her vaccines and stuff now..her feet are all nice and trimmed we're just waiting now for the dentist to come out in august(which i believe may be causing her headtossing from sharp teeth) and aside from that im exploring as many different methods of training i can...I've tried a bit of natural horsemanship buying dvds which explained the basics of the groundwork, and then starting out in the saddle and stuff...and there was some improvement from her but not much and me being new to it aswell probably didnt help...
At the end of the day i would like to build a good relation ship and bond with her...but she doesnt make it easy either(if she had a heard i suspect she would definatly be alpha mare :P) I when i grow would like to go into horse riding as a profession whether it be eventing, training or even mounted police work...

anyways what type of horses do you have?

Cheers,
Kristina

Hey Kris,

I have broken my right arm yesterday and can´t type long posts, so it´s just a few links: check out Michele´s posts, she is a young girl who had similar problems with her lovely mare chance. maybe some suggestions given to her will be useful for you as well.

My horses... again just a link, sorry: our pictures and videos (best skip the first ones, my child´s filming was terribly shaky). they also all have a diary if you want to know more. talk to you as soon as i can write again...

Romy

hi there!!!! so glad you made it!!! you are at the right place. enjoy and ask as many questions as you want!! i am going away for a few days, hopefully i will get back healthier and happier, but on monday night i will be back and i promise to give you my undivided attention. sorry i cannot read this now. i am glad that you came on here. talk soon

_________________
just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

Hi Kris,
I have been reading the threads here for a while. It will be lovely to follow your updates with Annie. I have been spoilt over many years and had homebreds and foals bought at weaning time, so no previous history. It required a lot of patience as my older horses were living out retirement and my youngsters were too young to ride. (old people are now buried in the field).
Nevertheless, riding is the last part of forming the partnership.
Bonding through grooming, stroking, scratching and if the horse is short enough you can use your body up close and use your arm and hand like a mother horse's neck and muzzle to make circle rubs on the opposite flank.
It builds trust and gets the horse used to your arm and later more body weight across his/her back.
Heads and feet need freedom, they always belong to my horses, those are the areas a horse protects, think of a lion hanging on a zebra's muzzle, or if a hoof is restrained and a horse forced to stand then the flight option has been removed and adrenalin will rise, so the more you can do unrestrained to begin with, until these are offered in trust, the better.

Once they begin to join you while out grazing you can walk with them and eventually halter and lead with a loose rope.
Ours sometimes get a change of grazing and we walk along the road for 3 miles being treated for not reacting to lorries or rattling trailers.
I like to ask the horse to walk smartly on behind any potentially scary traffic so he thinks he is herding it away, things which can be chased away are not things that usually have horse on the menu.

If the tractor comes to harrow and roll the field we play chase the tractor at liberty, then when horses are convinced it is running away they go back to grazing. I also wander about the paddock with a large golf umbrella, or dragging a plastic bag, did n't know it was called chase the tiger until I came here, and I spread out tarpaulins or hang things from a light washing line between the trees so they can have a look. Their own curiosity works very favourably. I do not believe horses run much further than 200 yards before weighing up the spooky object. If I keep walking away or just sit down with my umbrella or dragged plastic bag, they very quickly want to come over to sniff and investigate, then a couple of cheerios or sugar puffs as a reward for joining in....it takes no time at all after that, they pounce on the bag to earn another treat.
So you can understand why I was drawn to this site, I had thought I was the only person who looked completely strange playing in a field with my horses.
What are the rules? There are No Rules, except smile, laugh, enjoy life and then since there is no wrong answer the horse can never be punished for getting it wrong. My horses are always right, they are better at being horses than I am.

Even though Annie is not a foal, introducing her to going for walks with you, lots of bonding time and sitting on her when a little voice pops into your head and you feel she has invited you.
The aids for halt are, for me, an exhale and sitting quietly. If I am not figeting or moving, then the horse is likely to mirror me. (Hope this works on my young boys as I am older and more brittle these days, but it worked with my young race fit Thoroughbreds.)

My current horses do not really need rugs, but they wear them sometimes as it was good preparation for having saddle and girth or a blanket thrown over.
You can even enjoy a good book sat anywhere in her environment, if she wants to join in, read aloud.

Poor Romy, hope that heals and you are not tempted to go and do too much too soon, I have arthritis worse in my right arm because I did not follow instructions when I was 18 and thought I could ride out every day, (and I chipped off the plaster to allow my fingers to tack up my friends horses had had fun riding 5 out whilst unable to go to college!)

I am sure many of the threads in ground training will help you and l am sure the experience of the members will point you in helpful directions. xx

_________________
Susie xx
http://www.flickr.com/photos/piepony/

thanks and no, i will take it slow. next week i will have about 10 kids camping on my pasture and i will let them spoil me all over. oh, and it opens a whole new set of possibilities for training with the horses when i will have to almost exclusively depend on my hips and shoulders for communication.

Hey thanks guys for replying!

at the moment i do try and play with Annie but the problem is i dont have the luxury of a field or paddock for her....I have to agist and shes kept in a day yard so not having much room I like to try and ride her or take her out for walks pretty much everyday because its not fair on her to be stuck in the yard for days on end...though at the moment she is starting to follow me around her yard and i do little things out there with her like just walking around and getting her to follow me, doing circles and backing up...again theres not much room in there though...
I have a youtube account if anyone wants to check it out, i have a few videos of annie and i up there heres the link http://www.youtube.com/user/cowgirl7894
hope it works...
haha i wish i could reach over her back and that but shes a big girl 16.2 and half hands though im quite proud of the fact that i can vault up on her both in the saddle or bareback...I do love bareback riding and havent done it in ages but did it the other day and she wasnt to bad there was just one time when she tried to buck, we were standing still and another agister just came back from her ride and walked her horse, Antonio, through the water and at the same time someone was leaving in their car so alot was going on and she didnt like it...

here are a couple of pictures of her...i hope they work

this was here mid last year in my aunties paddock, before i had her


This is her and I riding a while ago


and this is a picture of her and i just mucking around after the ride

Alrighty then i'll talk to you guys later!!

Okay so im trying again with the pictures again fingers crossed they work.

when she used to belong to my aunty


Annie and I earlier this year

Kris, are you going to be working with Jess?

Your Annie is tending to travel very unbalanced and that is likely causing some of her hot/cold issues, because they tie directly into her emotional state as well. Ground play with an eye for allowing and then rewarding her for carrying herself in a balanced way. If you work through some of the groundwork exercises slowly...at a walk at first, always...you can help yourself develop an eye for that balance to help her better. Once you can recognize it on the ground, you can then begin to slowly work at it from under saddle. But you can see that she will drop her inside shoulder to the point that she literally almost falls over then she has to catch herself by throwing her haunches out. Horses do not like to be off balance and normally are not until we begin to exert some influence over their movements (from the ground or under saddle). So we then have to help them rebuild that balance. You can do it! If you are able to work some with Jess, she can help you as well! And welcome to the forum!

_________________
"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

hi there Karen. Kris is very welcome but is on the other side of the country . i met Kris on you tube and directeed her here. it is so wonderful for people to have this forum to have a guide to move forward. i totally agree with you karen about ground games. i was thinking that target or chase the tiger first to give an exercise to watch movement, what do you think? or maybe just playing chase in the yard or something. there are some great ideas in the ground work section. you know, i would probably start working on some stretches too. feel free to have a look at some of the topics, they are great. if you want to ask any questions, go for it! there are loads of people here, brilliant and wonderful horse people!

_________________
just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

I forgot to say one very important thing...Annie is LOVELY!

I agree with you Jess...the ground work section is the best place to start! And Kris, I hope I didn't overstep my bounds in offering a suggestion right off the bat! I you have a small paddock where you can work with Annie slowly, at liberty (not fast round pen work, just slow and deliberate walking so you can encourage laterals without influencing Annie's head) would be wonderful. If not, that is, if you want to, or need to work with a halter and a long line, try to keep the rope slack and influence her haunches and rib cage to move out slightly on a slow walking circle and she should get her legs back under herself. The stretches would be lovely for her too!

_________________
"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Hi Kristina,

Welcome over here

Kind regards,

Bianca Kersten

_________________

Heyy thanks guys!
I had a camp with annie on the weekend and it went pretty well by the end of it she was definatly relaxing. the camp was held up at turretfield with our pony club and we slept in a shearing shed(whis has been used in mcleods daughters, if anyone watchs it :P)

I would love to do some more groundwork games with annie...at the moment she does follow me around her yard at times and run after me but not always...i have attempted to get annie interested in the chase the tiger game but she has no interest in the 'tiger'(dish cloth in my case :P) I know she'll love the game once she realises what it is im asking her...any suggestions on what i could do? at the moment I'll drag the cloth on the ground if shes following me ill tap it and she'll try to nudge me but has no interest in the cloth itself...though whenever she actually touchs the cloth i do reward her and give her a piece of pasta (one of her favourite treats)

Yes i have noticed and realised she is unbalanced around the corners and everything, I do have an instructor and we work on her turns whenever i have lessons, but I know aswell that she needs to learn it on the ground first befor she'll get it when i ride...any other suggestions on what i could do to help this?

All constructive criticism is welcome dont anyone worry about being to forward or 'rude'

Thanks heaps!

Heres a picture of her from the weekend

I somehow missed this thread

Welcome to the forum. Very pretty horse you have there

xxx

_________________