[drivingpairs] Dressage Practice

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While I was away, I see there was some discussion on the list if to practice 
complete dressage tests or not, and I would still like to make a comment to 
that.
I think in this respect horses are like people, they come in all variations 
of mind and temperament, and one size does NOT fit all, and what is good for 
one horse is not necessarily so for another.

There are some horses which will get too eager in their anticipation of the 
next movement, and if you practice the entire test over and over again, they 
anticipate the next movement, and will want to do it even before it's time, 
e.g. 
do transitions before you want them done. So for those it's not good to 
practice the entire test, but only individual movements of the test in 
different 
orders. The school of thought saying you shouldn't practice the entire test 
comes from this thinking, and is very valid, IF you have such horses.

But, there are also other horses and I have one who is a little nervous about 
new tasks, but LOVES what is familiar to him (and there are many horses like 
that too). So for him doing the entire test I think gives him security. "Ah, I 
know this one, I know what's coming now, I can do this", and with that he is 
quite content, even to the point that the nervousness of a new venue and new 
surrounding goes away, once we block out all that new stuff by just 
concentrating on just driving our very familiar pattern of the dressage test 
which we 
have practiced over and over again. It's like a safe haven for him, we can go 
into our familiar routine and don't have to think about anything else then.  He 
is still not jumping the gun and is still waiting for my commands and 
directions. The other horse in the pair doesn't mind it either way. So with 
this pair I 
practice the entire test (and it gives me security too). The only thing that 
I do change in practice is that I always halt about twice as long as the test 
requires.

So I think it all depends on what type of horse you have (and what type you 
are too) to decide what works best for you and your horses.
Hardy


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