[drivingpairs] Thinking of Dressage (long)

Okay,

This might seem a bit over the top, but I had to share, I have been takeing 
monthly dressage lessons from a grand prix dressage rider and trainer.  I say 
dressage lessons because that is what they are even though I am driving my 
horses in a carriage.  She always has something new to teach me or work on.  
Usually I drive each of my horses single.  But this last time I drove 1 lesson 
single and the other lesson with the tandem.

Alot of what we worked on applied to when I drive them as a pair.  First we 
worked at a walk,  And she said okay they are not in stride lets get them 
walking in stride.  Now as Hardy has often said " Horses want to be in stride 
together and with enough work they will learn to move together one of them will 
lenghten or shorten their stride to match the other".  So understanding that 
the horses want to walk together how do we help them walk together and get each 
of them placeing the same foot together (not opposite feet as is often seen) 
but both right hinds, both right fronts....  you get it:-)   So the exersise 
was to pick the horse with the best Rhytmic walk say it is your right hand 
horse,  Count 1,2,3,4 with each foot fall starting with the right hind.  You 
should be counting in a steady Rhthym  Not (12..34) .  As you count, starting 
with the right hind squeeze your right rein, with every count of 1, you are 
creating a Rhythm with one horse that the other horse will want to match,  You 
will be suprised at how soon they come in stride (I was amazed) you might have 
to have someone on the ground to encourage you and say Yes , you have it now.  
If the better rhythmic horse is your left horse do the same thing but use the 
left hind leg of the left horse.  Squeeze the left rein with every count of 1 
on the left hind leg.  Mix it up and use the Right front on the right horse 
Squeeze right rein on the count of 1 every time the right front hits the ground.

So now that you are throughly confused.  Move to the trot.  Now it is a count 
of 1 and 2 and 1 and 2  (the 'and' comes when the horse is suspended in air)  
Start again with the most rhythmic horse and squeeze on every 1 with say the 
left hind of left horse with left rein. Then once in stride squeeze left rein 
on  count of 1 and right rein on count of 2.  The definition on how hard to 
squeeze depends on your horses:-)  This helps keep the horses balanced and in 
stride.

Now with the tandem it was more complicated because I had 2 sets of reins so I 
had 8 choices of legs:-)  I could match left or right on leader or wheeler.  My 
arms were a bit tired on Sunday because, she decided my Leader needed to have 
more energy so she had me chase him forward into an extended trot and then 
bring my wheeler down into a collected trot to get him regular and keep the 
leader in an extended trot.  She said the leader could have much more 
expression and suspension since he didn't have to pull any weight.  And yes the 
leader did go into draft for these excersices but that is all that they were 
were exercise's.  And she had me actually do downward transistions with the 
wheeler so that he would actually pull the leader down to a stop.  This was so 
that the leader learns to stay forward in downward transistions and not do the 
dreaded step back when you halt.

Just a few thoughts not sure how helpful or if what I said made any sense.  But 
something that would help the green horse in a pair become more solid.  If you 
and the steady broke horse are in synch,  eventually that youngster will get 
there:-)

Diane Kastama

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