The tree of education
In a the last blog I talked about how I see the education of the horse, as a growing tree. You need to start from the ground, and grow equally strong branches to form a strong and healthy stem. This needs a constant maintenance through out life. Both for horse and rider. If you constantly grow tiny little twigs on each and every branch of your education, you will grow the most beautiful  tree ever.

One of my favorite trainers, Christofer Dahlgren, talks about The Basics for the Horse, in four elements: relaxation, lightness, balance and roundness. To think of all these elements, and their need to be established in the horse's training, has helped me a lot in the education of my  horses. They are great reminders, and points out what might be missing/lacking in a particular movement or exercise.

The horse
1 Relaxation, the adrenalin is low, and the horse is ready to take in information, and learn
​2 Lightness for the given aids from the rider
3 Roundness of the movement and the spine. Lifting its back while keeping a fluent, forward thinking, movement.
4 Balance, horisontal and lateral

The human
1 Relaxation in body and mind, so you are able to follow the movement of the horse and recieve information
2 Understanding of the secondary aids, and their influence on the horse
3 Feel the balance and roundness/self carrige in the horse
4 Influence and devellop the balance and the roundness of the horse

For Bolcher and me, the main tasks this month are those downward transitions. We will focus on the forward and the change of rhythm, and try to be accurate in when and where to do them. This will challenge me in my feel (Riders basic 3), and Bolcher in his lightness and roundness (Hors' basic 2 and 3). 

Hopefully, at the end of the month, we can also feel into both our basics 4, and develop the suppleness further.

Ronja and Gladiador, will work with the gait transitions in general, but also have focus on Gladiadors responsibility to keep his own gait.

This means, that he must learn to keep the gait given to him. When trotting, he shall keep trotting until he is told otherwise. When cantering, he shall keep cantering, etc. In this fase of the education, Ronja will allow him to build up his stamina in the higher gaits, gradually. Transitions will be a natural part of the training, but the fluentness  will be less important than the actual understanding of them.

Gladiador will then be in his basic stage 1 and 2 regarding the transitions, and 3 and 4 when it comes to keeping his gaits.

Bolcher is born in 2008, and we have struggled with the canter for a long time. The last few months I have focused on him keeping the responsibility of his own gait, thinking forward. He has a nice canter in the lunge, there he is quite easy to regulate, and collect,  due to the better balance… without me disturbing him. I started the training under rider, thinking balance first, then forward, so he could feel safe in the canter with me on. This little fellow is super polite, he prefer to stop if he feel that we are out of balance. Therefore I really need to build up some confidence in thinking forward also while riding. (We did some Working Equitation exercises to help with that). The video to the right shows where we are now… moving forward!

For me, a good canter has a nice rhythm, air, flow, roundness, shoulder freedom and hindleg engagement. To get this, we also have to add balance for both horse and rider. 

​Monique is a 5 years old Danish warmblood mare, staying with us for training. For her the goal is to get balanced and forward thinking under rider in canter, and to fully understand the transitions.

Step 1.
First we teach the horse the sound aid (voice command) for canter. 

Step 2.
Help the horse to gain and develop the ability to keep his own balance in canter on a circle.

Step 3.
Educate the canter on the lunge. The horse should be able to do a little shoulder in, quarter in, collection, lengthening and all the transitions.


These first 3 steps, or branches of  educating, needs a fertilizer to grow strong. -Play with your horse-

Playing with every movement that will build strength and confidence in the horse, will benefit your training a lot.

Step 4.
Introduce the rider gradually in all three steps. Be sure not to ask for much as a rider i the beginning.

You want the horse to regain his balance, with you as a disturbing element on his back. You want to install the new riding aids, that is slightly different from what he has learned from the ground. 

Use the the same voice aid as from the ground, but remember to carefully add the riding aid a second before, so he has the chance to actually learn the new aids.

​These things made some delays in our strategy plan, both in training and the economics of the company, but it also gave us the opportunity to look at the future with a different pair of glasses.

Soooooo, what we have learned of 2019 is to really apprechiate what we already have! We will work hard to take advantage of each opportunity that is already there! We just have to grab it and do the best we can with it, every day!

This blog, is my first baby step on our journey, into the 2020's. The blog will be a tool for us, as a planner for our goals, and training schedule. We will precent different topics that we work with, and how we decide to approach them.

Every now and then,  we will invite you to join us with comments and questions, either here, at Instagram or Facebook.