In the last six months Focus has reached and passed several important milestones. She has learnt when baby has gone to far, developed power and "schwung" in her trot and attended her first show. As a four and a half year old she is ready to begin a show career. Because this is a column about the development of Focus, I will explain how each milestone was reached.

"When has baby gone to far?"

I received an e-mail from a reader who asked "When should things such as bucking and crow hoping stop on a young horse?" This got me thinking and made me realize that I was going through the exact same thing. The most important thing you have to understand is that there is a difference between punishing and discipline. When you are disciplining a horse you are training the body and mind. Where as punishment is inflicting a penalty. Most of the time when we ride horses, especially young one, we use discipline. Knowing when baby has gone to far is hard to say. You cannot say that at four years old they must stop spooking or crow hoping. It depends greatly on the horse. Warmbloods tend to mature slower. With Focus her body is still slightly immature but in her mind she is very mature and intelligent. So with her we were able to start eliminating the baby behavior quite early in her training. To teach Focus not to buck or hop or take off I started by using mainly my voice. It is not what you say but how you say it. If she were to misbehave all I had to do was use a stearn voice to remind her that her actions would not be tolerated. If your horse does nto respond to the voice very well you may use a small spur or whip. When the horse misbehaves a tiny "puff" with the spur or pendulum like tap with the whip may be used as a reminder. If you must use a whip or spur be sure that you also use your voice at the same time. By doing this the horse will associate the whip/spur with your voice, therefore you may only need to use you voice and occasionally the whip. I cannot emphasize enough that you should never punish a young horse. If your horse desides to buck you must use fast judgement as to the cause. Was it becasue she was fresh, cold backed or because there is pain somewhere. When your horse is mature in the mind varies greatly form horse to horse. So it is all a matter of you as the rider feeling when the time is right to start eliminating the young horse mentality. Do not be affraid to discipline the horse. Jut becasue you discipline them on their back does not mean they are instantly going to take a strong dislike to you unless you do it in an over dramatic way.

Developing Schwung

Schwung is the German word for swing. It goes hand in hand with the word Losgelassenheit, meaning relaxation. Without relaxation you cannot develop swing in the horse. For Focus she was born with a good canter and walk. her trot was not bad but lacked schwung and push power. But she was still relaxed and rhythmic. For the push power to come in her trot she needed to be closed from behind while maintaining a certain relaxation. To start her daily work out she would do a few minutes of relaxed walk on a semi-long rein. After a few rounds take up the reins into a steady contact and start doing quarter pirouettes or turn on the haunches (working pirouette) depending on your horses ability and training. It helps to ride these turns on a box and change directions once your horse is closed one way, preferably their easier direction. This way if the other direction becomes a struggle you can go back to the easier direction. As well as doing pirouettes also incorporate shoulder in and shoulder fore in the walk. Once you feel the horse is engaged you may begin the trot. Do not just let your horse charge off in a long strung out trot or you will lose everything you worked on the last ten to fifteen minutes. Continue to do shoulder-fore on the long walls, circles, short ends of the ring as a contact reminder for the inside hind leg to come forward. try to stay off the wall so the horse can develop a proper balance and you can feel any evasions the horse is trying. Do many changes of directions but be sure there is a steady outside rein and leg to support the shoulder. If you allow the shoulder to fly left and right in every change to horse has avoided proper alignment and engagement. to help you with this image the you are using your knee to push the shoulder in. This will automatically make your outside leg have an effect on the horse. When ready you may move into the canter keeping a shoulder-fore positioning. Do as many transitions as possible to keep the hind leg jumping through. If you feel your horse is ready or you are having trouble becasue your horse is slow to the aid you may want to try another exercise. I would recommend going on a 20 meter circle at one end of the ring. Where the circle touches the sides of the arena do a canter-walk transition or canter-trot-walk. While still on the wall ask for a walk pirouette. If the pirouette is to large do not ride straight, instead half pass back to the wall. Once you hit the wall switch your legs and ask for a canter transition. This forces the horse to react to your legs and bring the hind leg forward to match the other hind leg. You do not have to go on the correct lead you may also try some counter canter. This way the horse has to pay particular attention to the subtle changes in your seat. Once your establishes this you may move to a middle circle where there is less wall area for support.

This diagram illustrates the above mentioned exercise. In the picture the red dots represent where you would do your transition to the walk (depending on what direction you are coming in). The purple dot is where the walk pirouette must be done, followed by the green dot where you will do you immediate canter transition. The wall is used as a training tool because if you don't do the full half pirouette your avoid the degree of difficulty this minimizing the effect of the exercise.

If you find yourself losing the impulsion or self carriage there are many tools you can use. A whip, spur, your leg, your seat, your voice, the wall, your hand etc. Do not eliminate any of the training tools around you. Use them all. With Focus I use the voice first and foremost. If this is not enough I use the whip, but I do not lace into her with it. Open the hand and use the with in a pendulum action. You will find this will have more effect then a large whack with the whip.

When you are training a young horse you must understand that it is training. It is not a show. do not be afraid to open the hand, lower or raise it. Do what ever you have to do to get the results. But remember that you do not have to be brutally harsh to get a reaction.

With this mentality and these exercises Focus trot completely changed from her former Daisy cutter trot. Now she has a long stride, with power, engagement and thrust from behind. This training program kept the rhythm and relaxation but added schwung to her gaits.

Focus at her first show

Just last weekend Focus made her show debut at the Rising Stars Youth Dressage Show and Hack Challenge. I entered her at first level and it proved to be very successful with her first test resulting in a 70% (with an 8 for gaits). Her success continued through the weekend. One test We excused ourselves do to some four year old behavior. I did not punish her, I simply excused her and quietly trotted her around the arena until she calmed herself down. For this ride judge Mike Osinski gave her the ride of the day for "handling some unfortunate events with grace." Focus also receive First Level champion, High score on the PARC side of the show, Reserve hack champion and won a tack trunk for being overall high point on the PARC side of the show. For her first time at a show she behaved very well and preformed well to. She took everything in stride and took everything she does at home and transferred it t the show ring, plus a little more excitement. It was a very successful weekend for Focus.

Erika and Focus