(“So, how to choose what exercise you should be practicing?”)

This horse walks into an arena . . .
In this particular case, though, she’s the one playing the joke. It’s a tricky mare who belongs to a student of mine. Tricky because she can behave in three distinct ways:

1. She can be totally out to lunch—despite her training and what should be sufficient maturity—acting like her brain has gone to a distant planet.

2. On random occasions just to keep us off balance, she can be heavenly—concentrating on her rider and responding exactly the way she’s supposed to.

3. And this is the tricky part—she can (un)helpfully go along doing what she thinks she’s supposed to do—obedient on what she THINKS are the correct terms but not honestly connected or through. In this mode she can fool her rider because everything seems in good order. Until suddenly it isn’t.

The signs are everywhere, but here’s a quick example. On a 20 meter circle her collected canter looks nice. Even on a circle half that size she is rhythmical and balanced. But when I ask her rider to continue straight along the rail, each time the horse breaks, shutting off so much that even knowing it’s coming, her rider can’t prevent it.
“You know why this is happening?” she asks me. “It’s because we’ve been schooling Second Level 3, and she knows that right after the 10 meter circle, there’s a simple change to counter canter.”

(Instructor rolls eyes)
“I know. I know,” she says. Which doesn’t justify it.
I feel a moment of outlandish, theatrical incredulity is in order. “You know my vending machine analogy, don’t you?”
[The, by now, familiar link: https://woodsdressage.com/unscrambled/]
She does, of course. She’s read the book three times.

“Well, you have made your horse a very different kind of vending machine. She’s sitting down there in the alcove by the elevator and the ice machine when she sees the door to your room open. ‘Ah,’ she says as you approach. ‘Room 204. I KNOW you. Every night at this time all week you’ve bought a Milky Way. Hey, don’t bother with the buttons; here it comes.’

And with a whirr, a clank, and a floomp, the unordered candy bar plops out even before you get to the machine.”

Helluva job, Brownie! Just not one you should appreciate or allow. So, how to choose what exercise you should be practicing? If things are going well, you may say, “I think the shoulder-in would work right now” or “With this canter balance I think I can make a good simple change.” Sometimes you’re exactly right to select an exercise whose execution will be a positive and reinforcing experience for your horse. “Programming for Success,” right?

But did I mention that in dressage with every wish there comes a curse? Following this plan exclusively can inadvertently allow your horse to conclude that Way #3 (refer to the top of this post) is what you want.

By interspersing more difficult questions or combinations of exercises that almost surprise your horse—particularly if they are the subtle “Could you . . .” type nuanced questions I described in the original piece—how your horse answers will reveal what and if she’s really thinking. The result is a relationship where you DO have a handle on the variables that when managed properly produce throughness, connection, and maybe even bliss.