Sinai Dressage

The one where we ventured indoors!!

It was rather warm when we ventured indoors but new experiences!!
The goal was to encourage Ela to be more active and quicken the response from a small aid - open rein and kiss noise first then raised stick if needed.
I put some poles out too.
Started with ground work, back up, moving the front and hind legs, progressively getting a smoother response. Opening up so we could use more of the arena and practise transitions and following my body. Really happy with her response level altho she gets tired, bless her.
Super happy to her response to bag on a stick and the flag, I did expect a negative reactions first but she didnt seem too upset and relaxed quickly.
I was going to ride too but felt she was warm and her brain had done enough for this session.
Ela is proving to be a lovely 😍 person!!

Hi all,

We finally ventured away from home!!

Ive been aware of TRT for a while and really wanted to buy the programme for Paws but never had the spare money! So before Ela came along I wanted to learn something new and engage with a different way.

I am not an expert, very much a beginner but I have done some groundwork before!!

TRT seems to be a way of encouraging the horse to understand their body and reactions to stimuli so they can choose how to respond and become less anxious or reactive.
The groundwork is also a way of improving suppleness, co ordination and understanding of how the body moves before we ride.

All these elements really resonated with me and as Ela is very green she seemed like the perfect guinea pig!!!

3 basic patterns - again im not an expert this is how I am starting!!

Backing up - from your body, pressure on yhe rope then from a sush noise to create space between u and the horse.

Controlling the front legs, the inside fore steps behind and across the outside fore.

Clock shape, horses head turned towards u but instead of stepping in towards u the outside fore steps out and away while the inside hind steps forward and across under the body, so the horse makes a circle around u moving the outside fore and inside hind in diagonal pairs - or thats whats supposed to happen anyway!!!
Then u move this out onto a circle more like lunging but instead of using the stick ( if needed - open leading arm, then kiss noise for energy, then stick) pointed at the girth where the leg goes rather than chasing from behind.

Ela and I have been practising in the field and she tries really hard but u can see its totally alien to her and she gets confused and very unco ordinated at times, so we take our time and do short sessions.

We ventured to castle farm as a close quiet arena for our first ground work session. We walked round and let her see everything before I start asking questions.
The outdoor videos are bits of our first session with some good steps and equal amounts of confusion - love her!
I did get on but she was really tired so we didnt do much!!

All in all super pleased with our first session!! 😀