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Camacoona
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« on: January 15, 2006, 01:32:14 PM » |
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Hello all,
I am hoping some of you may be able to help me,
As some of you may know, I have a little Gypsy cob mare who is schooling fairly nicely at the moment. Her paiffe is coming on well and her back and quarters are getting stronger everyday, I think that most of the time her paiffe is classically correct.
Since the start of her Piaffe schooling I have made sure that I could school a paiffe a little more on the spot and a piaffe that moves forward a little more.
I have now decided that the time is ripe for schooling for the passage, the problem is every trainer has their own opinion as to the correct method for training it. Some trainers school it from retarding/holding back the lengthened trot, I don't want to do this (firstly Im not sure if it is entirely classical) and secondly Ketchup, being a cob finds lengthening quite difficult anyway.
Ketchup is capable of a few strides of Spanish Walk inhand, but I am disinclined to prepare the passage with the spanish walk because Ketchup has started to offer spanish walk whenever she feels like it, and it does take quite a while to convince her that Spanish walk is not what I wnt at that particular time...
So I have been trying to open the paiffe out a little more, and now she can maintain the 'open piaffe' for about 10 to 15 metres without changing rhythm, I am hoping that as she strngthens further she will be able to open out further into a passage, Am I going the right way?
My worry is, after reading a few books is that a number of trainers feel that even when training the passage that there has to be a clean moment when the piaffe become passage, and that by gradually riding a more 'open' piaffe you are infact deceiving yourself. My initial thought is that if the open piaffe is strengthenning the horse towards passage then it is worthwhile, I feel that the clean transitions will come when the horse has been schooled to and can offer the passage. Am I thinking on the right lines?? I do not want to go down any wrong paths.
I hope you can help.
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