Dear Blog Readers

I understand a few of you are upset about my blog related to western riders training styles and I just want to clear a few things up. Where I live about 80% of the riders are western, so sure I'm going to get a few nasty words thrown at me for speaking out of line. That's alright with me, they are my opinions, and everyone is entitled to theirs. I actually encourage friendly debate here and I'd love to hear of the benefits of working a horse at the age of 2. For now I'll just go on with my post topic.

Modern dressage riders are just as cruel, I admit it (oh no here we go again). As I mainly do dressage I'll say, there are many times I've done things wrong and taken short cuts, but at least I have recognized this and I am trying to do better. I am here learning new things and changing habits of myself, and the people around me. I've seen a million training methods, I have. I've been to different stables and I've been taught under many different trainers and coaches.

You can take what you want from anywhere but the most important thing is to keep learning.

Here is a brief time line for the horses training this CAN be applied to all disciplines of riding, sadly it isn't always. This is English based, perhaps we can come up with a western version, and a racing version as well.

Age 1: Ground work, halter, tying, bathing, trailering etc.
Age 2: Lunging, saddle breaking, the easy first step stages of riding
Age 3: More intense work under saddle
Age 4 (and up): Jumping can be introduced, higher levels of collection, and higher level dressage movements.

It also depends on your horse, if you have a warmblood or draft cross jumping them at 4 could ruin them, I've seen horses at the age of 7 grow another full hand. An arabian on the other hand may be completely fine for jumping full courses at the age of 4.



I've added the training scale as well. This is how you would train a Classical Dressage horse (Classical dressage is about allowing the horse to develop and teaching, where as a lot of modern dressage is forcing a horse into a way of going, I prefer the classical method). This is the basics. Obviously with any pyramid if you don't have a good solid base you aren't going to have a big pyramid.

Two excellent examples of this pyramid working and this pyramid not working are my standardbreds. Peanut age 8, Eddy age 10.

I got Peanut first and of course rushed the training as I was 14.
I skipped Rhythm altogether, we worked on bending. First bending left and then bending right. When he mastered that we worked at bending down (going "round" or into a frame), when he didn't quite get it I used side reins on a circle (this method used properly CAN teach a horse however if the horse is not in condition enough to maintain a good circle it would be silly to put side reins on them and expect them to learn to carry themselves correctly). Impulsion I never focused on, he had that..I mean he was off the track. Straightness was fine too, he had learned already on the track to go straight.. :)

Eddy however got started at the very basics, after about 6 months of me just playing around with him (getting him used to the saddle and hacking around the race track).I took him to college and I had a good dressage teacher actually drill this pyramid into me (thank you thank you thank you!). Eddy basically followed the steps, and if something wasn't right we went back to the base. Rhythm.

So how did they turn out? Lets see.. Peanut is a speedy pony who although is safe and fun, he just cannot balance himself. He can bend and he can flex but he cannot pick up a regular canter and carry it around the corner without speeding up or losing the gait. At a walk and trot he looks like a decent dressage horse, but that's all he got.

Eddy on the other hand competes in dressage and is moving up in his levels, he received a reserve champion during his first year of showing and will be competing again this year at a more advanced level. Eddy can also balance himself throughout simple changes and over low jumps.


These are two standardbreds, with very close lines, only two years apart. They were trained by the same trainer, but the difference is trainer kept on learning. Peanut is capable of most of what Eddy is doing, he can learn to balance correctly, it will just take a bit longer because I skipped the steps at the beginning.