Jogging

[Miz.Dales]

Hiya can anyone give me some advice please my pony keeps jogging when i ask him to do a downwards transition to walk he dosnt do it when i fist go in the school its only after he's had a trot is he being ignorant or is it just that he's a bit exited?

[Deleted]

That's a good question. I think that if he was exited you would feel tension along his back and his neck,and it's likely that he would hold his neck quite high. but if he was just not listing you will probably find that he is not very responsive to any downward transition as well as not moving aff your leg very well. I you tell me which one it is that he is doing I might be able to give you some exercises that will help with that.
Now a question for you. Is he on a loose or long rein or are you trying to put him in a frame?

[Miz.Dales]

Hi. he's more unresponsive really he will come back to me and then it needs a dig to get it going again he's not like this for the first 10 - 15 minutes. Its usually when i ride him onto the the bit.

[jap]

its Anna on mums laptop but..

Sounds like an evasion to me when you ask him to work properly and onto the bit, you're just ging to have to be very disciplined and really sit up, squeeze and wait for the transition but don't let him get away with it. If you are wanting to walk and he is jogging, just keep insisting he comes back to a walk until he settles, be very disciplined about it and don't let him jog. Also do plenty of transition in quick succession,up down, up down, halt up, up etc etc You can do 20/30 transitions in relatively good succession and really get him listening to you and concentrating. Throw in doing the transition on 20m circles initially and just keep asking different things of him to ensure he is listeing and concentrating. He'll soon drop out of the habit i'm sure.

[Deleted]

Yes, I agree. If he is leaning on your hand when you ask for a downward transition, immediatly make him halt and if he is still leaning ask him to back up a couple of steps. Really work on transitions with him, they will help him engage his hind legs. In the beginning I wouldn't do very much of the walk-trot trot-walk transitions, those would probably make him jog more. Instead you could work on walk-halt-walk trot-halt-trot-halt-back just mix them up and see what works.This jogging may also be because he does not want to use his hindquarters, and jogging brings his butt UP.
Another exercise you could try if he does not get nervous easy is to make him slow down to a walk or halt ( just remember to make him back if he starts pulling on your hand) every time he starts to jog. or you could have him move in a small circle and really move him off your leg, slowly making the circle larger. Making sure that if you do transitions on the circle to keep him moving off your leg and keeping bend.
Does he jog when he's on a loose rein?
If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

[Miz.Dales]

thankyou i will tried what youve both said and he worked quite well even though he it was 20 minutes until he decided okay i'll do as im told. he doesn't do it on a loose rein could it be the bit? thankyou both for the advice =D

[jap]

Well done Claire, keep going with it, the time will get less and less as he realises you aren't going to let him get away with it and then suddenly it will just stop.

I doubt it is the bit as such (although can't completely rule it out without seeing it) but more that he finds it hard work to be on the bridle and in a contact and life is much easier when he can go about on a loose rein so is just saying, i don't want too and evading doing what you ask by jogging! which is perfectly normal and all you're saying back by insisting on it is welll tough that is how we work.

Don't forget though to reward when he gets it right, to soften reguarly (try with your inside hand whilst keeping the contact on the outside) to let him know he's getting it right and give him plenty of stretching time until he has built up the muscles he's needed to work properly.

On mums laptop again, must try to login as me sometime!

Anna

[harry11]

Have you tried lungeing or long reining him?
do transition on the lunge. I find it is helping me with harry a lot.
Harry jogged a lot at first and now doing all said above is ok but now tries to jump into canter when trying to get him to trot. Cheeky lad.

Another thing is - is he stiff atall as harry was and when i had a physio session on him he is marvelous now.

Just a thought or two to add.

[heathera]

When you have a contact that is asking him to collect and engage more from behind how relaxed are your shoulders and is the contact still a soft one. Sometimes we work so hard on 'driving into the hand' that we make the hands rigid and not so soft as when we're on a loose rein. One thing that helps me is to think of having an elastic contact and keeping my shoulder blades relaxed and down whilst looking up and breathing deeply from my rib cage, not my throat or upper chest.

The other thing is if he's not used to working through properly he is going to find it hard to maintain for more than a few strides. If you have a good quarter of a 20m circle in a good shape in trot then allow him to stretch out and walk on a loose rein for a half circle before gently gathering him up and asking for another 10-20m worth of collected work.

[Miz.Dales]

Hey i know i haven't posted for ages but my laptop broke lol and my phone. Thanks everyone for your advice tried everything you said my sister helped me too and he's going really well now made up with him he just gets on with it now thank you all

[harveydales]

Briliant!

[Deleted]

mine does somthing similar to this we can get lovely walk and trot for as long as we want then we start canter work and can get lovely canter but then once we have cantered we struggle to get the nice trot back he just gets really short and bouncy and smacks his bottom lip about! when we are doing ridden showing and have to do the group trot and canter he gets really excited and then if we get pulled up in the top of the line up he does a rubbish individual show but if we get pulled up late and he's had 15-20 mins of standing still to calm down he'll do a lovely individual show but i have to do the trot on both reigns before i ask for any canter. he is getting better though and it is taking him less time to calm down after cantering