Re: Don't forget Carol's on tomorrow night at 8PM!

 HI everyone

Yes this is the right place - just having a couple of teething problems but they will be sorted out any minute now!

Justinex

Re: Don't forget Carol's on tomorrow night at 8PM!

Flame Dancer said:

very confusing! It Says find Carol Mailer Chat forum but there doesnt seem to be one?!

I went back to the Forum page and looked through, but this thread seems to be the only one with Carol's name.  So, I don't know where/how to find "the thread"...

Re: Don't forget Carol's on tomorrow night at 8PM!

Hi Everyone

Sorry about the delay - we had a slight technical hitch but all sorted now. Carol is frantically typing out the answers to your questions - so please keep them coming.

Julie

Re: Don't forget Carol's on tomorrow night at 8PM!

Hi Sophii,

As your mare has been doing so well, then I would start off with some pole work  and small grids now. Let it be a natural progression with her training. Last year we did a super article on starting babies off and used Julie's horse at the time, Vespa. All the exercises we did with Vespa would be ideal for your young mare, and you will have so much fun doing it. I remember that Vespa was very forward and bold, but the exercises are ideal for any novice. I would only sound one note of caution. However well your mare is going, don't make the sessions too long and don't be over ambitious woith the size of the jumps. You don't want to overdo it for two reasons. 

1  A loss of confidence

2  Physical stress to young join tendons

If you get a grid wrong, it's very easy to retreat a couple of steps, but if she jumps too big, you don't want to cause a physical problem.

Be careful, but ENJOY, she sounds gorgeous

good luck

carol

Re: Don't forget Carol's on tomorrow night at 8PM!

Hi Littleoldmoggy

I'm so pleased to hear your horse is recovered and working again, and delighted to hear he's destined to be a show jumper.

I'm very priviliged to be able to show how to use grids in Your Horse magazine and if you flip back through last year's issues, you will find an article using Vespa. The gridwork we did with her will be just perfect to start your rehab horse back in working mode again, and also the follow up work where we carefully introduced her to a small course of jumps. Obviously each horse will progress at its own pace, but if you want some follow up exercises, check out Better Jumping. Your Horse has just had it on offer for readers and it's very good value. The exercises prescribed in the book will be suitable for your horse to progress from novice stage up to more advanced exercises to help you to success in the ring. Whatever stage you get to, when you move on, remember if your horse struggles with a particular exercise, just back off, do the previous exercise well, and leave advancing for the next time. The very nature of gridwork will help you to establish each stage in his education and the common sense approach will work wonders.

I liken it to learning the alphabet before you can write a story! Get the basics established and your horse will remember them. However long a horse is out of action, if he has done his gridwork methodically from the beginning, half a dozen times down a basic grid will put him right back to the stage where you had to leave off, both you and the horse!

Good luck with his progress and let me know how you get on with his career,

carol