101 Schooling Exercises

by bell-jaki, Andrew Day

Schooling your horse is fundamental to any equestrian activity, so getting it right is essential to you and your horse's progression. "101 Schooling Exercises" enables you to plan the exercises you want to ride according to you and your horse's level of ability.Whether you want to increase your horse's balance, general impulsion or practise more advance lateral work the easy-to-follow exercises explain everything in order for you to ride the movement correctly, what may go wrong and advice on how to correct it.Each exercise is accompanied by an aerial illustration of the arena and additional diagrams showing the rider's position, including where the emphasis should be on the rider's aids. Stars from the equestrian world also divulge their favourite training exercises including top celebrity tips and advice.

Genres: Horses

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 27, 2005

Reviews

[Jen B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars -- could be 4 if I am able to put some of these exercises to practice. Let me explain...

I'm just getting back into riding, and I bought this book to give me helpful exercises to use for purposeful schooling, as opposed to just riding around in a monotonous walk-trot-canter and failing to do any useful work.

I like the idea of schooling having a purpose, and I liked the clear diagrams and explanations found within this book.

However, I didn't understand the exercise rating system (a star rating, 1-5, for each level (beginners, preliminary, novice, elementary, and medium) and I couldn't find a place in this book where that system was explained.

I also liked that certain exercises told you what other exercises to go back to if you had trouble; the author really wanted to help the rider perform schooling with a purpose in mind, and the set-up of this book shows it.

But I doubt I'd be able to study & remember a series of these exercises to take with me into the ring... For my current level, I'd need to have someone on foot calling out the exercises and helping me to understand if the horse and I were doing them right (at least until I develop a good "feel" for the correct movements and become more practiced in applying the correct aids at the correct time).

In my opinion, if you are an accomplished rider with a good feel for your horse, this book would be extremely helpful and would give you ideas beyond normal circles and figure eights. For beginning riders, or riders without a background of experiencing and identifying these movements correctly, this book would be helpful if used in conjunction with your trainer during lessons, and then in personal practice.

[Virginie Blaty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good source of inspiration for daily schooling.
I have the Dutch edition so I'm still working on understanding everything.