From: Linda
Jessica, I know you probably hear this all the time, but you can't imagine how much you have already helped me and my horse. I've never ridden in a clinic with you, although I hope that I can do that someday, but I have been reading your messages on HORSE-SENSE and on other mailing lists for years. Now I'm hoping that you can help me again. I searched the archives but didn't find anything about this problem.
I am an intermediate rider with a new horse. He is a big, tall, half TB half Percheron, and although he is seven years old he is really a green horse. He was "broke to ride" as a three year old and his owner rode him for two years off and on, not very often because her health was very bad. She finally had to give up riding because of her health. Then she died, and her husband just kept the horse in a field for several years until he remarried and decided to sell up and move. The horse wasn't neglected, he had his hooves trimmed and his shots every year, but he didn't get ridden. My husband bought him for me when he heard that the owner was selling. So that's why he is green even though he is seven!
I board at a wonderful place that has two arenas, one outdoors and one indoors. The outdoor one is a full-sized dressage arena. The indoor one is a dressage arena too, but the smaller (shorter) size. Here is the problem, which nobody has been able to help me with. Humvee (my husband named him that because he is so big and strong) is a very sweet, gentle horse, but a little intimidating because he is almost seventeen hands high. He is very cooperative but not always very balanced. I can walk and trot him easily in both arenas, but for some reason I can only canter him in the outdoor one. I thought at first that he felt insecure because of the "long sides" being shorter in the indoor arena, but I don't think that this is truly the case since I mostly try to canter him on a circle anyway. And the footing is really better in the indoor arena, because it gets raked and watered much more often.
He doesn't seem to be afraid of the walls, but I wonder whether maybe the lights or windows bother him? There is definitely something about the indoor arena that makes it hard for him to canter there. And not just "hard" but almost "impossible". Outdoors, he can canter a circle easily and seems happy to do what I ask. Indoors, he starts to run at the trot and if I do manage to get him to canter, he falls out of it before he has even done half a circle.
Everyone at the barn has tried to help me, but nothing works. I've tried lifting my outside rein and my inside rein, and putting my outside leg back and my inside leg forward, and turning my hips with his and in the opposite direction, and using spurs and not using spurs. Nothing works! My husband says that Humvee just likes being outside, and that he's sneaky enough to know that I'll have to take him outside to canter him if he won't do it indoors. I don't think that horses are that smart, but it does make me wonder why he won't do exactly the same circle with the same saddle and rider and better footing, just because he is indoors! I know you will have wise advice. Please help!
Linda and Humvee
You've described a willing, kind, VERY large, green horse. A horse like this will have a difficult time learning to hold its balance at the canter, with the rider, on a circle -- even if the circle is very big indeed. I think that Humvee is doing his best, and that he shows you what he can do by cantering perfectly reasonable circles in the outdoor arena.
Why doesn't he canter equally nice circles in the indoor arena? Perhaps he can't!
I have a suggestion for you: MEASURE the short side of the indoor arena. Then measure the short end of the outdoor arena. They may be quite different. Humvee may be able to canter a twenty-meter circle -- which is the largest circle that a full-sized dressage arena will permit, or he may be able to canter a twenty-two or twenty-five meter circle (see next paragraph), but it's quite possible that he isn't yet able to canter a fifteen- or eighteen-meter circle, which MAY be all that the indoor arena will permit.
Some outdoor arenas are made extra-wide, so that a dressage arena can be marked off within their boundaries for shows and clinics, leaving a wide margin around the edges. The rest of the time, that extra width makes it easier for young and green horses to navigate the turns and circles -- a twenty-five-meter circle is much easier than a twenty-meter one for a young or green horse. Going from an extra-large arena to a standard arena (indoors or outdoors) will increase the difficulty for the horse.
Is the outdoor arena standard-size -- in other words, 20 x 60 meters, with no extra room at all? It may still be larger -- wider, anyway -- than the indoor arena. Not all indoor arenas are as wide as they should be, for a variety of reasons. Some weren't originally intended to be dressage arenas -- I've seen more than a few "dressage arenas" that had all the letters on the walls, but a bit too close together. Those were actually small arenas originally intended for use at Western barns. Their length, width, and the distances between the letters were all much less than they would be in a proper dressage arena.
I've also seen more than a few arenas that were purpose-built for dressage riders, but were commissioned and paid for by people who simply couldn't afford to build a structure that would accomodate a full-width arena. The length is less of a problem, but riding arenas require a clear-span building (no posts or columns in the arena to help hold up the roof), and 60' is a very common width for such buildings. Arenas wider than 60' require more complicated construction, and are a LOT more expensive than arenas that are 60' wide. Even for the most dedicated dressage rider, the large difference in price can be intimidating, and can require a compromise. It's more sensible to have a full-sized arena outdoors where most of the riding can be done, and a smaller, affordable indoor arena that can be used at those times when the weather won't permit the use of the outdoor arena.
I've been pricing arenas myself lately, and I can understand and sympathize with barn owners who opt for an indoor arena that's only 60' wide. In many cases, this decision is what makes it possible for someone to afford an indoor arena at all!
So, measure the two arenas, and if you find, as I suspect you will, that the indoor one is less wide, don't ask your horse to canter in it until he is very comfortable and balanced cantering in the outdoor arena. Outdoors where there is room, you can begin by cantering a full twenty-meter circle, spiral in gradually to an 18- or 15-meter circle, then spiral out again. When your horse is equally at ease cantering on any of those circles, he'll have adjusted his balance and learned to canter smaller circles comfortably. At that point, try cantering him indoors. ;-)
Jessica
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