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I never meant to imply that starting them young is always a problem, however,
I have seen and received several calls about coming three year olds who had
been started at two and are now having problems. I find it prudent to wait for
some body and emotional maturity Also, a very young horse does not have the
muscle for engagement and therefore cannot properly be on the bit. Dressage
is a lifelong program of building up the necessary parts of the horses body in
order to properly maintain the next movements he will be asked to perform. If
done correctly your horse should go round with engagement and impulsion in a
proper frame without resorting to training aids that only help effect a false
frame. I have trained with Larry Poulin for 6 years and take lessons from Bill
Lower. Both these men have years of International driving experience and Larry
is an accomplished FEI dressage rider. When I asked them last year when I
could start asking Marnix then 5 years old for short periods of collection
they both told me to wait because he was not old enough or strong enough. It
wasn't until 8 weeks of training in NC(lots of deep sand) last winter MArch
and April and alot of hill work here in VT that Bill felt he was ready for
some collected work. He can now sustain a true extension for 330 meters and
come back to a collection, but it's still hard for him to maintain energy for
the whole FEI#6 test which is very demanding with many transitions from
collection to extension and back. These comments apply to all breeds of
horses, not just Fjords. I also did not invent them, but I've used them with
great success. So I think the bottom line is if what you are doing is
producing a Happy forward Fjord then by all means continue. These are just my
opinions and my family has been ignoring most of them for years so I'm used to
it. To Marge & Bill Littleboy I have been hoping that no news is good news.
Hope all is well. Vivian in Vermont who always wants to hold on to the lead
after dressage rather than play catch-up on the marathon.
