One cannot train a horse to do the 'tricks' without setting down the basic foundation. Think about it like a house. You want a pretty house, you go nuts with the trim, the decorating, and the paint, but you forget that the cement pillars that you just built your house on are in dis-repair. Before you know it, your house is falling apart and will eventually collapse.
The horse is no different.
While people are gung-ho to learn the advanced movements, we should be taking due care in the training of our horses. That lateral and collected work that you are yearning for is going to take time. It's plain and simple. As much as the physical harm can be done with a young or inexperienced horse, the mental damage is just as important to be avoided. Improvement is based on millimeters. It's never based on leaps and bounds. If you improve a millimeter a day, you are soon a mile ahead.
Here is the article to check out on this very subject.
http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2012/09/the-veterinary-basis-of-correct-training/
I have been involved in dressage since 1973. Since a young child, I have eaten, breathed and ridden horses. I can't ever remember a day where I my brain has stopped thinking about it.
While most people have come and gone in the horse industry, my entire life has been dedicated to horses and the art of riding and learning the best way to put the horse first without stress and abuse. Whether it's my Western or English clients, good training is good training.
When you have repeated horses working into their mid to late twenties, still sound and happy, I must be doing something right!
Lucky lived to be 26 and was used as a schoolmaster until then.
Maverick at 20 still doing his thing.
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