Don't let winter weather get you down. Use the off season as an opportunity to fine tune your riding! In this winter weekly web series, we will revive past Grid Pro Quo articles from our magazine, Eventing USA, to help you brainstorm ways to keep you and your horse in tip-top shape even if you only have access to an indoor arena.
WHY:
In the sport of modern Eventing, the show jumping course designers are getting craftier with their design of their courses. They are often setting up "traps" that lure riders into getting strung out, which often results in your horse pulling rails. The really crafty course designers will often have combinations set on open distances that encourage the horses to get strung out, but they then follow these open combinations with upright fences, such as a tall vertical or plank jump.
What this means is that in order to jump these fences, your horse must be physically adjustable and you as a rider needs to be mentally adjustable. The three exercises outlined above are all great exercises in adjustability. Riders of any level can use these exercises, with just a few adjustments. Likewise, these exercises are appropriate for horses of any level as long as you keep the height of the fences appropriate for their current level of education.
HOW:
When warming up for this type of jump school, I like to ride my horses in a light seat and really encourage them to have an open and forward canter. This is a great exercise to do in big arena or jump field, but you can certainly still accomplish what you need in a smaller arena or indoor. Depending on your riding space, and your horse, you may need to work a little harder to get an open canter. Once you establish a nice, forward canter, bring your shoulders back a little, touch down in the saddle lightly and ask your horse to rock back and shorten their stride. More experienced horses should demonstrate a pretty dramatic difference in their length of stride, and should also be able to maintain the shortened canter for a period of time before you lighten your seat again and ask for the open canter. Slightly less experienced horses probably won't show as big of a difference in their length of stride, nor will they be able to maintain it for very long. But the most important thing for the younger horses is that they try and acknowledge that you are asking them for something different. This will be the key to laying the foundation for an adjustable horse later on.
Once you feel that your horse is fairly adjustable at the canter, you can start with your cavalletti exercise. The 15-foot distance is not quite a bounce, but also not quite a full stride, but with some adjustability it can act as either one. When you start over this exercise, you will want to approach it in your open canter and treat it as a bounce. If your horse makes a bit of a mess of the exercise the first time through, don't worry! Just approach it in the same canter until they are easily bouncing the exercise. From there, you will want to take a circle and shorten your horse's stride. Now you will approach the exercise again, looking for a deep, waiting distance and fit a full stride between the cavalletti. Again, if you don't succeed the first time, don't worry! Just try again. This can be a hard concept for some horses – and riders – so if this is the first time you are trying an exercise like this, this warm up exercise might end up being your entire jump school for the day. And that's ok. You can simply come back to the exercise the next day and build from there.
The eventual goal with this warm up exercise is that your horse will gain the understanding that they need to jump some fences forward and open, and some fences on a shortened stride and on their hind end. You will find that it is very easy to go from a shorter stride to a longer one, but much harder to go from longer to shorter. So you will probably have to work on this a bit harder. I have been very lucky to ride with some of the great jumper riders of our generation, and they all stress that your horse needs to be like an accordion.
Once you are satisfied with your warm up over the cavalletti, you can move on to your 3-stride line of oxers and verticals. To start off, you will want to set the fences slightly lower than your competition level. To begin with, you will approach the exercise so that you are doing the vertical first and then the oxers. As I mentioned earlier it is much easier to go from a shorter stride to a longer one, so in this case you will do your "careful jump" first and then encourage your horse to get big and open over the two oxers. Then simply turn the exercise around and jump your oxers first to your vertical. As expected, you will want a big scopey jump over the oxers, and then steady your horse to the upright vertical.
Keep in mind that when setting up your fences you will want to design the fences in a way that your horse will easily understand them. For the greener horses, I will give really good ground lines, especially at the vertical. My goal is to inspire confidence as making them too tricky will do nothing to improve your horse's confidence. However, make sure that if your horse does decide to run through your hand at any point that they will have a rail. The majority of horses want to be careful and want to do their jobs, so it is our job to properly educate them. And oftentimes, especially when the horse is younger, having a rail will teach them to be careful without scaring or hurting them in any way.
If your horse is having trouble with the exercise and is pulling a lot of rails you can do two things. First, you can make the oxers into ascending overs, which makes them a little easier for the horse to read. If you are running into trouble at the vertical, you can set up two poles into a "V" on the vertical which will encourage them to slow down. It will probably also make them jump a bit bigger over the vertical, so be prepared for that.
Remember that the eventual goal for you as the rider is to do this exercise so that you are not using too much hand. Keep in mind your warm up exercise where you are having a light seat for your open canter, which is what you will want for your oxers. And then sit up tall for your shortened canter, which is what you need for your vertical. You can also train your horse to respond to a little bit of your voice aides by training them to go forward off of a cluck and to slow down with a whoa.
Depending on your horse's education level, you can either end your jump school here, or you can raise the fences to your competition height and try again. Remember to never be afraid to "quit while you're ahead," especially if this is the first time that you're attempting this type of adjustability exercise. It's better to end a little early than to run into trouble when your horse is tired.
The final exercise is one that I don't start introducing until my horses and students are competing at Training level or above. This exercise is similar to the first, but a bit harder with the longer distance between the triple bar and the first vertical, and then the shorter distance between the two verticals. The concept remains the same though, and you should start by approaching the verticals first and then opening their stride for the triple bar. If this goes well, then flip the exercise around and canter down over your triple bar and then steady for the in-and-out of the verticals.
As a rider, your biggest goal is to be able to adjust your horse without your hand. The more upright you make your position, the more your horse should rock back and steady themselves. A good visual to keep in mind is that of a dressage rider doing a pirouette. And for the more forward, open distance, you should be in a light seat. All of these changes should be very discreet so that when you're at a show and your horse feels you move around, they know what you are expecting them to do.
About Boyd
One of the leading event riders of today, Boyd Martin was a member of the 2014 Land Rover US Eventing Team at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France riding Shamwari 4; the top-placing member of the US team at the 2010 WEG riding Neville Bardos; and a member of the 2012 US Olympic Team riding Otis Barbotiere. He was The Chronicle of the Horse magazine’s 2010 and 2014 Eventing Horseman of the Year, his horse Neville Bardos was named the 2011 USEF International Horse of the Year, and Shamwari 4 was the 2014 Chronicle of the Horse Event Horse of the Year. Boyd was selected to represent the United States at the Pan American Games this summer on Pancho Villa where he helped his team win gold. Boyd currently has a talented string of upper-level horses as well as a number of promising youngsters in his training program. For more information about Boyd please visit his website http://www.boydandsilvamartin.com/.
Molly Duda’s 2024 got off to a strong start as she completed her first Advanced event with Disco Traveler, her 2023 USEF Eventing Young Rider Championship gold-medal partner. The pair won the Advanced division at Twin Rivers (Paso Robles, California) in February and followed it up with a second-place finish in their first CCI4*-S at Galway Downs (Temecula, California) in March. But it wasn’t totally smooth sailing on the way to their second consecutive RevitaVet USEA Young Rider of the Year award.
The 2024-2025 USEA Emerging Athletes U21 (EA21) National Camp which took place in Ocala, Florida, over the course of last week was another exciting educational experience for this year's EA21 Athletes. Take a look back at all of the coverage from this year's camp here and check out some of our favorite photos taken across the week below.
The FEI has issued the following statement surrounding allegations made against U.S. eventer Andrew McConnon:
Are you following along with the action from home this weekend? Or maybe you're competing at an event and need information fast. Either way, we’ve got you covered! Check out the USEA’s Weekend Quick Links for links to information including the prize list, ride times, live scores, and more for all the events running this weekend.