I wanted to share this clip with you of Barb Royer on her marvelous young horse, Bean (Sumatra), going through a grid located on a slight downhill slope at Cindy Gilbert’s Harvest View Stables. The lesson focused on taking some of his familiar dressage exercises (balancing back at the canter and inside lateral flexion), and a familiar jumping exercise (the grid) into a new setting (sloping ground), in order to build his cross country skills. There are so many factors that go into jumping safely and well on natural terrain. For instance, there is the question that each jump asks the horse and rider (are you brave, are you accurate, can you rate, can you jump with speed, can you cover ground, can you cover width, can you jump into water, can you jump on an angle, can you turn in midair, can you jump safely up and down hills, etc), and then there is the overall pattern and flow between the jumps, as well as over the terrain. I see so many folks waiting until they get to the actual turning point in their approach to a fence and then bringing their horse’s head around and hoping that the body follows it. Properly aligned lateral flexion (from a soft poll, no sideways tilt of the head or nose), done a few strides before the turn, sets the horse up for a soft balanced bend and turn…as Barb and Bean so nicely demonstrate. I’m being a bit tough on her in the beginning because Bean is a young horse green to XC, and thus needed the support that comes from earlier flexion changes before his turns.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:02:03 +0000
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