Look for this article in the next issue of Eventing Magazine!
On Monday, February 13th and Tuesday, February 14th, the United States Eventing Association’s Instructor Certification Program hosted a two-day teaching symposium at Betsy Watkin’s Longwood Farm in Ocala, FL. On the first day, Stephen Clark of the UK, president of the Olympic Ground Jury in September, taught dressage to six groups from training level through advanced level event horses and then taught three top level dressage riders. On the second day, Olympic gold medal recipient Leslie Law taught cross country jumping to five groups of riders ranging from novice level through intermediate level. At the end of every session the clinicians fielded questions from the audience and discussed the methods and training techniques used.
In the riding world, there are instructors who are positionists and instructors who are executionists. The first group focuses on riders developing a correct position. The second group focuses on riders getting the job done. With elegant style, both of these world-class instructors were able to influence and reinforce correct rider position to demonstrate harmony and simplicity in executing correct training through the levels.
I rode on both days in the intermediate level group, taking different horses each day. On Monday I rode Tactical Maneuver in the semi-private dressage lesson with Stephen. Tactical Maneuver, or Gucci as I call him, is a seven-year-old off the track thoroughbred. Although Gucci has a lot of talent and has moved through the lower levels quickly, he is still a very inexperienced horse and he can be prone to emotional outbursts when he feels pressure. He has only just moved up to intermediate level and I knew that he might prove to be a bit of a wild card in the clinic. With the thought of dressage, though, I figured that most riders would be bringing warmbloods. On principle, I wanted to see how Stephen would handle a hotter thoroughbred horse. As it turned out, Stephen was a master.
While watching us warm up, Stephen was immediately insightful about Gucci’s level of training. His first direction to us was to go back to the building blocks and create suppleness through the topline by having Gucci deepen his frame and stretch his neck. Only after Stephen felt that he was through did he have me rebalance Gucci into a more elevated and engaged frame and move on to different movements. As we worked, Stephen also systematically noted my position strengths and weaknesses. He felt my seat and my hand position were both very good, but he asked me to stretch open through the front of my chest, and he noted that my left elbow had a bit too much movement. With these two position changes addressed, we continued to work with the shoulder in, haunches in, half pass and lengthen in the trot. Then we moved on to cantering a serpentine of four loops with simple changes of lead across center line. At this point in the session a big hole became apparent. Gucci struggles with walk/canter, canter/walk transitions. He becomes tense and can almost be explosive. Stephen immediately shifted gears. He told me to be more systematic in my approach and to focus on the steps necessary to create the clean transition. He also allowed me to use a canter circle to relax Gucci through the topline before a downward transition. He said to me that I needed to use the strength of my position to influence the balance of my horse. “Your back must stay strong in a canter/walk transition, but your hands must stay low so that your horse will stay through.” I cantered around the next half circle to center line and focused on Stephen’s instructions. Gucci executed a crisp and relaxed canter/walk transition. The change was so apparent that the audience broke out in spontaneous applause. Within the lesson Stephen taught meticulous application of a correct progression of training and a strong rider position. This created a correct execution.
On Tuesday I rode my more experienced intermediate horse Monte Carlo in the intermediate level jumping group with Leslie Law. After a warm-up, Leslie had us begin by jumping a single fence out of rhythm. We then progressed to jumping a four-jump course around the field. Leslie again asked us to meet each fence out of rhythm. None of the fences were complicated or had vertical faces. Between the fences I rode in a two-point. As I came to each fence I sank into a light three-point position. Leslie liked what he saw with Monte and me. My group then jumped around a few more mini-courses with success. In the last jump set of the lesson, Leslie had us progress to a more difficult course. It started with an oxer, then we did a jump into water, a skinny coffin, a bounce, and finally a very spooky narrow jump that was actually circular on top, so it was as wide as it was narrow. Monte jumped the water well, but then peeked at the skinny coffin. I came out of the coffin and hit him with my whip and dug my spurs in as we went up the hill. I knew I only had that one stretch to get him in front of my leg before the bounce, which was not going to be pretty if he peeked at it. Monte responded beautifully and moved forward. After a short gallop he rebalanced quickly on the turn into an active canter on the approach to the bounce. After the bounce complex we turned to the skinny circle jump, with a downhill approach. This jump just invited a run-out or a peek and I knew that with Monte if I in any way let the run-out happen that Monte would immediately begin to think that it was a good way of life. In other words, I have learned with Monte in particular to make sure to do things right the first time because otherwise I have to spend a long time going back and correcting the miscommunication. Monte galloped down and jumped the skinny circle jump without hesitation. In the course of five jumps, Leslie had given us a sequence that was able to put my horse on his feet for an intermediate run. In the discussion afterwards, Leslie also commented on the skinny jump. He said, “When I am brave enough on any given horse to jump that jump, I am at the point that I know I can jump it right, because otherwise it just asks for trouble.”
During the lesson, Leslie spoke to the audience about how developing a strong lower leg so as to support a strong upper body position was key in cross country riding. One of his teaching threads throughout the day was to talk about how sometimes falling into a full driving seat before every jump can actually disrupt a horse’s balance and flatten them or cause them to run. He then pretended to run across the field with an imaginary backpack moving on his shoulders. If the backpack is constantly shifting balance, he said, it is hard for the person running to stay in one balance. The same is true for our horses when we make sudden changes in our balance while riding. Instead, he advocated building a strong lower leg position to anchor a rider, no matter where they are with their upper body. This enables the rider to not have to sit vertically before every galloping jump, and that in turn can be more efficient. Plus, when a rider does need to sit vertically, like before a coffin jump or water complex, it can be done in a fluid motion that keeps the horse and rider in harmony. Leslie too was able to connect for the audience and the riders the importance of combining correct position with correct execution.
