Grand National fever again last Monday. This time the €250,000 Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse in Co Meath, not far from the famous Dreaper stable which once housed the greatest steeplechaser of all time, Arkle. It was won by the English trained, but Irish bred, Niche Market, brilliantly ridden by 19 year old Harry Skelton. There is a showjumping connection here as Harry is the son of British veteran Nick Skelton, who in recent years came back from serious injury and retirement to be one…

Hi Guys!



It's not uncommon for riders to struggle getting their horses to pick up one of their canter leads. The following are some simple exercises to help you pick up the right lead everytime!



The first exercise is done completely in the walk. You will practice positioning your horse alternately for the left lead and then switch to the right lead after a few strides.



Let's say you decided to pick up left lead:



--Put your weight…

A total of 60 horses were flown in from all over the world to compete at the Rolex FEI World Cup™ Finals to be held in Las Vegas (USA) from 15 to 19 April. The 35 European based Jumping and Dressage horses left from Liege airport in Belgium at 7h19am local time on Saturday 11 April and arrived without incident in Las Vegas at 8h55am local time after a direct flight that took 10 hours and 35 minutes. At the same time, airplanes from all over the world delivered their precious loads from the…

Every April in the UK the world stops for The Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree. It is the richest race of the year with the incredible prize money of £900.000. The winner immediately becomes front page news on every national newspaper and will still feature in quiz questions round the country twenty years afterwards!



I was brought up with the history of the Grand National and those famous Aintree fences, Beechers Brook, The Chair and The Canal Turn…..1954 The Queen’s horse…

Jumping a Single Fence



How many times have you seen a rider approach a single fence in canter, hold the horse back and then suddenly release it and send it forward when they think they see a stride? And what happens? The horse accelerates at the last moment over the jump, lands on his forehand, runs on from the jump and has to be pulled back! Worse still they learn to rush their fences, standing off a long way and jumping flat.



Up to intermediate level,…

Hi Guys,



Riding with soft hands is an awesome goal, and your horse will thank you for it. In this training tip, I'm going to give you both some simple physical exercises and also some fun mental exercises to help you achieve this goal.



Here are 2 physical exercises:



1. Tie two reins or ropes or even two pieces of baling twine to a sturdy fence. Hold the ropes as if they are reins. Take up a contact of at least 10 pounds in each…

Following up from last week, once the horse is giving you a nice rounded stride over the second plank of our simple combination, by adding a second jump you will start to train your horse to make the link from trot to canter.



Placing the second jump is quite important — the length of one canter stride for the average horse is 12 feet or 3.6 metres. But, I want it to be a little closer on take-off to the second part.



Remember the aim is to turn a galloping machine into a…

Hi Guys,



One of the biggest mistakes riders make when we're trying to overcome horseback riding fears is that we direct our efforts toward the conscious mind. You know--willpower, iron-jawed determination. The problem with that strategy is that you can only make short-term, temporary changes when you direct your efforts to your conscious mind. To make permanent changes, direct your efforts to the part of your brain that truly determines your actions--your subconscious…

There is no doubt about it...we need to put our top equestrian brains together and come up with a new design for the horse's head with six main aims:



THE DESIGN BRIEF



1 We need to desensitise the area around the poll.

2 Make the top jaw narrower or the bottom jaw wider so they are both the same width.

3 Move the exit point for the motor and sensory nerves that is just under the cavesson noseband.

4 Fuse and strengthen the delicate ends of the bones at the…

Hello,

This weeks' participating rider sent in a very technical description of her question. You can see her description in the comments section of last weeks' blog. She gave me some excellent and specific information, but I wanted to hasten to encourage you that you don't have to be as technical. Just a description of what's happening when you ride that you'd like addressed with some unmounted suggestions, and a few photos suffices..even if you don't have a photo, we can still work…

Let's spend some time developing the correct technique and right jumping habits from the very beginning...



When you are ready to start jumping your horse, the first thing you must do is work out a way of getting the him to the fence so that he can jump it correctly.



Presenting your horse appropriately is the only way to help the horse improve his jump.



I surprise you, having said in earlier posts that canter should be a horse’s preferred pace, but I aIways…

Hi Guys,



It's completely reasonable that occasionally you'll be afraid when you ride. After all, you're dealing with a reactive (reactive means bolt, spin, buck, shy, or rear!) animal that outweighs you by a lot! But you can destroy those fears by adopting an attitude of gratitude.



The first thing you need to remember is that ninety-nine percent of the things you fear never come to pass. So why waste all that energy worrying about things that will probably never happen.…

Well, it's over for another year...



HOY is the biggest equestrian event in the southern hemisphere, and a great sprawling beast of a show. It runs from Tuesday to Sunday, and includes show jumping, dressage, show hunter, saddle hunter, driving, breed classes, mounted games (eek!), ponies, hacks, small children dressed up like little dolls on exquisite little ponies wearing more make up than Paris Hilton, led by Mums who look like they are going to a wedding. This year there was…

In Part 3 of Flatwork for Jumping, we take a look at flying changes.



Before any of my young horses go to a show, I teach them how to do a flying change. In training sessions I teach them that when they change the rein in canter they automatically change the canter lead.



It is important that the horse learns to change the sequence of legs and keep himself balanced. You’ve probably all read the books on the aids to use, but my horses can’t read so I like to use a simple…

Hi Guys,



People often tell me that their horses leg yield very well as far as going sideways is concerned, but they tend to toss their heads and show resistance to the reins. In desperation, some riders even use a tie down to put pressure on the nose to discourage their horses from yanking at the reins.



If your horse finds it fairly easy to cross his legs and move sideways with his body, yet he's tossing his head during leg yields, it sounds like he's objecting to your…

Now that we have thought about rider position, flexion, and getting the horse to move away from your leg, it's time to move on to your horse's canter.



Canter, rhythm and balance is very important for a show jumper and he should be able to maintain it without too much interference from the rider. For our sport you need a horse whose strongest pace, his favourite pace if you like, is canter as most of the work is done in canter.



Many of us over-ride our horses in canter…

Greetings, my many Barnmice friends, from Riversong Ranch in Alberta. It is so good to be home again after this latest whirlwind trip to Bermuda and the Netherlands.



While I love my job when I am in the arena with the students and horses, what I am getting increasingly tired of is flying. The “friendly skies” are just not all that user friendly anymore.



So it was while enduring the 8 hour flight from Amsterdam to Toronto only to then connect for the 4 ½ hour flight from…

Hi Guys,



Attitude is a choice. You don't have to have a bad day. Here are 3 simple ways to insure that every ride you have with your horse is a great one!



1. Learn to see things in shades of grey.



Want to know how to have a great ride everyday? Stop expecting perfection. Don't look at training and competing in black or white terms. Instead, learn to see things in "shades of gray". The key to seeing shades of gray is to recognize when things…

Before you even begin to jump, you need to make sure you have done the groundwork to establish the foundation for success. I'm not talking about pure dressage; I'm talking about the basic skills that are vitally important to a show jumper.



There are 5 basics that will provide an excellent foundation for show jumping. Build them into your schooling program and you will see the results.



Today I will talk about the first three basics.





1. Rider…

Hi Guys,



It's important to have a training system so that you school your horse in a clear and consistent way. The down side of having only one system is that one approach doesn't work for all horses. If a particular system isn't right for your horse, and you try to force him to conform to that method, he can fall by the wayside.



Because I want every horse to develop to his potential, I've come up with my system, which I call "Benign Antagonism". Simply put, if your…