To understand and work with your horse’s stride length, keep in mind that whilst you are riding, the horse’s legs are your legs, and your brain needs to react to what they are doing.

Try this exercise:

Build two fences five canter strides apart. Warm up your horse, thinking about the canter rhythm.

As a very simple way of understanding your horse’s stride length, call out the strides as you ride the fences. This will help your brain tune in to what your horse is actually doing.

Calling out strides may seem silly, but give it a try and you may be surprised - if you find it difficult it may explain why you are having problems with your jumping.

Now put planks down to mark each stride between the fences. This simple technique will help your horse to develop and maintain a regular as well as rhythmical stride as he makes a nice round even ‘jump’ over each plank. It will also help your horse if he has a tendency to rush his fences and it will stop you over riding him and hurrying him to the second fence!

Developing Your Horse’s Gears

Or rather how to lengthen and shorten the stride. It is imperative that your horse can go forwards and come back without breaking to trot when you ask him. Again this is where your flatwork is vital. You need to be able to close down the canter or shorten the stride length quickly and without argument or breaking to trot. Practise makes perfect and you can call out the strides to make the link to your brain.

Use the same five stride combination, (without place planks) but ride it with six strides in between. Remember to get six even, rhythmical, regular strides, you need to take 2 feet off each of your five strides. A common mistake is to leave it until you have landed over the first fence before you ask your horse to shorten his stride, doing this will disrupt his rhythm and it will be very unbalanced. Instead shorten your horse’s stride well before the first fence then all you have to do is maintain your rhythm to the second jump.

Do the same exercise but take seven strides between the fences, again closing the canter down before the first jump to establish the rhythm you want to maintain to the second jump. Then go back to the five stride canter and you should really be able to feel the difference this isn't something that you can achieve in one session and should be an exercise you build into all your schooling sessions so that related distances become simple.

Tim Stockdale