My Top Tips: Part 4

Please enjoy these final tips. I hope they have been useful for you and your horse!


31. Don’t come in to the grid too fast in an effort to clear a bigger jump at the end of it. The secret is to maintain a rhythm throughout.

32. If you attack the first fence and then try to shorten the stride, you will confuse your horse and he will resist, and that may cost you a fence. Be disciplined in your approach to the first fence and establish the rhythm you want to maintain to the second.

33. Riders usually over ride their fences because they are nervous. Try to relax, stay calm and stay soft. Your job is to get to the take off point correctly. The horse’s job is to jump the fence.

34. When you walk the course, work out your distances and decide how you are going to ride them. Think of your rhythm as you approach each fence and where you have to open up or close down your canter. Put your energy into what is important and leave your horse to do his job.

35. Walking the course helps you to devise a plan. If you just go into the ring and jump the jumps as they come you will make mistakes – and that’s when your horse will stop listening to you. Make a plan and stick to it. Canter, rhythm, line. Gets it right every time!

36. Always anticipate what you are going to see at a show and recreate it at home as part of your training.

37. If you do not have the facilities at home hire an equestrian center the night before a show or the day after and train your horse around a course. Then you can have 5 attempts at the combination, or jump 3 rounds if you wish rather than in the competition when you have only got 2 stops and you are out.

38. A horse does not have a measuring stick in his head. If you have a problem drop the fence down in height.

39. Appreciating that the horse doesn’t understand is also a key area of training. A very simple reward method is probably the easiest way of training.

Tim Stockdale