The lovely British weather strikes again and what a long winter ahead is in store when its snowing before we are hardly into November! I have had a week of getting soaked while trying to do anything be it teaching, riding or just emptying the wheelbarrow however I have used the miserable weather as an excuse to swot up and experiment on some new schooling exercises to keep my horses enthusiastic and build up their strength ready for the winter season competing.
An exercise I'd like to share is one I have found very useful to improve the canter and get horses sitting with more weight behind, waiting for the fences and producing a better jump - it is also great if like me you are working your horses on your own with no ground help it enables you to practise jumping without having to keep getting off to change fences around - for safety keep them small as more cavaletti style if you are on your own, or at a height you are comfortable. The exercise is simple jumping off a 20m circle, but has a little twist in that the jump is set at an angle on the circle a couple of strides before 'X' one fence as a cross pole at each end of the arena so you have 2 circles and able to swap reins without moving anything - work at one end of the school on one rein then change rein and go to the other end approaching each jump on the curve rather than straight. Put your horse in shoulder-in on the circle and remain so on approach to the fence and do not adjust the stride sit and wait encouraging the hind legs to step under at all times allowing the horse to get right underneath the jump remaining on the circle line on landing and carrying on, putting the horse back in shoulder-in and approach the jump again, this exercise can be done in trot before moving on to canter. I then also added a fence on the long side by 'B' so I could straighen the horse out and see if I still had the same feeling on a straight line into the fence of a much more connected canter with the horse up in front without placing the horse just allowing the stride to remain consistent and balanced to the fence. It really makes both of you work hard and ensures you are working on a powerful canter pushing forward as you have to keep the impulsion and flexion to remain in shoulder-in. You can vary this exercise to suit your horse, I found by adding in smaller circles, perhaps every other time you approach the fence miss it out by turning inside on a circle to encourage a lazy horse to use its hind leg and overemphasize the 'skip' as its hind leg comes under, maybe try changing to traver on the circle or approaching from the other direction to ensure you have the horse between hand and leg as the angle is such the opportunist may run out, I will try to get some photos or videos of my horses training at home but as I work on my own a lot with the horses I can't promise it will be soon! I have a lesson this week before I am out competing at Hartpury Saturday so I should have some pictures and videos to share of us out and about.
Going back to the bad weather last week, yesterday (Sunday) was by far the worst for a while, unfortunately the lane to our yard floods which means without a 4x4 its always quite nervewracking driving through it in my Ford Focus when you cannot see the road and a bow wave runs alongside as you make your way through (photos below show just how bad the lane can get - and yes the mighty Ford Focus battles on through). After finally making it to the yard the fields resemble lakes and the sheep looked like drowned rats so I felt so sorry for our ram that I offered him an umbrella for a while - they do have lots of hedges and trees to get under but for some reason animals never use the shelter available and would much rather be out in the open getting soaked! The horses spennt the day in and were very content munching away tucked up warm in their stables looking out at the flooded fields and watching the snow become increasingly heavier. Thankfully by the afternoon it all stopped and I was able to ride without getting wet - result!!!
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