Training

Conquering Ditches, Drops & Banks

How to safely introduce these cross-country obstacles.

Andrew Bailini photo

By: Tracy Hanes | April 5, 2011

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you're listening to an article from horse sport.com. conquering ditches, drops & banks by: tracy hanes. garry roque was born in bermuda and started riding at the age of eight. he completed his first three-day event at the 1981 north american young riders’ championships. roque rode for bermuda at the 1990 world equestrian games in stockholm, sweden, and at the 1991 pan american games, where he was a silver medalist on casemate, an appaloosa/canadian sport horse. roque has lived in canada since his teens and became a canadian citizen in 1997. he was ontario leading male rider of the year in 2000, 2001 and 2003, and represented canada aboard waikura in three-day eventing at the 2004 olympics in athens. in recent years, roque’s focus has been on teaching students and conducting clinics. last summer, he built 45 cross-country jumps at his bystorm farm in caledon east and plans to finish a water complex this year. “i really think we need more cross-country training facilities, and while i don’t have enough parking area to hold an event, i’m building a place where people can come and school and after that, feel they are ready to go to any event,” he says. roque also breeds horses on a small scale and has a few promising three-year-old homebreds in his barn. ditches, drops and banks are among the many tests of a horse’s bravery on the cross-country course, but they can be just as psychologically challenging for the rider. even olympian garry roque, who has ridden numerous advanced courses, admits that he’s had his own ditch phobia, especially with ditch-wall combinations. he said the first advanced horse he purchased that he hadn’t had a hand in training had a lot to do with it: “if it was a ditch to a wall, he’d always fall in the ditch.”. advertisement scroll to continue with content while many horses are naturally fearful of ditches (and the trolls that live in them), roque finds most don’t have the same issues with drops and banks, although riders may be intimidated by the prospect of jumping them. here’s how roque, introduces his young horses to ditches, drops and banks, and how he advises his students to ride them. first, let’s talk about the rider’s position. it’s really about being still and keeping the horse in front of your leg, with your heels down. when your horse jumps, your legs and hips should bend, like you are squatting. your shoulders do not have to go forward. when i trained with colonel michael gutowski, he used to make us stand on our feet and jump, land, and squat 50 times before we even got on a horse! dressage isn’t just what you do in a little white-fenced area. it really means training. you have to do flat work, and you have to have some gears within your gaits. you need to be able to go from collected canter to extended canter and back to collected. you can practice over poles: put one at one end of the ring, one at the other, and practice riding between them in five strides, then six. just doing that will help you adjust the horse’s stride. i actually made one student get off his horse and run and jump between the poles himself to understand how to adjust the horse’s stride. he couldn’t do it without adjusting his own stride. he understood then that you couldn’t just come out of the corner and kick like a maniac. you have to balance the horse. i’m a big believer in gymnastics to improve rider position over fences. if you are jumping ahead of your horse, ride over a bounce. if one doesn’t work, then do two, or as many as six. they don’t have to be high. jumping over bounces forces you to stay back and stay tall to allow your joints to move. stand on your feet on the ground and think about your position as a rider. if you lean forward without moving your feet, you are going to lose your balance. the same thing happens on a horse if you are moving your shoulders forward. if you squat, you maintain your balance and the horse jumps up underneath you. one of the current problems in eventing is that people are trying to rush through the ranks and their horses aren’t understanding the questions. there are some jumps you have to do at a gallop, some you have to ride in a collected frame; you have to have different positions at different parts of the ride. when i sit up and say “whoa,” i want the horse to come back. you need to be able to balance and keep your horse between leg and hand. a favourite exercise of mine is to ride in a circle over a jump. every distance is there and you have to keep the horse in a balanced canter to maintain the circle. it makes you continually look for the jump. you don’t have to be able to find the distance to a jump, but you have to have an idea when your horse will leave the ground. the worst thing is when a horse leaves a stride early or a stride late and the rider catches the horse in the mouth or ends up on its neck. on tv and the internet we are lucky to be able to see show jumpers like mclain ward and erynn ballard in action. if you watch them on the approach to a jump, they literally look like they are leaning away from the jump, not creeping up the horse’s neck. that’s what you want to work towards. your shoulders are going to save your life. if your horse stumbles and you are leaning forward, you are likely going to come off. if you are upright or leaning slightly back, you likely won’t. as col. gutowski used to say, it’s always the rider’s fault, never the horse’s. ditches. i introduce my young horses to ditches almost right away when i start riding them. i also walk them through water right from the beginning. i believe it’s best to start these things early, as horses are creatures of fear and flight, and i want them to understand and not be afraid. in the wild, a hole or ditch could cause them to injure themselves, so many horses are naturally hesitant about them. i’ll get a shovel and take the sod off the ground in a rectangle shape (18′ wide by 4′-5′ long is big enough) so my horses have something of a different colour to step on. everyone owns a shovel, so it’s easy to do this and if you don’t want to leave horrible hole, you can put the sod back later. if you’re working in the arena, you can put a tarp, blanket or cooler between two poles on the ground about a foot apart to start. it should be a darker colour to look deeper; i wouldn’t put an orange tarp down, for example. as the horse gets more comfortable, you can eventually make the “ditch” as wide as three feet. with the dirt rectangle i’ve created outdoors, i’ll start by walking my young horses through. they may just walk through, which is what you want, but some horses might overreact, slamming on the brakes or making a big leap over it. if he sucks back, keep your leg on. keep him walking back and forth over the dirt rectangle until he is feeling confident and relaxed about it. when my horses are comfortable with that, i’ll trot them and then canter them over it. you can then put a log on one side of the rectangle where you’ve removed the sod so the horse will think about jumping it. when the horse is comfortable doing that, i might add a log on the other side. next, i’ll find a ditch that’s slightly wider and deeper. start again by having them walk through it. i don’t want something that is so deep they’ll hurt themselves if they put a foot in it. again, once they are walking through it or hopping calmly over it, you can try it at the trot and canter. once they’ve done it slowly and understand the question, you can do it at speed. at a clinic i taught, the students were surprised that i started by having them all walk their horses through a small ditch several times before approaching it at the trot and canter. the biggest mistake is to ride a horse aggressively to a ditch so you give it a reason to be afraid. as you move up the levels and the ditches get bigger, especially an open ditch, you want to be able to soften your reins, so the horse sees the ditch and figures out how to jump from one side to the other. a frightened horse will stop or overjump. i think the horse that stops is the smarter of the two, because a horse will usually frighten itself with an overjump. you want the horse to see it and think about it. also, when you are riding toward a ditch, don’t look down at it – look over it and ahead. if you are looking down, the horse will look down, too. i have a ditch here at bystorm farm and it’s training level, about 18 inches wide. if i get a student in who has ridden at training level, i’ll ask them to approach the ditch at speed (gallop) because it’s not a big jump. if there’s a problem, i’ll take them back and make them trot it. that way, at least the rider is more in control and better able to keep the horse straight and it will stop rather than run out. once a horse will just hop over a ditch and not be afraid, it is on its way and you can start to introduce different obstacles. i will add a small vertical three strides after the ditch. i’ll decrease the distance as a horse becomes at ease doing the ditch-to-vertical until it’s a bounce. then i’ll do it from the other direction, so he jumps the small vertical two or three strides before the ditch. eventually, you can put verticals before and after the ditch. if a horse comes into one of these combinations and refuses, try to see what he’s worried about. if he’s staring at the ditch, remove the vertical and start again with just the ditch until he’s comfortable. you want to approach this in a slow, controlled canter with impulsion, similar to what you ride to show jump. next, you may want to create a jump resembling a small trakehner. start with a pole lying in a very shallow ditch or dip, then when the horse is confident jumping that, you can make it into a small vertical over the ditch. a hurried event horse usually has a hole in its education. i get many horses to fix because they were started incorrectly and their training was rushed. the most common mistake people make is trying to go too fast. i find if a horse is “ditchy” it’ll be that way its whole life and it’s usually because it didn’t have a good introduction to ditches from the start; it was never allowed to understand that ditches are not something to be afraid of. banks and drops. i teach young horses banks and drops the same way i introduce ditches – very early in their training. i have a baby bank about 18 inches high at the edge of the outdoor riding ring and we step up and down from it at the walk until they are comfortable. once they are doing it in a relaxed way at the walk, i’ll trot them up and down it. if you start at the walk, the horse is less likely to launch himself off the bank. as the drops get larger, you want the horse to drop down, not jump out. you want to be keeping your lower leg on and your heel down so your base of support is firm and strong. you shouldn’t be leaning forward or too far back; you need to be centred. when you get to the point where you are galloping towards a drop, you want to collect to a reasonably slow pace and as you get closer – say, the last stride – soften your hands so your horse looks down and jumps down. if you are going too fast, you might get pitched forward and the horse may lose his balance. it’s important to give the reins as the horse jumps. if you keep hold of his mouth, he’s going to jump out and could land on all four feet at once, which is really an uncomfortable experience for both of you! if you give the reins, he’ll jump down, not leap out, and land on his two front feet first. you need to know how to slip your reins as the fences get larger. as the horse prepares to jump down, open your fingers and let the reins slip through. think of how you go about picking up your reins in the dressage ring after the walk on a loose rein. it’s the same process, only in reverse and faster. practice before you attempt the bank. the biggest mistake i see is riders taking the drop with a big loop in the reins, and that can cause problems if you can’t get them back again before the next fence. when you are jumping up a bank, ride into it in a collected canter. it’s about power, not speed; you’ll need power especially if you’re jumping up multiple steps. remember to stretch away from the jump and keep your seat off the saddle. once one of my young horses has mastered going up and down the bank, i’ll add a small vertical. i start with them jumping up the bank, then over a small vertical set three strides out initially. jumping down the bank to a vertical seems harder for a horse to figure out. you want to set it several strides away so there’s enough distance to pick up your reins and get back in the tack before you get there. &&>

Garry Roque was born in Bermuda and started riding at the age of eight. He completed his first three-day event at the 1981 North American Young Riders’ Championships. Roque rode for Bermuda at the 1990 World Equestrian Games in Stockholm, Sweden, and at the 1991 Pan American Games, where he was a silver medalist on Casemate, an Appaloosa/Canadian Sport Horse. Roque has lived in Canada since his teens and became a Canadian citizen in 1997. He was Ontario Leading Male Rider of the Year in 2000, 2001 and 2003, and represented Canada aboard Waikura in three-day eventing at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

In recent years, Roque’s focus has been on teaching students and conducting clinics. Last summer, he built 45 cross-country jumps at his Bystorm Farm in Caledon East and plans to finish a water complex this year. “I really think we need more cross-country training facilities, and while I don’t have enough parking area to hold an event, I’m building a place where people can come and school and after that, feel they are ready to go to any event,” he says. Roque also breeds horses on a small scale and has a few promising three-year-old homebreds in his barn.

Ditches, drops and banks are among the many tests of a horse’s bravery on the cross-country course, but they can be just as psychologically challenging for the rider. Even Olympian Garry Roque, who has ridden numerous advanced courses, admits that he’s had his own ditch phobia, especially with ditch-wall combinations. He said the first advanced horse he purchased that he hadn’t had a hand in training had a lot to do with it: “If it was a ditch to a wall, he’d always fall in the ditch.”

Scroll to continue with content

While many horses are naturally fearful of ditches (and the trolls that live in them), Roque finds most don’t have the same issues with drops and banks, although riders may be intimidated by the prospect of jumping them. Here’s how Roque, introduces his young horses to ditches, drops and banks, and how he advises his students to ride them.

First, let’s talk about the rider’s position. It’s really about being still and keeping the horse in front of your leg, with your heels down. When your horse jumps, your legs and hips should bend, like you are squatting. Your shoulders do not have to go forward. When I trained with Colonel Michael Gutowski, he used to make us stand on our feet and jump, land, and squat 50 times before we even got on a horse!

Dressage isn’t just what you do in a little white-fenced area. It really means training. You have to do flat work, and you have to have some gears within your gaits. You need to be able to go from collected canter to extended canter and back to collected. You can practice over poles: put one at one end of the ring, one at the other, and practice riding between them in five strides, then six. Just doing that will help you adjust the horse’s stride. I actually made one student get off his horse and run and jump between the poles himself to understand how to adjust the horse’s stride. He couldn’t do it without adjusting his own stride. He understood then that you couldn’t just come out of the corner and kick like a maniac. You have to balance the horse.

I’m a big believer in gymnastics to improve rider position over fences. If you are jumping ahead of your horse, ride over a bounce. If one doesn’t work, then do two, or as many as six. They don’t have to be high. Jumping over bounces forces you to stay back and stay tall to allow your joints to move. Stand on your feet on the ground and think about your position as a rider. If you lean forward without moving your feet, you are going to lose your balance.

The same thing happens on a horse if you are moving your shoulders forward. If you squat, you maintain your balance and the horse jumps up underneath you.

One of the current problems in eventing is that people are trying to rush through the ranks and their horses aren’t understanding the questions. There are some jumps you have to do at a gallop, some you have to ride in a collected frame; you have to have different positions at different parts of the ride. When I sit up and say “whoa,” I want the horse to come back. You need to be able to balance and keep your horse between leg and hand.

A favourite exercise of mine is to ride in a circle over a jump. Every distance is there and you have to keep the horse in a balanced canter to maintain the circle. It makes you continually look for the jump. You don’t have to be able to find the distance to a jump, but you have to have an idea when your horse will leave the ground. The worst thing is when a horse leaves a stride early or a stride late and the rider catches the horse in the mouth or ends up on its neck.

On TV and the internet we are lucky to be able to see show jumpers like McLain Ward and Erynn Ballard in action. If you watch them on the approach to a jump, they literally look like they are leaning away from the jump, not creeping up the horse’s neck. That’s what you want to work towards. Your shoulders are going to save your life. If your horse stumbles and you are leaning forward, you are likely going to come off. If you are upright or leaning slightly back, you likely won’t. As Col. Gutowski used to say, it’s always the rider’s fault, never the horse’s.

DITCHES

I introduce my young horses to ditches almost right away when I start riding them. I also walk them through water right from the beginning. I believe it’s best to start these things early, as horses are creatures of fear and flight, and I want them to understand and not be afraid. In the wild, a hole or ditch could cause them to injure themselves, so many horses are naturally hesitant about them.

I’ll get a shovel and take the sod off the ground in a rectangle shape (18′ wide by 4′-5′ long is big enough) so my horses have something of a different colour to step on. Everyone owns a shovel, so it’s easy to do this and if you don’t want to leave horrible hole, you can put the sod back later. If you’re working in the arena, you can put a tarp, blanket or cooler between two poles on the ground about a foot apart to start. It should be a darker colour to look deeper; I wouldn’t put an orange tarp down, for example. As the horse gets more comfortable, you can eventually make the “ditch” as wide as three feet.

With the dirt rectangle I’ve created outdoors, I’ll start by walking my young horses through. They may just walk through, which is what you want, but some horses might overreact, slamming on the brakes or making a big leap over it. If he sucks back, keep your leg on. Keep him walking back and forth over the dirt rectangle until he is feeling confident and relaxed about it.

When my horses are comfortable with that, I’ll trot them and then canter them over it. You can then put a log on one side of the rectangle where you’ve removed the sod so the horse will think about jumping it. When the horse is comfortable doing that, I might add a log on the other side.

Next, I’ll find a ditch that’s slightly wider and deeper. Start again by having them walk through it. I don’t want something that is so deep they’ll hurt themselves if they put a foot in it. Again, once they are walking through it or hopping calmly over it, you can try it at the trot and canter. Once they’ve done it slowly and understand the question, you can do it at speed.

At a clinic I taught, the students were surprised that I started by having them all walk their horses through a small ditch several times before approaching it at the trot and canter. The biggest mistake is to ride a horse aggressively to a ditch so you give it a reason to be afraid. As you move up the levels and the ditches get bigger, especially an open ditch, you want to be able to soften your reins, so the horse sees the ditch and figures out how to jump from one side to the other. A frightened horse will stop or overjump. I think the horse that stops is the smarter of the two, because a horse will usually frighten itself with an overjump. You want the horse to see it and think about it.

Also, when you are riding toward a ditch, don’t look down at it – look over it and ahead. If you are looking down, the horse will look down, too.

I have a ditch here at Bystorm Farm and it’s training level, about 18 inches wide. If I get a student in who has ridden at training level, I’ll ask them to approach the ditch at speed (gallop) because it’s not a big jump. If there’s a problem, I’ll take them back and make them trot it. That way, at least the rider is more in control and better able to keep the horse straight and it will stop rather than run out.

Once a horse will just hop over a ditch and not be afraid, it is on its way and you can start to introduce different obstacles. I will add a small vertical three strides after the ditch. I’ll decrease the distance as a horse becomes at ease doing the ditch-to-vertical until it’s a bounce. Then I’ll do it from the other direction, so he jumps the small vertical two or three strides before the ditch. Eventually, you can put verticals before and after the ditch.

If a horse comes into one of these combinations and refuses, try to see what he’s worried about. If he’s staring at the ditch, remove the vertical and start again with just the ditch until he’s comfortable. You want to approach this in a slow, controlled canter with impulsion, similar to what you ride to show jump.

Next, you may want to create a jump resembling a small trakehner. Start with a pole lying in a very shallow ditch or dip, then when the horse is confident jumping that, you can make it into a small vertical over the ditch.

A hurried event horse usually has a hole in its education. I get many horses to fix because they were started incorrectly and their training was rushed. The most common mistake people make is trying to go too fast. I find if a horse is “ditchy” it’ll be that way its whole life and it’s usually because it didn’t have a good introduction to ditches from the start; it was never allowed to understand that ditches are not something to be afraid of.

BANKS AND DROPS

I teach young horses banks and drops the same way I introduce ditches – very early in their training. I have a baby bank about 18 inches high at the edge of the outdoor riding ring and we step up and down from it at the walk until they are comfortable.

Once they are doing it in a relaxed way at the walk, I’ll trot them up and down it. If you start at the walk, the horse is less likely to launch himself off the bank.

As the drops get larger, you want the horse to drop down, not jump out. You want to be keeping your lower leg on and your heel down so your base of support is firm and strong. You shouldn’t be leaning forward or too far back; you need to be centred.

When you get to the point where you are galloping towards a drop, you want to collect to a reasonably slow pace and as you get closer – say, the last stride – soften your hands so your horse looks down and jumps down. If you are going too fast, you might get pitched forward and the horse may lose his balance.

It’s important to give the reins as the horse jumps. If you keep hold of his mouth, he’s going to jump out and could land on all four feet at once, which is really an uncomfortable experience for both of you! If you give the reins, he’ll jump down, not leap out, and land on his two front feet first.

You need to know how to slip your reins as the fences get larger. As the horse prepares to jump down, open your fingers and let the reins slip through.

Think of how you go about picking up your reins in the dressage ring after the walk on a loose rein. It’s the same process, only in reverse and faster. Practice before you attempt the bank. The biggest mistake I see is riders taking the drop with a big loop in the reins, and that can cause problems if you can’t get them back again before the next fence.

When you are jumping up a bank, ride into it in a collected canter. It’s about power, not speed; you’ll need power especially if you’re jumping up multiple steps. Remember to stretch away from the jump and keep your seat off the saddle. Once one of my young horses has mastered going up and down the bank, I’ll add a small vertical. I start with them jumping up the bank, then over a small vertical set three strides out initially.

Jumping down the bank to a vertical seems harder for a horse to figure out. You want to set it several strides away so there’s enough distance to pick up your reins and get back in the tack before you get there.