There is an important distinction to be made between correctly riding forward in balance and rushing at high speeds, as riding correctly forward means that you are galloping from leg to hand.
Riding forward comfortably and in balance requires the skill of at least an intermediate-level rider. The rider needs to be at a point in their education where they can understand that going forward will result in a better jumping effort from the horse. The more forward the horses are travelling, the straighter they are. The basis of jumping is that the horse is straight and travelling between both shoulders and both hips.
Most young people in the early stages of their riding education will learn to gallop because they are brave, but not with a connection. It’s great that they are learning to gallop to the jumps, but once they get over that stage of youthful confidence, they start worrying about where they are going to leave the ground. This is partially the reason I think the word ‘distance’ creates more problems than it does good. When riders start trying to think about distances, they start wanting to go backwards. In my experience most competitive individuals are ‘A’ type personalities with some degree of control tendencies, and it’s difficult to teach people to stop trying to control where they are going to leave the ground. It happens to everyone; once riders get to a certain level and they gain some confidence and knowledge, they start wanting to go backwards to control the step.
One of the reasons going forward is such a difficult skill to teach, especially in the wet Pacific Northwest, is that we work primarily in small indoor arenas. It’s a difficult enough task to teach riders to get going forwards in outdoor rings, and when indoors we get comfortable working under-pace because really we have no option. When we work indoors we are basically working on an 11-foot stride and it is difficult to teach people to gallop comfortably and safely on the correct open galloping stride within confined spaces.
All we can do is practice, just basically try to gallop at home. Safety first; we aren’t on the racetrack and we don’t want to injure anyone or scare them, but to get comfortable galloping in balance you just have to practice. I suggest getting outside as much as you can and if you have access to big outdoor arenas or tracks that’s a huge asset. The concept is to just keep practicing until you are comfortable with the pace; really, that’s the only way. It’s one of the most advanced and most difficult things to teach.
