Top U.S. show jumping athlete Georgina Bloomberg has a string of talented grand prix horses in her barn at Gotham North based in North Salem, NY, and at Gotham South in Wellington, FL. While you may think she and trainer Jimmy Doyle work on intricate courses when schooling at home, they instead spend most of their time focused on small jumps and cavaletti exercises, especially when they’re working on perfecting bending lines.
In part 1 they demonstrated the ‘Clock’ Exercise which works on stride adjustability – key to jumping clear rounds over technical grand prix courses. Here is another simple but effective cavaletti exercise.
Choose a Line Exercise
Set up a cavaletti with a bending distance of anywhere from four to six strides to an oxer, and a straight-line distance of three strides to a vertical. Ride both lines—oxer to cavaletti and vertical to cavaletti—back and forth, working on adding and subtracting strides like you did in the clock exercise.