Starting Youngsters Right with Jim Elder

Jim Elder started jumping competitively in 1950 at the age of 16 and became the youngest rider to ever earn a berth on the Canadian Equestrian Team. During a 36-year riding career, Elder represented Canada at seven Olympics, five Pan Am Games and three World Championships. Some of his earliest international victories were in eventing: his team won bronze at the 1956 Olympics in Stockholm and took the gold team medal at the 1959 Pan Am Games in Chicago. His brother, Norman, was also an accomplished rider and both Elder brothers were members of the 1960 national team.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Elder, James Day and Tom Gayford established Canadian show jumpers as a force to be reckoned with. After taking bronze at the 1967 Pan Am Games, they stunned the world by claiming gold at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. This spectacular victory in a sport dominated by Europeans was dismissed as a mere fluke by global equestrian observers. That assumption was put to rest, however, after Elder and his teammates claimed gold at the 1970 World Championships in France, followed by another team gold medal at the 1971 Pan Am Games. Elder and the national team also claimed the gold medal at the Nations Cup in Rotterdam in 1980 and at the 1982 Pan Am Games, he brought home individual and team silver medals.

At the same time he was pursuing medals as an elite rider, Elder was a successful businessman who owned a refrigeration company. He is also a dedicated humanitarian who has donated his time to organizations such as Big Brothers and the Canadian Association of Riding for the Disabled. He is co-founder of the Toronto Polo Club, became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1983 and is a member of Canada’s Walk of Fame.

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Starting a young horse over fences can be a delicate balance between being firm and being fair, building confidence and being in control. Legendary equestrian Jim Elder knows this well. For six decades, he’s been developing young horses and has established a reputation for his ability to turn difficult horses into winners.

For 50 years, Elder and his late wife, Marianne, ran Elderberry Hill Farm on Yonge Street in Aurora, Ontario, where they hosted the first grand prix jumping competition in Canada in 1961. Now Elderberry is based on 20 acres in Schomberg, minutes from the Caledon Equestrian Park. At his Schomberg farm, Elder continues to ride and train and keeps nine horses and three ponies. Although he owns a couple of Hanoverians and a Clyde/Thoroughbred cross, Elder has an enduring passion for Thoroughbreds and several of his horses have come to him off the track (his daughter and nephew are involved in the racing industry). His children were involved in competitive riding and the equestrian legacy continues with three of Elder’s teenage grandsons.

Elder says the key to success with young horses is patience, with an emphasis on establishing sound basics and taking things slowly and gradually. Here’s his method for starting his three- and four-year-old horses over fences.

Preparation is the Key

When you start working young horses, begin in an enclosed area such as an arena or small ring. If your ring is large, work at one end – the one nearest the gate – so they won’t be running a long distance if they try to bolt.

I get a lot of Thoroughbreds off the track and I don’t do anything with them for a month. I turn them out and let them relax and de-stress before I put them to work.

If a horse is fresh, I’ll give him a good lunge for about half an hour. If a horse is keyed up, has his head up high or is trying to bolt, he’s not going to learn anything. You are educating the horse and you need him to pay attention.

With a young horse, I recommend using a snaffle bridle with a standing martingale. Some people like to use draw reins, but a lot don’t know how to use them properly and they try to force the horse’s head down. This will make a horse stiff through the neck and back. With a young horse, you don’t want to ask for a high degree of collection, because their muscles are not developed enough to handle it. They are still growing and will only get sore – and that will create problems. With a standing martingale, if the horse gets his head high in the air, he’ll hit the end of it and the noseband will do the work for you. You won’t risk hitting him in the mouth. He’ll learn to drop his head. I also put jumping boots on my horses and bell boots if I think they are necessary.

Control on the Flat

It’s important the horse knows the basics of flatwork before you even think about starting over jumps. Begin at the walk – you can do a lot at the walk. Don’t just go around and around the arena, though; go across the diagonal, do circles. You want the horse going forward from your leg. Carry a crop, and if he doesn’t go forward, tap him behind your leg. Increase and decrease stride. Walk 10 or 20 feet, ask him to stop, then push forward from your leg. If he’s leaning or pulling, you might have to do this 10 or 20 times until he’s paying attention. Next try it at the trot.
And you need to be able to stop. There’s no sense trying to jump if you can’t stop your horse!

Introducing Poles

Before I introduce jumps, I start by putting single trot poles around the ring, similar to where jumps in a course might be laid out. Start under saddle by having him walk over the poles. If he hesitates about going over a pole, give him a tap with the crop behind your leg. Switch the sides you tap on. You want him to get to the point where he’s walking or trotting over the poles calmly.

Once he’s doing that, I will add trot poles in a line, building up gradually to a line of four trot poles placed three to three-and-a-half feet apart, depending on the length of the horse’s stride. A lot of people put the poles at four feet apart, but I don’t want the horse to do a fast trot – I want him to be slow and careful. It’s important to get him walking and trotting over the poles in a steady cadence. The trot poles teach the horse to look down at the poles and will help set him up for the right takeoff point when he starts jumping.

It’s important to go slowly and teach a horse to think. That’s what it’s all about, because once he gets in the ring, no matter how experienced a rider is, there will be situations where a horse is going to have to think for himself, like being one-and-a-half strides out from a jump, or having to jump on an angle, where the rider can’t help him and he’ll have to adjust.

When the horse is doing the trot poles in a steady, calm fashion, set three trot poles followed by a small X or vertical, set seven feet beyond the last trot pole. Use a ground line rolled out about six inches from the jump. I start out with the jump set at six inches.

The key is to not overdo it. You don’t want the horse to get scared by putting it up too high and with low jumps, that shouldn’t happen. You want him coming in nice and steady and slow. Keep your leg on. He may just trot over the small jump and that’s okay.

If you are going too fast, you don’t have the same control and he might run out. Even if he refuses, if a jump is only six inches high, you can tap him with the crop and get him to walk over it.

After he’s comfortable doing the small jump, raise it to a foot, then a foot-and-a-half. If he’s sloppy with his legs, I might put a little wall under the fence so it’s more solid-looking and he’ll respect it more. If you don’t have a wall, you can drape a cooler or blanket over the fence to make it appear to be solid.

What you’re trying to develop is style, which is built on basics like any other sport. You want a horse to jerk up his front legs, bascule over the jump and kick up with his hind legs. If a horse is not jumping with enough bascule, I will make the small vertical into a small oxer to encourage him to round his back more.

After the horse is jumping the little X or vertical with ease, I add another small jump five or six strides out and let him canter to it. As he gets more confident, I’ll add an in-and-out, with two jumps set two strides apart, then one stride apart. As the horse’s confidence increases, you can raise the jumps, but you don’t want a three-year-old jumping any more than three feet.

Slow and Steady

Training youngsters is a step-by-step process and how fast you progress depends on the horse. Some are like people and are fast learners. We have one horse that is a Thoroughbred off the track. He was jumping a three-foot course in a week, but others take a much longer time to learn. On average, it takes about four or five weeks of consistent work to get to that point, but remember, take it slowly and don’t rush.

Some three- and four-year-olds are naturally spooky. If they start refusing or knocking down fences, drop the fence down again and return to the basics. Horses learn by repetition and the reason you don’t want to take things too fast is because that’s when you make mistakes.

I don’t use complex gymnastics when I’m starting three- and four-year-olds over fences. They are too young for that, and gymnastics with tight lines and bounces are too much to ask of them and will only confuse them. The only time I use gymnastics is when a horse is more experienced. For example, if a jumper is getting strong in the ring, I’ll use gymnastics to work on getting him to slow down over the jumps.

I know some people start young horses by free-jumping in a chute, and I used to free-jump all my horses. But I find that sometimes horses get running too fast in the chute and learn to charge the fences. Often horses don’t understand what they are supposed to do and get completely confused. I’ll only do it after a horse has been started over fences under saddle for a month or two to see how he is able to handle higher fences without a rider on his back.

If you are going to use a chute, start out with poles on the ground. You want it slow and controlled. Start with having the horse trot over the poles and keep the fences low initially. Again, start with the basics and start slowly.

Avoiding Mistakes

One mistake I see a lot of people make when starting young horses is putting up a fence and running the horse at it, then letting him run off after it. Don’t let him run off; after a jump, circle or make your horse come to a stop. Remember, it’s all about control and getting your horse to think.

I also see a lot of inexperienced riders put up a jump and if a young horse knocks it down, they whip him or put him at it again at the same height. If a young horse stops, whipping him is not going to teach him a darn thing. Put the jump down and go back to basics.

You have to take things gradually. We recently had a horse that had raced for five years. He had his head up all the time and worried about everything. I started by lungeing him for half an hour to 45 minutes before riding him, then each day I decreased the lungeing sessions. Eventually, he realized he didn’t have to go fast all the time and he’s become a really nice horse.

I’ve had a lot of success with Thoroughbreds, but like any young horse you don’t want them too fit initially. When starting youngsters, it’s important to work them consistently; you can ride them every day, but don’t drill them every day, and don’t get them too fit. I only jump them two or three times a week. Jumps that are only one or two feet high aren’t going to put too much strain on them.

Don’t let them become bored. Whenever you’re riding in the ring, change directions, do circles and throw in transitions to keep the horse thinking. Remember, there’s a lot you can achieve even at the walk. I turn my horses out all day so they aren’t cooped up in a stall all the time. I also ride my horses at the walk from the arena out to the outdoor ring or around the barn where they can see different things, then I might head out to the back field and walk them around there. You need to be very careful with young horses, though, and it may not be a good idea to take them into a big, open area as a lot of things can happen and they could run away with you.

And finally, don’t overwork them. I usually keep training sessions to between half an hour to an hour with young horses. If there’s a problem you need to work out, you might have to go longer, but you don’t want him getting lathered and upset. Get back to the basics, go slowly, and make it a positive experience.