Stride Control Troubleshooting with Jen Marsden Hamilton

The following exclusive excerpt is from Canadian jumping coach Jen Marsden Hamilton’s new book Stride Control: Exercises to Improve Rideability, Adjustability and Performance, which is published by Trafalgar Square Books and will be available in early June.

Problem Story 1: Krista and Missy

My first example is of a young Holsteiner-Thoroughbred mare named Missy, owned and ridden by one of my students, Krista Foley. Here’s what Krista has to say about Missy:

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“Missy was green and had an awful canter that was very strung out, covering way too much ground. And she traveled on her forehand. Using the reins to try to set her on her hind end did not work very well, as she would either grab the bit and pull, or she would try to buck.

Krista Foley and her mare Missy. Missy doesn’t have classic technique over jumps. Her learned balance, strength, and rideability are a direct result of hours of training and hard work. Combined with her natural spring and carefulness, Missy has significantly improved her performance.

“In our early lessons with Jen, we spent a good deal of time using cavalletti to help her learn to compress her canter and rock back on her hindquarters. I remember doing long lines of one-strides and bounces (including those set on a bending line). Jen also had me longe Missy over a curved line of cavalletti at home to help teach my mare to balance herself and not leap across them.”

When I first saw Missy, I thought that she could jump—but, so what? As you’ve heard me say in this book, the hardest part of jumping a course is getting to the jumps…and that means cantering. And Missy really did have an awful canter. Krista looked like she was riding three horses: a head and neck out the front, hocks and a tail out the back, with Krista sitting in the middle.

The primary problem with Missy was that she was very weak behind, and therefore uncoordinated and out of balance in the canter. The mare couldn’t carry her weight on her hindquarters. She dragged herself around on her forehand and leaned on her rider trying to find support and balance. She actually had difficulty maintaining the canter for more than eight strides.

Training Strategy for Missy

Our training strategy was to teach Missy to canter by improving her strength and coordination. Missy was cantered on trail rides, on the longe line, and over cavalletti set at bounce distances, as well as jumping over three- and four-stride distances in straight and bending lines.

Serpentines and circles were added to the daily routine once straight lines improved. Stride control over ground poles and jumps were introduced, along with gymnastics for stride control, strength, balance, and jumping technique. (Revisit the exercises in the preceding chapters.) Missy cantered a lot and did lots of downward transitions to lighten her forehand, strengthen her hind end, make her respectful, and teach her the half-halt.

Krista and Missy worked hard together, and about six months later, we started to see a measurable improvement. A greatly improved canter, combined with a good flatwork and a strategic jumping program, resulted in Krista and Missy representing their province, Nova Scotia, at the Canadian Inter-Provincial Championships in Bromont, Quebec, in 2014.

Missy is a bit loose in the front end, but she is excellent in the way she follows through behind. She can now navigate to the jumps on a rideable and controlled canter. Her learned balance, strength, and rideability—a direct result of hours of training and hard work—combined with her natural spring and carefulness, are improving her performance and winning prizes.

Although I love watching horses jump in the classic bascule (see p. 72), sometimes you just can’t have it. That’s where rideability is a very important element in jumping disciplines, and it is something you can achieve through good training.

As a side note: We were so focused on Missy’s canter and her jumping technique that, combined with my hatred of teaching in the mud and rain, we forgot to ever train in wet conditions. It turns out that Missy isn’t a “mudder,” and since horse shows aren’t canceled due to rain, our next project with Missy was “mud jumping”!

Strengthening Cavalletti

Strengthening cavalletti exercises set to help your horse learn to compress the canter and rock back (all distances in feet).

EXERCISE 7: Three-cavalletti bounce set 9 feet apart.

During our early lessons, we spent a good deal of time using cavalletti to help Missy learn to compress her canter and rock back on her hind end. These included:

EXERCISE 7 (above): A three-cavalletti bounce set 9 feet apart ridden on a circle or around the arena in both directions.

EXERCISE 8 (above left): A three-to-two-cavalletti bounce set 10 feet apart with two strides between them, followed by three strides to an oxer.
EXERCISE 9 (above right): An oxer to a 45-foot bending line measured on the curve, three or four strides to a three-cavalletti bounce, set 9 feet apart, to four or five strides on a bending line, to a second oxer.

EXERCISE 8: A three-to-two-cavalletti bounce set 10 feet apart with two strides between them, followed by three strides to an oxer.

EXERCISE 9: An oxer to a 45-foot bending line measured on the curve, three or four strides to a three-cavalletti bounce set 9 feet apart, to four or five strides on a bending line, to a second oxer. (Distance to oxer not measured—four or five strides.)

Purpose

Improve horse’s rideability.
Compress canter.
Teach the horse to rock back on the hind end. This exercise further improves rideability of the horse and an understanding of how to adjust the stride on the part of the rider.

Problem Story 2: Jill and Fiamo

Fiamo is an 11-year-old, 16.1-hand Hanoverian gelding. His owner and rider, Jill Swain, rode with me as a junior and started training Fiamo with me three years ago. Here’s what Jill has to say about the gelding:

“Fiamo was jumping at the fences and not using himself properly. In our lessons, Jen set up three white-plank jumps with a very tight distance between them to help him make his arc in the proper place and centered over each jump. It seemed to work very well and made him much ‘smarter’ over fences.

“I was finding the distances between the jumps were riding very tight. Jen also changed my landing position, as well as getting me to keep my eyes up over the obstacles. This really helped me fit the strides in much better.”

Fiamo is a lovely horse made better through training. Changing his bascule so the highest point of the arc is over the highest point of the jump has made Fiamo much easier to ride.

Fiamo is a very scopey jumper. He is athletic, supple, and jumps very clean. While these characteristics are positive, problems arose when he started jumping bigger and wider jumps, with more complex combinations and distances.

The arc (bascule) of Fiamo’s jump wasn’t centered over the highest element of the jump. Fiamo was over-shooting the arc, and his canter stride was getting too long in the first two strides away from the jump, causing Jill to be pulled out of position and unable to control the stride. A scopey horse ridden by a talented or natural rider often gets away with having technical faults in the same way a rider on a scopey and very honest horse can get away with faults in their riding position.

As the jumps got higher and wider, it became very evident that Fiamo was over-shooting the arc—what we call jumping at the jump and not around it. This is not uncommon and usually happens when a horse isn’t strong enough in the hindquarters, and therefore doesn’t have the strength to rock back on his hocks.

In theory, the horse’s body should form a perfect half circle over the jump—this is called “bascule.” The highest point of the horse’s arc should be centered over the highest point of the jump.

Over-shooting the arc causes the horse to land too far away from the jump. Shortening the distance between jumps. Over-shooting the arc also causes the first strides away from the jump to be long and flat.

Training Strategy for Fiamo

Fiamo’s primary problem was the same one that Missy had—lack of strength and coordination—and so it had similar solutions:

Cavalletti exercises (see Missy’s story) for strength training, combined with exercises to develop stride control
Exercises to change the bascule (the shape of the horse’s arc over the jump).
Trotting to jumps.

Trotting to verticals set at a height of 3’6” (1.10m) and over teaches:

The horse to go deep and curl (bascule) around the vertical by rocking back on his hocks, developing strength and changing technique.
The rider to maintain balance, rhythm, straightness, position, and patience. Trotting to jumps really teaches the rider to use her eyes for balance, direction, and conviction to jump the jump.

Just as Krista and Missy did, Jill and Fiamo practiced cavalletti exercises at home. During the coaching sessions we focused on stride control in and away from gymnastics. We introduced three plank jumps set at 22 feet apart (see Exercise 10, p. 94). They were set at an easy height, with the middle vertical set two holes (approximately 3 inches) higher than the first and last. The 22-foot distance means one stride. Fiamo found it very difficult to jump such a short distance, so we added “placing” ground poles halfway between the jumps. This helped to slow Fiamo’s momentum and taught him to rock back on his hocks. Later, we added an oxer 60 feet away from the gymnastic.

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To order Stride Control: Exercises to Improve Rideability, Adjustability and Performance, call CanPro Equestrian Supply at 519-856-0018 or email sales@canproequestriansupply.com. View Trafalgar Square Books’ equestrian titles at www.HorseandRiderBooks.com