Jenn Serek believes that with a bit of creative thinking, even a single fence can provide plenty of challenge, and equally so for riders and horses training for grand prix, equitation, or the adult amateur hunter division. Gymnastic exercises are usually considered “home schooling,” and Jenn agrees with that in principle. “I’m a big believer that you do your training at home, but when something goes off the rails when you’ve been on the road for weeks, there is no reason you can’t use a gymnastic exercise at shows, particularly if it is fairly easy to construct.” Some of Jenn’s students have work and school commitments that prevent them from spending the entire week at shows, and while their horses are kept fit and prepared in their absence, the riders often need a couple of “home” exercises when they arrive at the show. “At a show we often have to work with what is in the warm-up ring. A single schooling jump can be turned into an exercise – even a gymnastic exercise.”
Jenn generally uses exercises that are ridden in canter. “My belief is we don’t do much winning when we’re trotting,” she says. “Not that I’m against trotting jumps – and it’s necessary to school that with equitation and handy hunter horses – but we do most of our jumping out of canter, and that’s what we practise.” Jenn’s greener students, or those struggling to find distances, will often trot into grids, but she says canter is the preferred gait 90 per cent of the time. As Jenn also points out, long gymnastic grids have their value, but one never sees five obstacles in a row on course. The exercises she uses most often at shows, and which are also excellent for those long winters indoors with sparse equipment and smaller spaces, are those that actually prepare horses and riders for what they will meet in the show ring.
Ground Pole Grid
“During a clinic at Thermal several years ago, McLain Ward shared a grid with the audience that he uses on every horse in his barn, including Sapphire. He said that Sapphire lived and breathed the exercise. Since that time I have had the same exercise in my ring every two weeks. I use it with all riders and all horses; everyone benefits from it.
Because the grid doesn’t require much equipment, I also find it a useful exercise at shows. The construction is simple: a ground pole nine feet before a vertical, followed by a second ground pole nine feet out, and a second vertical nine feet after the pole; one more pole another nine feet out, and a third vertical nine feet after that. The jumps must have ground lines, and if equipment allows, ideally you would have two poles in the cups on each jump. If the horse or the rider is green, or you don’t have enough equipment, the exercise is also useful with just two jumps and three ground poles.
The exercise is meant to ridden at the canter, with the goal being to make the horse quick and careful, both over the jumps and in between them. The shorter distance is what makes the grid effective as a gymnastic exercise; the poles in between the jumps encourage the horse to hold his shape. If a horse is getting anxious about the tight distance with the ground poles, or if you have a horse and rider at a lower level, the distance can be let out to ten feet on either side of the poles. You can even back up a little farther and start with just poles on the ground, adding the jumps later.
Riders almost always have more difficulty shortening their horses’ strides than lengthening them. This is a very effective exercise for teaching riders to wait, and they are often surprised to learn just how collected their horses need to be when they come into the line. Because the exercise itself does the work of keeping the horse in a pace and balanced, I often use it to teach the automatic release – where the rider maintains a straight line to the bit and retains contact, rather than a crest release, in which the hands are pushed into the crest and the horse is given full freedom with a slack rein. I believe all riders should be able to use both types of release. One of my favourite expressions is that if you learned to play tennis you wouldn’t just learn the backhand; you wouldn’t limit yourself to just one stroke. You would learn different strokes to use in different situations. That is how I think of the automatic and crest releases.
The objective of any jumping exercise is not to trap the horse, but to get him to jump in the best form possible. I find that the ground poles in this exercise help to improve the horse’s form. The short distance also gets the horse rocking back on his hindquarters. Horses that tend to rush lines of fences will be slowed down by the poles, which give them something to focus on between the jumps.
Height is not the important part of this exercise. With the jumps set low, at two feet in height for example, even a fairly inexperienced rider can ride this line. Having that first ground pole to find their distance is useful for green riders, and also for green horses. The height can be increased with skill level and confidence, but even with small jumps it’s an excellent exercise. I never use jumps higher than around 1.15 metres in this line. The point is not how high the horse can jump, but to teach skills to the horse and rider that they need in competition. The exercise as McLain Ward demonstrated it was using three verticals, but there is always the possibility to make one jump an oxer to increase the difficulty.
Simplicity in a Single Fence
Riding a figure eight over a single jump is a great exercise that I also use with riders and horses of all levels. It’s as minimal for space and equipment as it comes for indoor winter training. With four standards and four poles I can teach a 60- to 90-minute lesson over that one jump. At shows, single fences are often all you have at your disposal in the warm-up. (Keep in mind of course that in a jumper warmup ring, you can’t use the figure eight exercise if the jumps are flagged for one direction.) Something riders have to cope with in the warm-up is other horses – often many of them. It’s an important skill to be able to negotiate in traffic without losing focus on your own riding. You have to have one eye on the jump, one on the horse and one on what everyone else is doing.
I’ll tell a student to pick a jump and ride a figure eight over it. It sounds simple, but it’s quite a difficult exercise, and it can be made more difficult with more advanced horses and riders. Because of the constant change of direction as you make the figure eight, you have to concentrate on your track both toward and away from the jump, and to ride both sides of the horse. As a warm-up exercise at a show it helps to get the rider’s eye working, as she continually turns back to the jump with a change of rein every time. Just as with the grid exercise, this isn’t about the size of the jump. I myself use it to test the steering, brakes and whether the horse is in front of the leg as I warm up for a class.
The simplest exercise using a single fence is to have a vertical with ground lines on both sides, and to allow the rider to make fairly big turns using the full space of the ring. With a green horse, I will work on simple changes; the exercise can be tailored to suit every level. For inexperienced riders, the jump can be quite small – more a case of flat work with a jump “getting in the way.” This is also an excellent exercise for teaching riders how to land on the lead that they want.
Using an oxer increases the difficulty. When you ride a figure eight over a single jump, you jump at an angle, which increases the actual width of the jump. Our goal as riders is always to make the horse’s job as easy as possible. I find that riding oxers helps the rider develop her eye for distances as well as her timing with the hand and leg to help the horse get across it.
For more advanced riders and horses, I increase the difficulty by decreasing the amount of space for the figure eight. Where a green rider would go to the far end of the ring, a more experienced rider can use half the space, or even less. I will use a pole, a coffee cup, a groom, or even myself to mark the outer limit of where I want the rider to make her track. For jumpers, this exercise is good for developing the ability to do a rollback and then find the jump again. The horse could be landing, turning and three strides later, there’s the jump.
You can also train the skills needed for a jump-off by coming in on a lengthened stride, jumping, collecting, turning and lengthening again to the jump. I will often turn this exercise into a kind of game with my students. How few strides can you make before you turn back to the jump again? It’s just like a jump-off.
Whatever exercise I use in training horses or teaching my students, the height of the jumps is almost always less important than the skills I am developing in the horse or rider. Whether it’s the good form that comes from a grid of three jumps with ground poles, or the ability to jump, turn and jump again over a single fence on a figure eight, the point is to improve technique, not test the horse’s physical limits. I don’t believe in doing an exercise to death, either. Set your expectations to suit the situation and the horse, and don’t drill an exercise to the point that its usefulness is lost.”
Jenn Serek declared her presence in grand prix competition when she and Shin Shin finished third in the Ariat Challenge at Indio in 2006. Her current top horse is Brown Thomas, an eightyear- old Irish gelding owned by Kim Nixon. Named for his plain brown colouring, Brown Thomas has already proven himself with a grand prix win at Spruce Meadows. Jenn has also been campaigning Laura Kathleen King’s mare Love Actually in the 1.40 metre division in 2011. King is one of a group of Jenn’s students at Calgary’s Springbank Stables who are focused on the American Medal series this year. Amelia Vernon, Morgan Haslam and Alexandra Lukavitz have also dedicated themselves to qualifying for the Maclay and USEF Medal Finals, as well as the Capital Challenge. Jenn trains with Olympian Jill Henselwood, her mentor of the past seven years.
