Lucinda Green’s cross-country clinic: It’s all about feel

Forget about counting strides or finding the perfect distance - cross-country riding should be a partnership, not a dictatorship, as eventing legend Lucinda Green eloquently explained during her clinic at Springbush Equestrian in Hunua. Images by Christine Cornege

Kelsey Leahy and Showcause jump the point in reverse; a difficult exercise due to the way that a horse’s vision works

Warming up: is the horse taking you to the fence?

It’s interesting to watch a bunch of experienced horses warming up over jumps that are only 60cm-80cm high. But the height of the fences isn’t Lucinda’s objective today. Instead, she tells the riders to go out and concentrate on two things in their warm-up:

  1. How early can I get the horse to focus on the fence?
  2. Is the horse taking me to the fence?

Jumping either the first or last of the in-and-out (three verticals with bounces in between) by itself at an angle is a good exercise to get the horses looking where they are going and reminds the rider to focus them, says Lucinda. She laughs delightedly when one of the horses runs out at her first attempt at the in-and-out. “How embarrassing to run out at 50cm! I love it – there’s nothing like that to sharpen us up.”

Overall, Lucinda’s first impression of the combinations: Kelsey Leahy and Showcause, Christen Lane and Thunder Cat, Elise Power and Artic Cielo, and Jane Callaghan and Weiti West End, who at the time of this clinic are all at three-star/Intermediate level in eventing, is ‘What lovely horses – you lucky lot!’

Be ready for trouble

Lucinda Green is an eventing legend, with six Badminton wins. She was also World Champion in 1982, two-time European Champion and won both Olympic and World team medals

Lucinda explains that her aim for the day is to develop even more of a communication system between horse and rider, which she believes is the underlying factor of success on cross-country. While she won’t make the fences much bigger, the lines will get increasingly challenging. This will throw up situations where the riders need to react as they might have to out on a cross-country course .

“The only certainty about life – apart from the fact that you’re going to die in the end – is that something will go wrong. Therefore, your job is to be ready for trouble at all times,” she says.

Lucinda sets the riders a relatively straightforward course to start, and wants them to jump it with three things in mind. First, getting the horse to focus on the fence as early as possible; second, making sure the horse is taking them to the fence; and thirdly, being ready for trouble in all three area of potential disaster – take-off, over the top of the fence and landing. 

“The bravest horse in the world can run out or stop. We’ve got to be ready for every single fence, and your muscle memory needs to be trained so that you are always in the right spot. I can’t tell you how many examples I have of an easy fence being the one that finds people out.”

After the last jump on course, Lucinda wants the riders to make a straight line and then halt. “They must have a stop button, just as they must have a go button.” However, she doesn’t want the riders to turn this into a punishment for the horse.

“Remember that you’re going to tell them to stop and use your voice. I don’t want to see these horses shocked by the halt. I don’t care if they’re not on the bit or if their legs are akimbo, I just want their bodies absolutely straight. The landing is basically your prep for the next fence, so what happens after the fence is almost more important than what happens in front of the fence. So don’t forget your halt and keep them straight. It’s a really brilliant training aid that so many people waste, by just cantering off and patting their horses.”

Rather than training their horses to jump, we should train our horses to think, says Lucinda. “There is a crucial difference and it’s something that has been left behind. We’ve become so dominant, with all the difficult lines that we have to take on, and with all the accidents that have happened. We don’t want to be another accident, so we want our horse to be on the right spot. All of that takes his thinking away from him and turns him into a metronome. And I don’t want my horse to be a metronome – I want him thinking for himself at every fence he comes in to. It will take a little bit of time for those of you that like to be dead accurate to actually stop caring about where you take off and just start allowing your horse to see the fence early and find his own spot.”

After watching each horse jump around, Lucinda feels there are two people riding with slightly too short a rein -– Christen and Kelsey. Thunder tends to throw his head up and his long neck pulls Christen forward slightly. “He unplugs you a faction.” She believes if Christen lengthens her reins a little, she’ll be able to stay ‘plugged in’ and behind any potential problems that may arise on cross-country, and it will also give her horse more freedom to use his front end over the jump.

Thunder tends to pull Christen forward slightly over the fences

Similarly, Lucinda notes that Showcause uses his head and neck a tremendous amount when he jumps, but in doing so pulls Kelsey forward (BELOW). Although at the start of the lesson Kelsey describes ‘Gazza’ as not the most scopey of horses, Lucinda feels if Kelsey rides in a slightly different balance it will help her horse spring off the ground. “Imagine, crudely speaking, that a horse is a see-saw: you sit on the back and the other end will go up. In this case, he pulls you to the middle and when you’re in the middle of the see-saw, the other end can’t go up – it teeters. I think that’s why your jump is not what it should be. So you’ve got to find a new balance. It will feel odd for a while, so bear with it.”

Showcause uses his head and neck a huge amount when he jumps, which makes it more difficult for Kelsey to stay in balance

Meanwhile, Lucinda is a big fan of Jane’s ‘West’, because of his enthusiasm, but she warns Jane not to slip into the ‘old-fashioned way’ of holding then firing at the jump (BELOW). “You should be keeping the same rhythm, because if you hold and fire, he won’t have the thinking time he needs.”

Lucinda says Jane needs to resist the urge to ‘hold and fire’ her horse at the jump

Lucinda likes Elise’s Arctic Cielo very much too, and praises Elise for her beautiful riding (BELOW). She is intrigued by the horse’s breeding, being half Anglo-Arab, half-Clydesdale. “Brilliant. I love Clydesdales. Cart horses should be used more often – they are fantastic.” 

Elise keeps Arctic Cielo perfectly straight through the very skinny cavalletti

Riding in the tube

Lucinda jokes that back in her day she never had to worry about whether the horse had seen the fence, because the jumps were all so wide. “It was about whether you were brave enough to go down to them, not whether you could see the things to jump them! These days a totally different skill has entered into it with all the crazy angles and skinny fences, and I think for the better.”

Lucinda sets a course for the riders which incorporates a roll-back turn and a long run down to a skinny. “You’ve got an awfully long time to lose your nerve, but equally an awfully long time to get your horse to look where you want him to look.” She asks them to think about which parts of their body they are using to influence the horse’s vision. “I want you to tell me the two most important bits of your body that help your horse focus. It won’t be the same as the next person’s and there is no right or wrong,” she explains.

Interestingly, when it comes to naming the body parts they use to make their horse focus, each rider has a different answer: legs and hands; legs and seat; toes and eyes; eyes and shoulders.

Getting the job done is all about feel – reacting to what’s happening underneath you at any given second, says Lucinda. Rather than trying to change what the riders already know works for them, she simply wants to add a couple of points on top. “More trainers than I can tell you wreck riders, by trying to dominate them,” she says.

Lucinda gives the riders a ‘triangle of focus’ to plant on top of their existing system. The top part of the triangle is eyes. “People say ‘well, the horse isn’t going to go there, just because I look’, but the horse’s antennae are so strong and they have such an understanding of the vibration around them: if you’re frightened, they know; if you’re angry, they know; if you’re late to work and haven’t got time to ride them, they know and behave badly because they can feel your tension! So eyes are critical.”

Elise uses her focus and body language to keep Arctic Cielo focused on the skinny

The second and third points of the triangle of focus are the rider’s legs, which Lucinda describes as creating a tube around the horse. “I want you to have the feeling that your calves are directly linked to your horse’s eyeballs by an invisible wire, and that you’re steering your horse’s vision with your calves. Continue that tube with your arms, with your hands, and understand that your hands are a direct link to your horse’s brain, through the medium of the bit. This is why it is so important that a horse is happy enough in his mouth. If you’ve ever ridden a horse in the wrong bit and you’ve no connection; it actually ends up being really scary. It’s an interesting feeling when you start feeling the hands are connected to the brain.”

Aim for partnership, not domination

Kelsey and Showcause have a great partnership, built on trust

As the session progresses, the lines get more demanding and Lucinda incorporates the in-and-out (three verticals with bounces in between). She warns the riders to be ready, in case the horse lands and slips or spooks or puts in a half-stride. “Your position has to be plugged back in between each element of a bounce, each element of any combination, because things may go wrong. Even in a bounce, you see people jumping the first one and staying forward, which is fine 99% of the time, but what happens when it’s not fine? They are not in a position to do anything about it, and off they go.”

There is also a very tricky and tight angled line, consisting of oxer to vertical to oxer, all with three to four strides between. Each rider manages to complete the exercise, with varying degrees of smoothness. When it comes to Christen’s turn, she rides a seemingly impossible line and nails it. “I don’t know how you did that – brilliant!” says Lucinda. “That’s what I call pure partnership, because when you turned from that middle fence, there was no line, there was nothing, and he found it for you. That is really what we’re all aiming for. You don’t see enough partnerships these days. You see so many people with 20 horses to ride – how do they ever get a partnership? This is what you’re developing by doing these stupid low fences with quite demanding lines.”

Christen and Thunder riding a tricky line from the skinny to an oxer

Elise is another who ‘gets out of jail’ brilliantly, when her horse gets very deep to the base of the fence. “Your job is to be there when they put in an extra one. If you study horses as much as I do, you’d know that horses can take off a foot from the bottom, or even six inches from the bottom of the fence – it’s unbelievable, what they can do, if we allow them to do it. But in the last 20 to 25 years, we’ve started to get so much in their face and in their way, wanting the perfect stride, and horses hardly know how to be a horse anymore.

“One of the great things about the horse is that he is entirely trainable. There is no other animal in the world that can do so many different jobs – that is because they are generous to the bottom of their heart. But because horses are so incredibly trainable, you can dominate them and tell them exactly where to take off and what to do, and they will become almost a puppet if you like. But then when the chips are down, what happens? He can’t get you out of trouble, because although he’s got an incredibly strong instinct to survive, you haven’t been allowing it to be burnished. 

“We’ve taken away the horse’s ability to use their own initiative in the last 20 years and we’ve ended up with 62 dead people. You shouldn’t need to build all these frangible fences – horses don’t want to hit a fence. Think on it, because there’s a lot in it, and it’s not something you’ll meet anywhere in the world. You’ll meet endless domination and endless correct strides. 

“I’m saying take away that issue of being on the right spot; train your horse to find their own spot. Learn how to be a rider, as opposed to a dominator. Have I told you anything about strides here? Have you all ridden on the same three or four strides that you saw the last horse do? Don’t, because that horse will be entirely different to yours. As soon as you start worrying about striding, you take away the focus from ‘has the horse seen the fence?’ I’ve seen this hundreds of times at top level: these top riders have argued and argued over whether it’s five strides or six and when it comes to it, they fall over the second fence because they are so busy getting the stride they think they’ve walked. There is so much more to riding than just counting the bloody strides.”

Top tip:When you’re walking a line, you want to look at it from four horse strides away (about 16m-20m), because that’s the last time you can change anything. Don’t walk right up to the fence, as you can’t see the line from there – you have to go back four strides and check it out.

How horses see

Christen’s horse Thunder carries his head very high and Lucinda praises Christen for leaving him alone to go the way he obviously prefers, rather than trying to pull his head down into a rounder frame. “It’s lovely to see you going happily around with a canter that is really connected,” she praises. 

Christen and Thunder showing great connection

“Horses see outside the bottom of their eye, so a horse on the bit doesn’t see his fences. It’s fascinating if you watch videos – a lot of those horses who are ridden very strongly on the bit by riders who don’t understand how a horse sees will have the first fence down,” says Lucinda

“When I went to Lars Sederholm, who was a very brilliant Swedish trainer in England, I had already won six Badmintons, so I thought I knew what I was doing. I had this pretty ordinary horse and I couldn’t get him to go with less than four (fences) down in Advanced, so I took him to Lars. I had a double bridle on him, and Lars told me to get off and and he took me inside to watch a video of Abdullah at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. He was a lovely grey horse who was beautifully on the bit until he turned to come to his fences and then his head went absolutely horizontal. Lars let me watch it and then he said, ‘Now you see why you can’t dictate to a horse where he carries his head to a fence.’ I’ve never forgotten it and that was the first time I realised it didn’t matter if the head was up there.”

And while horses see distance out of the bottom of their eye, they use the top half of their eye for viewing things that are close up, explains Lucinda. This is why horses will often put their head right down when they get to a ditch, to gain another perspective. 

Jumping the point backwards

It’s not easy to jump the point in reverse, as the horse has no perspective to judge where to take off

Tackling this point in reverse is difficult for the horse, because of their almost 360-degree vision, explains Lucinda. If a jump has wings in front of the line of the fence, the horse will jump much better. This jump is exactly the opposite – the wings are way back, so not only does the horse have to jump into a narrow area, but he has no perspective off which to jump. 

Lucinda says this is quite a good fence to practice over, because it gives a similar feel to a coffin, where the horse suddenly sees the ditch as they go to take-off and has to process whether there is room to land. 

A word on boots

As soon as the clinic is over, Lucinda encourages all the riders to take their horses’ tendon boots off immediately. Why? To cool and protect the legs.

“There was a study done in Bristol, England, 15 years ago that found at 30 degrees the tendon fibres start to break away at 20%, but when they get to 40 degrees, they start to break away at 80%.

“A leg with a boot on has a much higher core tendon temperature than a leg without a boot. So wear them because you don’t dare not, but bear in mind that open-fronted boots are probably no stupid thing for cross-country, because they are going to keep the leg a little bit cooler than a closed front. I have no sympathy for a horse that hits a fence with the front of his legs and I would happily go around Badminton in open-fronted boots. The problem is securing open-fronted boots, because they can spin around.”

A perfect paradox

To conclude, Lucinda says there is a lovely paradox and if you stick to it you won’t go wrong in your training: the horse has got to learn to listen to you (after all, he has no idea where he is going or what pace to go at), but on the other hand he has to think for himself. 

“Get those two balanced and you will have a cracking good horse,” she says. You’ve just ridden some really difficult lines and my god your horses have tried for you. And when the final moment is up and people get themselves out of a definite jail sentence by the skin of their teeth, it’s usually the horses who love their riders, the partnership, that saves them. Horses are incredible animals and we have to respect them instead of dominating them.”

Our thanks to Tich Massey for the generous use of his property for this clinic

  • This article was first published in the January 2019 issue of NZ Horse & Pony magazine
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