For this lesson, leading event rider and trainer Christen Lane is teaching Francesca Masfen on the beautiful schoolmaster Kinnordy Galilee; the 11-year-old ‘Leo’ is by Gymnastic Star and was produced by Christen to Advanced level. During this lesson the pair were preparing for their first Pre-Novice level event.
On the aids: warming up for cross-country
Francesca has a quick walk and trot to loosen up, and we can very quickly see how nicely schooled Leo is on the flat. He is a super mover and finds lateral work and extension very easy, says Christen, but because he is quite long through the back he can be a little more difficult to get engaged.
To get started, Christen tells Francesca to use the whole arena and ride a three-loop serpentine in trot and then canter, with simple changes of lead through the middle in walk. “Keep those hands nice and still. Think about having a heavy elbow and floating, quiet hands,” reminds Christen.
Even in the downwards transitions to walk, Christen wants Francesca to ride positively forward and think about keeping Leo in front of her leg. “Fran is a really lovely, natural rider, but she’s quite passive, so sometimes she sits there and doesn’t do enough; we need to get her a little bit more motivated,” says Christen.
Christen wants Fran to ride the change of lead through canter on the straight line of the serpentine, rather than cheating by picking up the new lead through the turn. “By doing the transitions on straight lines, she has to make sure he’s actually listening and that she’s using the correct aids,” explains Christen.
Next it’s time to work on the adjustability of the canter. Christen gets Francesca to pop up into two-point and open up the canter down the long side of the arena, before sitting up and closing the canter again on the short side. Even in the slower canter, Christen wants Fran to keep Leo active. “Just because we’re going slow in the canter doesn’t mean we use less leg – it means we use more,” she says.
Open and closed: adjusting the canter
Christen has set up three canter rails, set 45’ (13.7m) apart, in order to test that Francesca can move Leo forward and back in the canter. The first time through, she lets Francesca figure out the distance on her own, simply telling her whatever number of strides she gets in the first set of poles she should replicate in the second – Fran gets four and four.
“The next time, I want you to just open up the canter a little bit more and count out loud,” says Christen. “I want you to get three and three.”
Fran manages this smoothly, so Christen tells her to come back in four and four. When compressing the canter again, Christen tells Francesca to close her thigh and shorten the rein – she doesn’t want to see her hands in her lap. “Remember to soften the rein when he comes back. Roll the reins and use pressure-release, pressure-release, so you’re not holding on and making his neck tight.”
It’s a little bit tougher for Fran to get Leo back on the shorter canter now she’s opened him up, observes Christen. She gets her to repeat the four and four. “We need a quieter canter. Get him sitting, whoa, wait,” she says.
Fran rides the poles in a straighter and smoother fashion the next time through and Christen is happy. “That was a super ride – you were really effective. Over that pole he wanted to go, but you said hey, tone it down, and you just sat there really quietly but firmly.”
A more difficult exercise with the poles is the ‘increase ride’, says Christen – this is where you ride four strides to three strides. More difficult again is the ‘decrease ride’ of three strides to four.
“Fran’s homework is to consistently maintain the steady four between both sets of poles, then open up to do the three and three, before going back to the steady four,” says Christen. “Once this is established, Fran can do the increase ride, which is easy for Leo as he likes to open up, and back to the decrease ride. The decrease ride is the one Fran should spend the most time working on.”
Wait and soften: creating a great shape
Christen has set up a simple vertical fence with placing poles 2.5m either side of the jump for Francesca to warm up over. As the fence gets bigger, she gradually moves the pole further away to about 3m. The purpose of the poles is to help the horse make a nice, round shape over the fence.
“This lets Fran think about the pole, rather than the jump itself,” says Christen. “She’s going to soften her hand to the pole and the pole is going to back Leo up.
“In this exercise, I want Fran to think about her position. At the base of the jump she’s going to sink her weight into her heels and lengthen up through her chest, keeping her chin up, so she’s neat and tidy on landing.
“With his long body, Leo is very good at lengthening. This is a really good exercise to get him waiting, because he often lands quite far out from the other side of the fence, which makes combinations tight for Fran. At her last start, she missed a stride or two out in a few combinations, not because of how fast she was going, but just because he landed so far out, so this is really important for her.”
Fran’s homework for this exercise is to think about holding her position steady, while giving more of a crest release at the same time, says Christen.
The tunnel: focus on the fence
Christen lets Francesca warm up in her own time by popping over a few single fences – Christen has selected a vertical, an oxer and a couple of skinnies. Francesca is allowed to ride them any way she chooses, from trot or canter, and as she goes around Christen wants her to think about which body parts she is using to get over the fences. “I just want her to attempt it on her own and then we’re going to talk about what she had to do to get there,” says Christen.
Christen has already had a chat to Fran about staying straight through the canter poles, but adding in these two skinny fences really underlines the important of this. “Our skinny fences are very narrow – if you’re confident jumping these then nothing is going to be a real problem on cross-country,” says Christen.
Christen is really happy that Fran chooses to approach the skinny from trot first time around. “You gave him plenty of time to see the fence.” She asks Francesca what she did with her body to get there. “Well, I used both my inside and outside leg, because I know he likes to wiggle, and I also opened both my reins a bit, trying to keep him as straight as I could,” says Fran.
“That’s really good,” says Christen. “A low, wide rein helps to keep the horse straight, almost like they are a train on a train track.
“You were also really good at keeping your eye on the fence. Where our eye goes, our body goes, and where our body goes, the horse follows.
“When I ride cross country, I like to imagine that I’ve got eyes on my knees to help keep the horse heading in the right direction.”
Jumping up, not out: the bounce
Next, Christen gets Francesca to jump a little bounce of crosses on a 15m circle, to help keep Leo’s body compressed. Because he tends to lunge forward and open his body up, the bounces create energy without speed and length. When jumping the bounces, Christen wants Fran to keep turning using an open inside rein – the exercise should be a continuous circle, with no straight lines (below).
“This exercise helps Fran get Leo to jump up to her, rather than her folding to him, which strengthens her position, especially on landing where Leo often gets away on her,” explains Christen. “Opening the inside rein keeps the correct flexion and helps get the correct canter lead on landing. For this exercise to be really helpful, you have to keep a true circle shape, no bigger than 15m.”
Later, Christen is ‘really mean’ when she gets Fran to jump a wide oxer, two strides before the bounces. This is an advanced exercise, asking the horse to open up over a spread but land and come back for the bounce. It’s excellent for testing how well your horse responds to you to come back and to practice quick footwork, says Christen.
“He’s going to do a nice big jump over the spread, so you have to be very strong with your upper body and land with your chest up and sit in the saddle, because you can’t let him run down to the bounce. I want you to pretend that there is a big drop on the other side of that oxer, and that you have a skinny or a combination straight afterwards.”
Fran does a really good job of being disciplined with her position over the oxer, says Christen. “If you’d been softer with your body, you would have been in big trouble – I think he might have tried to jump our bounces all in one. But you really sat there and made it happen.”
Curve it, slice it: a trickier line
Christen has built a tricky line of off-set verticals which can be ridden a couple of different ways. She has built it as a three stride (13.7m) from angle to angle, but it also doubles as a curving line in four if jumping the verticals square and from middle to middle.
The first time through, Christen wants Fran to make a nice, soft curve and jump the fences with four strides in between (below).
Initially, Leo drifts left and by bulging out, they fit an extra stride in the line. The next time through, Christen instructs Fran to keep Leo ‘in the tunnel’ between her hand and leg, keeping him straight by blocking the left drift with her closed left leg and rein. They nail it: “That was a really good dedication through your line to get the four,” praises Christen.
Having jumped the easy route, Christen then wants Fran to shave some time off the line, by slicing the vertical on a diagonal and riding a straight line to the second fence in three strides. The danger here is that the horse may want to run out to the left, warns Christen. “So hone in with your eyes, hold your position, close your left leg and left rein and keep an open right rein.”
Fran does a great job of keeping her line, but she does add an extra stride. “Watch that you’re not strangling him too much,” says Christen. “You were just sitting on him and thinking wait, wait, wait, but you buried him into that fence and got four instead of three. Next time just think about keeping the rhythm in canter.”
No cheating: jumping a course
Christen says that corners are one type of fence she prefers to train at home, rather than going out cross-country schooling. “I want to make sure that my horses are really happy and confident with corners, rather than making mistakes by going out and schooling without flags. If you run into a problem then it’s actually really hard to fix it out on cross-country, and you’re teaching them a problem.”
When approaching a corner, you should imagine that there is an invisible line dissecting the fence and jump perpendicular to that, says Christen. When jumping the corner as in the photo, the horse is more likely to run out to the left, so Fran needs to keep a closed left leg and a closed left rein (this is reversed when jumping the corner in the other direction).
“I don’t want you to cheat,” says Christen. “I know at the moment we could jump the widest part of this and you’d be fine, but I want you to jump the point of the corner. In Training, the corners are pretty much like little spreads and it doesn’t matter where you jump them, but now you’re upgrading to bigger jumps you need to think about being more accurate.”
Fran and Leo make the corner look very easy and Christen is happy. “That was a super ride, in a really nice rhythm.”
Putting it all together: jumping a course
The lesson finishes with Christen putting all the exercises together in one course: the oxer to the bounces, the off-set fences, the skinnies and the corner. Christen tells Fran to think about the rhythm of the canter, rather than worrying about distances and the result is a super round. It all looks fairly effortless.
“What I loved about the ride is you got organised early,” says Christen. “You weren’t messing around with him in front of the fence.
“It’s really interesting to see the change in the horse. At the start the energy levels were a bit low and he was pretty cruisy, so we had to say hey, wake up! As we’ve started jumping a little bit more his energy levels are coming up and we have to say hey, tone it down. So it’s good to have these tools, so that you know how to ride him in different situations, because he’s not going to be the same horse every time.”
Christen on… cross-country training:
“What I like to do with my students is keep things small but technical. It gives them so much more confidence when they go out to competitions. They can walk the course and nothing surprises them or scares them – they go, oh, this is easy! Things don’t need to be big to be difficult. It’s about being able to change our canter into fences, to be able to turn and hold a line and also to have the confidence to jump a wide oxer.
“It’s really important to remember that in cross-country that although we walk our lines and our striding, sometimes it doesn’t happen as we expect it to, so we need to have Plan A, B and C. You need to be able to ride what you’ve got. Being able to adjust and add a stride in and not worry about it is really important for cross country.
“Skinnies and corners are things that I like to practice in an arena. If the horse is having difficulty, we can put placing poles on the side to let them have a chute in. I do a lot of this work with all my horses at home and keep it easy. Our skinnies are often really low, so that I could walk in, so they don’t learn to run out, and they grow in confidence. It’s like good deposits in the bank account – every time I ride a skinny well they’re learning how to do it properly. If you go out and over-face them in a cross-country situation, you can run into trouble and teach them to run away from the question.”
- This article was first published in the December 2016 issue of NZ Horse & Pony
