It presents step by-step training programs and showing advice from recognized experts in hunters, jumpers, equitation, dressage, and eventing, along with money- and time-saving ideas on health care and stable management.
I was at a local one-day hunter/jumper competition several years ago with a barn-mate who was competing her new hunter. He was well schooled but being a bit naughty, trying to pull her petite frame out of the saddle after the fences and playing in the corners. She asked if I would take him in an over-fences class because I was taller and had more leverage for his antics. My own horse was green, so I’d been jumping only crossrails, which I pointed out to her. But my barn-mate really wanted her horse schooled, so I warmed him up at first thinking: I really hope I don’t chip. Fortunately, I quickly switched gears and focused on the skills I’d learned over the years: position, pace, track and straightness. As I…
George H. Morris is the former chef d’équipe of the U.S. Equestrian Federation Show Jumping Team. He serves on the USEF National Jumper Committee and Planning Committee, is an adviser to the USEF High-Performance Show Jumping Committee and is president of the Show Jumping Hall of Fame. 1 This photo is instructive because it shows you don’t have to jump—the rider is going over a rail on the ground. Just as for any other sport, you first must practice at a basic level. If you’re lifting weights, you start at 5 pounds and then move up. I’m not thrilled if they’re at a show where I don’t think there should be ground-pole classes. This is an athletic child with confidence. The stirrup iron needs to be angled so that the…
Whether I am judging a model class, evaluating a prospect for a client or sizing up the yearlings at home, I first stand back and look for an overall impression of balance and symmetry. My ideal horse “fits” in a square box. By that, I mean he is defined by matching and equal parts, both front to back and side to side. This allows for athletic ability, soundness, trainability and longevity in the job. A horse who fits in a box will have a body that is made up of one-third shoulder, one-third back and one-third hindquarters. I like to see the withers and point of croup at the same level. The horse’s stance, from point of shoulder to buttock, should equal the distance from the height of the withers…
Italian cavalry officer Federico Caprilli (1868–1907) did not set out to revolutionize horse sports. His goal was to make cavalry more efficient. Warfare was still conducted on horseback at the turn of the 20th century, and the cavalries of the world needed a system of riding that was both efficient and easy to teach to large numbers of recruits. Before Caprilli came along, cavalrymen rode with straight legs and leaned backward when their horses jumped. Caprilli developed a new system, one where the rider allowed the horse to use his head and neck for balance Although we now recognize his genius, at the time Caprilli was regarded as merely an upstart junior officer with radical notions about how men should ride horses. *Caprilli’s main idea was that horses could carry…
On my training video site Equestriancoach.com, there is a section called “Fundamentals of Flatwork”—a progressive Riding Simplified training system. This system is based on the principles of the American forward seat and forward riding system. *Today we have two systems existing side by side: riding in central balance that is based on the seat (dressage disciplines) and riding in forward balance that is based on the stirrup (jumping disciplines). These basic fundamentals were first set forth by Federico Caprilli in the early 1900s and further refined in the middle of the last century by Col. Harry D. Chamberlin, Gordon Wright and Capt. Vladimir S. Littauer, whom I was fortunate enough to have trained with for five years during my Junior years. In the days before Caprilli, there was only one…
Seventeen-year-old Ransome Rombauer believes that her experience at Interscholastic Equestrian Association competitions was a big help in her recent victory at the U.S. Equestrian Federation Show Jumping Talent Search Finals–West. In the final round of that competition, the top four contenders ride a course first on their own horses, then three more times on each others’ mounts. In IEA jumping competition, middle- and high-school students ride unfamiliar horses and have minimal warmup time. Though the IEA fences are 2-foot-6, compared to the Talent Search’s 3-foot-11, Ransome says the IEA catch-riding experience helped her to quickly assess each mount at the Talent Search Finals in September and compete with confidence. The northern California rider, also the Leading Rider at the 2015 IEA National Championships last spring, is not alone in praising…
