Eventers - are you riding differently xc now?

If you couldn't see a stride then you wouldn't be doing as well as you are. I think though that we are all shamed into talking about it or trying to ride it which is ridiculous.
When I was a kid we were drilled into seeing a stride till it was 2nd nature. I think we should be continually trying to improve our eye to a fence as it's absolutely critical. Feel likje a complete dinosaur harping on about this, but I was trained by amongst others Lady MR Williams who used to scream blue murder at me for fluffing strides and regularly told me that Harry LLewellyn could get Foxhunter to jump off a hankerchief placed anywhere on the ground in front of a fence. We used to obsess about seeing a stride & setting the horse up for the fence.
If we think thate've lost some skills over the years resulting in more deaths then why are we ignoring this issue.
 
I think the problem is that not everyone has a natural eye for a stride.
Those that do (no matter how far away from the fence, some can see one 10 strides away, some 3) and who can then take the appropriate action are the people who could be pros.
Those who can see a stride but dont always act on it properly (through lack of confirdence, incorrect training, being on an uneducated horse etc) are those that can be really helped through training and probably most amateurs fit into this category. If you can reduce the regularity of your inappropriate actions then you are progressing and could make pro.
Those that dont know how to look for a stride, cant see a stride at all or who maybe can see a stride but their stride is way off the fence are the dangers. Because there's only so many times you can miss. Lots of people have an eye trained much too far away from the fence so consistantly get 'long ones' and they will get into trouble at intermediate, if not before (depending on the ability of their horse)
 
I agree wholeheartedly and think that when I was eventing only 'serious' riders evented generally everone was a professional or semi-professional. Certainly I've see lots of those people who you describe continually kicking for a long one & sometimes getting it horribly wrong (including myself on occasion)
What I don't agree with though is the emphasis on it not mattering, I think you can learn to see a stride and you can teach a horse to see a stride and I don't think we do that anymore. People do learn, but it's by generally getting it right rather than being trained. Trainers tell everyone to ignore it whereas onceupon a time trainers focussed on it.
 
i have had to work really hard to teach my horse to go xc off of a rhythmn which started off by slowing the canter down 15 strides from the fence until he could jump it easily then speeding up again. he needed me to manage him right in and place but now we have done quite a bit of schooling he can take them out of a rhythmn but any approaches i can feel are going wrong then i help him out. he doesn't seem confused, just knows that mum helps him out every so often and doesn't let him get into any deep spots. i will ask for a flyer every now and again if its too late and he would get in very deep but then he has loads of scope for novice and i would then follow up by doing an alternative if he is worried. i know the flyers have to be removed if we go up to intermediate this season but that for me is acheived through experience. i don't micro manage or back off, am i doing something wrong?(confused myself now?!?)
 
re: "If the modern emphasis on not seeing a stride and riding the last 3 is a good thing then why are so many people having crashing falls because their horses are completely wrong at often plain fences....."

no, you've misunderstood me. the old way (taught in the 80s and early 90s) was to get a good canter to the last 3 strides, and then ride forward or hold or just sit for those 3, depending on the distance you'd seen. (the Army way too, i was told, fwiw.) that's what i was taught, and it works most of the time, but if you don't see the distance till the last few strides, and then your canter is a bit wrong too, it can lead to hooking the horse into the bottom of a big parallel etc etc, which is not good for his confidence or yours! it's okay over smaller fences, but it can lead to the take-off stride (which obviously needs to be the most powerful stride of all) being either flat because you've pushed to get closer, or held-back because you've pulled because you were a bit too close - neither really helps the jump or confidence in the long term.
the modern way is to get the right canter and keep it the same all the way to the fence, over the last, say 8-10 strides, not make adjustments at all in the last 3 strides.
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re: "When you learn to see a stride all the time I think you do 2 things.
1. you and the horse learn how to recover when you get it wrong,
2. you create a horse which naturally also judges the distance and 'sees a stride'. If you leave it to the horse to put in a half stride or go for a long one at it's own discretion then you are creating a horse which will see a stride inconsistently."

nope, i am sorry, but i totally disagree with this. i have seen Toddy miss twice, ever, real missers. usually he sees a stride from a field away, i've seen him do it. both times he really missed, the horse wore the fence. ditto Ginny, she hardly ever missed, but boy, when she did, the horse didn't really know what to do.
WFP missed only once at Badders this year, afaik, at the first house at the combo near the end. Tam and he were so surprised that they fluffed the next one totally... the horse could have been more generous, but was obviously really quite flummoxed by what had just happened.
all horses (well, i've never found one that didn't) can naturally see a stride on their own. the rider seeing a stride does not train the horse to! perhaps the horse wouldn't see a deep one on his own, but he knows full well how to jump something in front of him with his own body, without the rider showing him how.

having wracked my brains, perhaps the ideal we should be aiming for would be a bit like Ian Stark on Murphy (although obviously not all horses are as scopey and bold as him), the "educated, helpful passenger", not the "bossyboots" on top. Ian did everything he could to present the horse right to the fences, and he had a great eye for a stride, but he had to leave the striding to Murphy in a lot of cases. trying to make that horse add strides where it didn't want to would have turned them over, i think.
 
Sounds fine to me, you know your faults!!

Even top, top pros get it wrong sometimes and ask for an inappropriate stride but they can restrict it to maybe one miss out of every hundred xc rounds they jump. A good amateur would more likely miss at 1 in every 100 fences and everytime you miss, you're increasing the chance of an accident.
 
But if we used to interfere more and fiddle in front of fences, how come we were safer, and according to modern lore, have cleverer horses who were more able to think for themselves..... (being a bit facetious here
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because there were fewer of us, we had to start at Novice (weeded out a lot right at the start), and if we weren't good enough to be jumping fixed fences at that height, we very soon found out!
a lot of us were on idxtbs too, far fewer warmbloods then. the idxtbs have much more of a 5th leg, and are naturally cleverer xc from the start, in my experience.
also, there was less pressure, the sport was not so commercial, prize money at top level was much lower, i could go on and on.
 
Since we're discussing factors in the "now vs. then debate" (which I don't think is quite as cut and dried - there are, as discussed, many factors in play other than riding style which MIGHT be contributing to what seems to be an increase in falls resulting in serious injuries) and on the subject of "hooking" in front of the fence etc. perhaps there is another "statistic" to look at - falls vs stops. (I think we might be in danger of micro-deconstructionism at this point.
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Maybe people fuss more in front of the fence now, maybe more people more often think "backwards" when they get in trouble instead of forwards now, but systems do not exist in isolation or in merely collections of parts. Perhaps, instead of a situation where now more people are "wrong" more of the time, the horses that fall now would simply have stopped in the past. Perhaps this is due to more people being aware of the necessity of having horses very sensitive to the leg, perhaps it's because the style/fashion/trend/thinking is less that horses should pull - or even drag - into the fences rather than allow themselves to be ridden off the leg to them, perhaps we are breeding/training more phlegmatic horses now.

Horses that are dragging their rider around are, like it or not, effectively out of the rider's control. (I know that's not a fashionable thing to say but if other people don't agree why is there someone on here every day asking for a "bigger" bit for their horse?) So if the horse is already calling the shots and for some reason it decides it's not safe/possible then, given that reasoning, wouldn't it also be quicker to say "no" and more likely to save itself at that point? Dragging is no guarantee of going. In fact quite the opposite - horses that pull like demons over small stuff but lack scope often end up stoppers (or worse, runners and stoppers) as the fences go up. It's almost a cliche.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour of horses dragging people around - quite the opposite in fact. But I do know people used to be a lot more "okay" and sanguine (even happy) with the point and shoot method or xc riding. I don't think it was "better" but I think it might possibly be that when more people are riding that way, with the horses deciding whether they're going or not, the consequences of getting it wrong might be less injurious. (I repeat, not BETTER just less likely to end in a flip or a crash.)

All of which is immaterial, of course, because we live now, we train now and the horses we've made are here now. Which means we have to think of solutions in context. Looking at the past is useful if indeed the factors we're examining are the ones currently influencing the injury rate. The problem is it's really difficult to know for sure - just because something changes at the same time something else happens doesn't mean it's influential or even related.

The whole "seeing a stride" debate is a long and contentious one, by the way. Different systems have used different methods and held different standards over the years, often with comparable levels of success. If you teach people to see a stride does that practice really teach the horses? If you teach people not to interfere are you really teaching them to do nothing or to stop yelling what they think they should say at their horses so more subtle communication can take over?

Using someone like Mark Todd to learn from (not literally - I've taken clinics with him and he's fantastic, although he also got MUCH better as he got older) is not really pertinent - he's a freak.
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You see tapes of him riding when he first came to the UK and green as he is the raw material is all there. No one had to teach him - that's sort of the point of being a great talent. The question is how to teach the not so great talents.

Btw, Mark did many grids, related lines adding and subtracting, long approaches on a waiting stride then a forward stride etc etc. (and a great deal of flatwork for adjustability and response, not to mention rider position) - ironically enough (for some anyway) VERY similar to the George Morris's system. All about teaching people and horse to have options, all about educating their perceptions and responses so when the chips are down they are more likely to make the right decisions.

As Boss said, everyone is going to screw up sometimes. And in a dangerous sport screw ups have potentially serious repercussions. I still think that's part of what we have to keep in mind: This is dangerous stuff. There is no way we can make it completely safe and screw up proof. It's fashion to say if you do this or that you'll be safe. No, you'll be safER. People, even at the lower levels, have to be reminded that the risks are real and there is a NECESSITY to educate themselves to LESSEN those risks. I still maintain that our current trend to tell everyone it's "okay" is part of the problem. Sometimes a little fear is a great motivator to at least learn some sort of system, even if it's not perfect and horses deal with consistency (even if it's not perfect) a whole lot better than inconsistency.
 
Excellent points, especially the last one. the "oh, you'll be alright" attitude that seems to prevail is a very lackadaisical one, imho. the speaker is usually a helper who wouldn't jump the course if paid very well do so!
facing up to the realities, that it's a dangerous sport and that if the rider gets it wrong or the horse slips or the horse misunderstands, then the consequences could be dire, is essential, and the rider's responsibility.

i wasn't using Toddy "to learn from", but as an example to prove a point i believe in - if you get it absolutely perfect 99.9% of the time, as some of the pros do, then that 0.1% time you don't, will be a horrible shock to the horse, and he won't necessarily know what to do instantly and instinctively. his save-myself instinct has been trained out of him, he waits obediently for the rider to put it right, as s/he has every other time. this, i believe, was what happened when Frodo Baggins fell.
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(from the (admittedly) little bit of her other riding that i've seen, the horse didn't seem to see any other options - she rode very forward, fast and committed to everything, which is fine (for a while) while you are seeing perfect distances, but leaves no room for error or essential adjustment.)
perhaps more loose-jumping is one answer.
 
SM - I think having read it, I fall into Boss' second category - I can see a stride, and I can see when I am wrong, but sometimes (too often in fact) my action is inappropriate. Interestingly, this is only SJ. XC I know instinctively what to do and where, it's something I've always had a talent for, even as a kid. Which presumably is why I managed to get to novice with only one lesson XC on B, and why we very rarely fault XC and only do when I get complacent usually. On the flip side, I haven't yet made the time at novice because to me he still feels too green to be asked to jump round at that pace.

I think TS last point is the most pertinent - too many people are being told they'll be ok when they won't.
 
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