Gridwork

[AG18]

I just started sharing a new horse, 16.2hh id/tb 10 year old mare. Hasn't had much jumping training before but has done a bit! Planning to do some grid work with her once a week or every other week. Trouble is don't know anything about distances! If anyone can recommend any layouts for grids other than pole, pole, pole, jump that would be great as I am very unimaginative! She has a very long canter stride so any advice about canter pole distance would be great. Will post pics of training session!

 

[Horsemad12]

My mare tends to have a long stride and over jump so we have been working on the following:

Placing pole (3 of my strides) to cross pole, pole on landing to bring her back down to earth (4 of my strides), then 3 of my strides to another (Which equates to one stride over pole, and then pole on landing (4 of my strides). We then try and bring in the landing pole to bring her down earlier and vary the second fence to finishing with a good spread.

Come into the grid at trot and nice and relaxed to stop any rushing.

I hope that makes sense

 

[Gamebird]

I find the 'Celebrity Jumping Exercises' book a good point of reference. There's loads of diagrams of grids with pointers on how to ride them and what to alter to suit different horses. Everything's clearly marked out re. distances.

Generally for my legs:
1 horse stride between fences = 7 of my strides
2 " " " " " = 11 of my strides
3 " " " " " " = 15 of my strides
bounce = 3.5 of my strides.

I am inclined to build on the short side at home to encourage the front end to snap up and the horse to use its shoulders. The fences don't need to be big as they have to work quite hard jumping grids. Using high crosspoles can be helpful for horses that are either careless in front or not inclined to jump straight. I often use 3 high crosspoles set on a bounce stride then one shortish stride to a big oxer, but this won't necessarily be the answer for every horse.

The other thing that's really good for improving the canter (and jumping's all about the quality of the canter...) is 4 poles on a 20m circle at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock. Deceptively difficult.