how to stop looking for a stride?

[diggerbez]

my biggest problem/bad habit when sjing is looking for a stride- and usually i manage to mess things up and see a stupidly long/standing off one

had a fab lesson today working on getting V cantering forwards into my hand and really sitting him up on his hind legs so that he had enough power...the only crap jumps i had where were i started looking too hard for a stride and then chasing the canter too much. sooooo- how do i stop looking for one? its like my subconcious takes over and i have to try really hard to ignore it. any tips?

 

[ArcticFox]

I had an Andrew Hamilton lesson and he had us counting 1,2,3,4 and repeating this for every stride in canter all the way around the course. you had to concentrate on it so much, you never looked for a stride!

I have a stride seeing problem too!

 

[NR99]

Blindfold?

 

[Britestar]

I had a lesson last year, and was made to close my eyes once I turned to the fence! It worked, because everytime I looked for a stride she made me close my eyes, regardless of height! (Mind u the others in the lessons weren't so chuffed as they had to do it too).

Soon stops you looking

 

[diggerbez]

OMG i don't think i would DARE do that
1,2,3,4 might work...although knowing me my brain's little metronome would start losing its rhythm.... will try next time i jump

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

not sure you shouldnt be looking?
certainly quality of canter is half the battle, but as the fences go up, any decent professional rider WILL be looking for a stride, they just set it up further away than your average amateur can do, think 10/12 strides out instead of 3.

practice over poles and tiny fences, so if you get it wrong it doesnt matter. go down a line of poles with 5 strides in between, then do 6, then do 4, then 5 again etc-teach your horse to shorten or lengthen at a moments notice, to wait wait wait and get 7/8 strides in, then go forward and do 4 etc.

IMO you should be giving the horse all the help you can.certainly better to let them do it you dont have the eye to sort it, but there comes a point (1.05m+) when you simply must be able to see,and set up a decent stride.

none of my jumping trainers ever said not to look for one, just to make sure i found a good one!being too far of is either lacking impulsion in canter, you rushing him flat, or him being rude and towing you. if you work on the canter until you can put that extra half stride in about 7 strides away without losing power and then let him keep comming to the fence, you wont be so far off it, but thats ntohing to do with not looking for the stride....does that make sense?

 

[diggerbez]

not sure you shouldnt be looking?
certainly quality of canter is half the battle, but as the fences go up, any decent professional rider WILL be looking for a stride, they just set it up further away than your average amateur can do, think 10/12 strides out instead of 3.

practice over poles and tiny fences, so if you get it wrong it doesnt matter. go down a line of poles with 5 strides in between, then do 6, then do 4, then 5 again etc-teach your horse to shorten or lengthen at a moments notice, to wait wait wait and get 7/8 strides in, then go forward and do 4 etc.

IMO you should be giving the horse all the help you can.certainly better to let them do it you dont have the eye to sort it, but there comes a point (1.05m+) when you simply must be able to see,and set up a decent stride.

none of my jumping trainers ever said not to look for one, just to make sure i found a good one!being too far of is either lacking impulsion in canter, you rushing him flat, or him being rude and towing you. if you work on the canter until you can put that extra half stride in about 7 strides away without losing power and then let him keep comming to the fence, you wont be so far off it, but thats ntohing to do with not looking for the stride....does that make sense?

yes it does i think what trainer was getting at today was that when i look i often see a crap one- so i have to work on the canter for a while and when that is more est then i can look for a stride as i'll see one as canter will be better - does that make sense? at the minute i am trying to chase the canter to fit the stride that i see rather than sorting the canter and then letting the stride happen.... he's brill down a distance and i can shorten/ lengthen him and i'm also pretty much spot on if jumping off a turn/ dog leg etc- its when i have a 'long run' i look too hard and start fiddling around and i think thats where i have to stop trying to overanalyse things...

 

[NR99]

PS - sorry it was tongue in cheek I was not advocating jumping blind.

Though I think the not looking for a stride is useful because many people do get to hung up on trying to find the right stride. So they then forget everything else they should be doing, not least a positive canter as you have suggested and committing to the fence. TBH too many riders get wrapped in trying to sort a stride up close to the fence in the last two strides when it should have been adjusted if necessary earlier than this.

Concentrating on the quality of the canter is a good idea, on the 1,2,3,4 theme we had several children behind us at Olympia saying polar bear polar bear into every fence the rider jumped and they were spot on

 

[Lolo]

My sister's instructor had A canter round the course shouting "I am in a rhythm" so she couldn't look for a stride because she was focussing on keeping in time with Reg's canter with that statement. It really helped her- she's stopped seeing long ones so much and has managed to crack the habit of pushing for a flier. There are some hysterical videos of her cantering round the arena shouting it, consistently half a beat out with him...

 

[ArcticFox]

double posted!

 

[ArcticFox]

I think the reason instructors get people to stop looking for a stride is that most people go backwards onto one, therefore losing the forward rhythm. a stride is only ever half a stride out, so if you come to a fence and can't see it, you should only need to push for a half stride, or half halt to get an extra one in. most people panic when they can't see it and 'check, check, check....bugger' kind of thing happens!

 

[IncaCola]

As a trainer I find that one of the most common problem for amateur riders I teach is people looking much to hard for a stride and therefore interring with the canter either by hooking or driving with their seat for the long one. So I don't agree with Prince33Sp4rkle and think you are right to search for ways to stop yourself looking too hard. Professional riders do see a stride, but they don't look for them, they are just there as they have a quality canter that they can my minute adjustments to. In my experience best thing is to focus on the quality of the canter and on the turn to the fence make sure you sit the horse on his hocks and turn him/her square without shoulfers falling out or in. Counting or reciting a ryhme often helps as does first fixing you eye on the top pole of the fence and then looking beyond it and keep coming in the same canter whatever. If you tend to chase a bit, chanting something like 'hind leg under' might help you resist the urge to lengthen out of the rhythm. The final thing is not to worry about it too much, keep the canter consistent and always have a squeezing leg on take off without throwing your body over the fence first. If you can ride consistently the same your horse will learn from his own mistakes and upto 1m 10 you don't have to be an an exact spot, you just have to be there to support the horse at whatever point he arrives at the fence. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[Baydale]

If it's only the long approaches that tend to make you flap, then you need some self-discipline (I speak as one who has had to learn this too ) and chanting the following may help:

Let the fence come to you, let the fence come to you, let the fence come to you.

I know it sounds simple, but if you've got the right canter then all you need to do is keep it the same until you see whether you're going to be too close or too far off, make an adjustment accordingly and bingo, you're there. The temptation is to chase to get there, or get nearer and then start hooking, both of which ruin the rhythm and regularity of the step; hence why telling yourself to 'let the fence come to you' reminds you of the self-discipline needed to neither chase nor hook.

 

[SpottedCat]

One thing which was picked up with me in the USA is our obsession in the UK with staring at the next fence! I was made to 'look softly' at it - so you look at the fence, glance away to a point three strides in front of you, glance back at the fence etc etc. Then when you are approaching, as soon as the top pole disappears between the horse's ears, you then look briefly at the next fence (because at that point any change you make is too late). It helped me - much harder to chase for a stride if you are not constantly looking at the fence.

 

[LEC]

The best exercise to help you is to have a fence and canter a circle and just keep coming round to it. The better your canter the better the jump will be. You then keep adding fences at 12 o clock, 3 o clock, 6 o o clock and 9 o clock so eventually you have 4 fences on a circle. Its great for teaching you about consistency in the canter and getting your eye in for the deeper spot and to just keep coming. You can also mix it up by doing just 3 and 9 etc.

 

[diggerbez]

incacola- thats exactly what we were working on today
so really i need to become a chanting maniac who doesn't stare at the fence... haha, hopefully will work and i won't get sectioned at the same time

LEC- interesting exercise- will have a play with that thanks

 

[Holidays_are_coming]

I can see a half decent stride most of the time. But my instructor makes me count as I can't cope with anything else (who said women can multitask). I'm only doing low level eventing and although seeing a stride is nice, I don't need to as my horse has learnt to get me out of trouble if I cock up. I concentrate on the qual of the canter and the rhythm and let her do the rest.

 

[TarrSteps]

Counting, looking away (a favourite is for the instructor to stand off to one side and you say how many fingers he/she is holding up), closing your eyes (not a joke, I've been made to do it and had others do it in their turn) - all things that distract you and stop you from trying too hard.

But the single most helpful thing is to stop caring. The average semi-competent horse can jump 3'6"/1.10 from most workable distances. Don't believe me? Go to any horse show and watch how many people cock it up and the horses still leave the ground.

The qualifier is if your horse is not that scopey then you shouldn't be jumping any higher until things get sorted a bit, at least not unless you're doing it in grids or related distances. Also, if the horse already has a confidence issue then don't jump any higher than the horse is confident. And get its soundness checked to make sure it CAN do what you ask, not just that you think it SHOULD be able to.

As a boss of mine used to say, it's the horse's job to jump the fence. So get the horse there on a decent line and with reasonable pace (if you can't do that the problem is not SEEING a stride, it's being able to get to one - a whole different situation) and see what happens. Let the horse take some responsibility. Once you stop thinking the world will end if you miss, you'll be able to think more clearly on the subject and not revert to panic or paralysis if you don't see something immediately.

I'm a bit surprised at the reluctance to jump measured distances here. I don't think this is necessarily "better" or "worse" than the North American obsession with ONLY jumping measured distances, but I think you need to practice both. Knowing how many strides you *should* get out of a corner or in a line, provided you have the right canter, can help you learn what it looks and feels like when you get it right and what adjustments to make when it doesn't just fall in your lap.

As you say, though, that's not your problem, it's the singles on a long distance. To be honest, this is very difficult and why the oxer on a long diagonal is a standard "trick" of course designers. It's a standard "jump off" test for that reason - lots of people are going to gallop down and have the rail because they're so desperate to get there.

What I find often helps is to have a "mantra" to make you wait out of the corner instead of gunning for the long one and either taking a flyer or running past your distance. I like "I've got all day to get there" or "add the stride" - the latter is especially useful when practising waiting to the fence. Effectively when you turn you want to get one more stride than you "think" you should, not by pulling but by containing each stride a bit more. The when you do know you're right you can soften a bit and let the horse flow to the right distance.

 

[stencilface]

SC that sounds really helpful for me actually - when you have a long run up to a fence, the pressure to get the stride, generally means I mess it up - if I come off a corner and just have to do it, I get to the fence at the right time on more occasions (but far from perfect )

Maybe if I concentrate less on the fence, and therefore more on the canter the fence will come to me easier? Then again, my mind does tend to wander sometimes round a course

 

[stencilface]

Don't believe me? Go to any horse show and watch how many people cock it up and the horses still leave the ground.

How many times have you been at the same competitions as me?!

 

[SpottedCat]

Maybe it's just me, and perhaps I am just significantly more useless than most people, but I have to confess, until I'd sat on a horse which someone else had taught to be in that really engaged, forward, bouncy, adjustable canter, I didn't actually realise how wrong my canter was - in that it was just a bit flat, and although I could do all the things you are supposed to be able to do - add and take out strides between poles, blah blah blah, it still wasn't actually good enough.

Now I've sat on a horse which has been taught to go like that, I understand how easy it is to get a stride - because, for me at least, it turns out seeing the stride was never the problem, it was having the instant adjustability in the canter to actually do something about it which was the issue. I have to concentrate extremely hard to keep that canter all the way round a course, but I now understand why people say it's all about the canter.

Maybe it's just me who is so totally hopeless that I need to sit on something to know what I am actually aiming at....but on the off-chance it isn't, perhaps this is something to think about?

Because I now have that adjustability, I can keep a lid on my compulsion to fire at big oxers (whatever your definition of 'big' is!), because I can trust the power I have under me and not feel like if we don't go faster then we will never make it. But had I not sat on a horse which knew how to do it, and been taught by someone who knew how to help me generate that canter, god knows I have no doubt I'd be no blooming closer to riding a SJ course in a decent canter.

Part of the problem is, that as TS says and as I proved, it is perfectly possible to ride a 1.10 course out of that slighly rubbish canter - which in turn made me a bit worried about seeing strides because if we were a lot off, I couldn't do anything about it...and the whole thing just escalated.

 

[TarrSteps]

^^ Now we're going back to the "why would you pay big money for a horse" thread. One of the reasons professionals find it easier to get to decent distances - other than practice, obviously - is because the vast majority of the time they're sitting on horses with naturally good canters and bags of scope. I'm sorry but it is SO much easier to get it right on horses like that, even more so if they're well trained into the bargain.

And, as also previously discussed, once you've sat on horses like that and KNOW what that feels like, you have a much, much easier time finding the same place on a less able/well trained horse.

It's true that people do jump a lot of jumps on horses that are not "typical" in their way of going (although they don't always look like they feel) but you generally don't see them moving up too far and the wheels usually fall off at some point. (This is not to say horses don't need individual rides, but even in those cases it's only a case of taking a slightly different road to Rome.) Sometimes it's as simple as someone else hopping on and making the point. It's very interesting to ride a horse directly after someone REALLY good has been on it. But the real revelation is a horse that's always been in a good program.

And it's totally "getable" for the average horse and rider, at least over smaller fences. It's really just a function of attention to detail, work and knowing where you're going.

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

spotted cat-bang on the money.

if you can add 6 inches here, take away 4, go forward a foot, etc its easy to see, and stay on a good stride.

so in a way, yes the pro's dont have to look so hard, but they ARE looking for a stride 12 strides out round the corner etc, but the because their horses are so well schooled, they make a minimal adjustment, and then just check they stay on that stride.

even on a grade A, believe me, at 1.50m they are looking for a stride!

maybe we are both saying the same thing in different ways but i refuse to believe any pro comes to a 1.50m oxer, or a maximum height XC fence without checking they are on a good one.

ist true you can only be half a stride out, but how many monumentally awful misses do you see at local/low affil level???they were only half a stride out and the they still force the horse to make an awkward jump, sock them in the teeth, then thump on their back, for the sake of being half a stride out......

i have always been taught, and always teach, to get better at seeing a good stride through pole work and related distance exercises, and not to think its ok to miss the horse. many a careful horse is ruined through being missed one too many times.

make the canter more elastic and adjustable, so you can got max length without getting flat and come instantly back to tiny strides that are full of power and it becomes so much easier, but even then you have to check you've got the right stide length for the fence/distance, which is.......seeing a stride!

 

[SpottedCat]

Or why do you pay good money for someone else to ride/compete/train the horse

Anyway, having learnt all that I was planning to buy something with an awesome canter. Instead I bought a short fat bog pony because it was cute *head/wall/head/wall/head/wall*

Next time, I really, really will buy what I intend to. Assuming of course that I can ever sell the ones I have. Which is apparently doubtful!

 

[TarrSteps]

I don't think anyone is saying it's "okay" to miss (leaving out that if the rider is getting left etc, then there's probably some position work to do . . . which will also help the schooling) just that for MOST amateur riders, who don't log the hours pros do, panic and speeding up tends to make the situation worse.

And even the pros get it wrong sometimes - although usually because the horse hasn't reacted as expected.

It also is, unfortunately, partly a function of practice. I know from my own experience and the experience of my friends, when you've not been jumping lots of horses over big jumps for awhile your eye "goes away" until you practice again.

So again, no one is saying people are jumping Fox+ without a pretty good eye - and certainly no one is doubting the necessity of a quality canter - just more about what the average rider, at home with one horse, can produce and expect and what to do if they don't see something.

 

[Cyclops]

I've been working really hard on the quality of canter with my young DWB so that we get to the jump in the right place - but still tend to go on long ones - not sure if it's my fault or her just being too keen - took her loose schooling at Mick Saywells a couple of weeks ago and she BOUNCED a one stride double at the end of the grid - both fences were a good 3'6 to 4' - Mick checked the distance and said it was 24' (8 steps) - She will go deep into some fences when I'm doing a round but will suddenly take a whole stride out - I think we may need to go back to basics.

I've been reading this post with interest and will definitely try some of the suggestions - like the one on a circle with jumps at 12, 3 6 and 9 - will try that - alsowatched the Stockdale video earlier and he made it look so easy with his 4 year old - doing 5 poles at 12' distance, then putting a jump instead of pole 5 and gradually removing poles 4, 3 and then 2 so that he was going in over pole 1 then 5 nice even strides to the jump - the quality of the canter makes such a difference.

 

[SpottedCat]

Anyone who thinks pros don't miss:

Clayton Fredericks and The Frog at Badminton:

http://www.eventingworldwide.com/wp-content/gallery/whoopsies-2010/claytonfredericks_frog1.jpg

http://www.eventingworldwide.com/wp-content/gallery/whoopsies-2010/claytonfredericks_frog2.jpg

 

[TarrSteps]

One thing on the subject I've been thinking about recently, is the habit of letting horse increase to the fence as a matter of course. It starts with the habit (which makes me crazy) of letting horses "sling shot" out of the corner, usually trotting (often bent to the outside) then diving into canter on the approach. Then it becomes hauling back the canter in the corner (not rebalancing, changing the rhythm and stride length) and letting the horse dive at the fence. The worst of it is, at the lower levels anyway, you can get over a lot of jumps that way and even win if the the horse is careful enough.

But it almost invariably makes people check to the fence because they feel the canter is getting out of control, getting there underpowered, or lengthen even more to it, getting there long and weak. You need to have a good enough canter than you can rebalance and wait then "ride up" to the fence with impulsion. It's much, much easier to see a distance this way than hooking to it, and the horse will jump better when you do get there so "wrong' distances don't look or feel as bad.

 

[now_loves_mares]

Very interesting thread with lots to take away. This stood out for me though. The last horse I had was a donkey in many ways, I only had him 6 months before I realised he was not the horse for me. BUT his one shining light was his ability to come to a fence bang on, every time, in a consistent canter with minimal visible change, but to get it right. He taught me, in just a few jumping sessions, more "Let the fence come to you" then any instructor had ever been able to drill in to me. Incidentally I sold him to a BHS training centre where he now religiously trains all the Stage 4 students in the same thing. In no way was he the quality trained horse referred to above, but he certainly taught me a lot (that my current mare is doing her best to undo ).

Long-winded way of saying would it be possible to get some lessons on something like that?

 

[diggerbez]

wow loads of really interesting responses! thing is my current horse is absolutely brilliant into a fence- he will sort his own legs out, prop himself if he needs to, lengthen if he needs to etc...its just when i get giddy and chase him that it goes wrong... when i don't chase it feels awesome so know what its like- just need to try and replicate that all the time. i blame my old horse- he was horrid into a fence and taught me this bad habit...