Lucinda Green XC advice

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Mbronze

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I love reading about how to ride xc from top riders and came across a comment by LG which honestly gave me a light bulb moment.

LG told a story of being given a new ride that had previously been round Badminton a couple of times, she had wondered how she would get on with the horse as he had always been told when to take off. She spent 20 mins jumping with him until he realised he was his own 'master' in front of a fence and could think for himself when to take off, she remembers how happy and liberated he was after that.

It never occured to me, as i always concentrate on getting a good stride to the fence that my messing with my hands etc was what messed up our approaches even though I was trying to make them better!!

Sorry i just thought i had to share as i really think that this kind of approach will work with my girl. ;)
 
I think one thing that Lucinda forgets though, is that she is a naturally very gifted rider.

This is something you can never teach!

You don't ride at that standard without being exceptional.

But her comments are good!
 
I think one thing that a lot of instructors say is "it is your job to get the horse to the fence on the right line and at the right pace, it is his/her job to jump it" which I agree with! The difference between good, experienced riders and the less experienced rider is being able to adjust the stride faw enough away from the fence so that you aren't messing about in the last 2 or 3 strides. They can spot when they're short/long much further out and adjust to suit earlier.

Agree that natural ability and skill cannot be taught, if only! ;)
 
i agree that Lucinda is a gifted rider... she swears blind that she CANNOT "see a stride" but you only have to watch her ride to see that she gets them there on a good one 99% of the time, so whatever she might call it, it works.
i do agree with her that 'missing' here and there is not bad for them, it keeps them thinking and ready to react, rather than in that 'passive, waiting for instructions' mode. she's great in clinics because if someone misses she always shouts out "great, he'll learn from that, come again!", instead of slating them for their inaccuracy and destroying their confidence. okay, over big fences it's not ideal, but over small fences i think she's absolutely right.
i read something by her where she said that leaving the horse to sort it out for himself in xc warm-up, and over the first few fences of the course (NOT dominating the horse, not 'placing' him) are key to him thinking for himself the whole way around. i tried doing this the last few xc runs i had and found it worked.
 
I think Lucinda needs to come back down to Oz and work on her tan (and fund it with a few clinics!).

I completly agree with Lucinda's comment, all horses can jump very well on there own so why with a rider on board should they suddenly need to be told when to leave the ground?

I think that if you make sure the horse has seen the fence, knows what it has to jump and you have the right canter/gallop coming in a horse should be able to figure out the last 3/4 strides by themselves. I would guess that at higher levels you might need to have a bit more input? Kerrili - your thoughts?

I know with Beau, jumping that if I set up the canter he can do the rest, I ride him to about 3/5 strides out then (remain positive/supporting) but leave the rest to him and he does sort himself out. Lenghtening/ shorting his stride and ocasionally changes the line of approach (slight veer) to give himself more room.
To be honest we have tried to teach him to look after himself by not building perfect strides between fences, and over small SJ just cantering round and ocasionally putting a fence in the way and leaving it all up to him.

I have a video somewhere, and will try and find it, of him doing one time changes into a fence becasue we had an argument about speed coming round the corner into it an he suddenly realised he didn't have much room and apparently 1 time-changes was the best way for him to get his weight back and shorten his stride - it just confused the hell out of me as I had no idea what he was doing till I watched the video later! Sorry some what irrelevant but I like talking about Beau ;)
 
i think that's absolutely the right way to do it, but difficult if the horse is careless... if i think the horse won't make the adjustment and will have a pole, i fiddle (hopefully not in last 3 strides but has been known, eek), esp in the ring when it matters. at home i'm braver about 'daring' the horse to the fence and letting them learn a bit. xc it depends on the horse but i try to leave it to them but do as best as i can to make it easy for them.
in my experience up to & including novice height, if the approach is good (balanced canter, powerful strides, not too long or short, straight) then most horses can jump clear even if the take-off spot isn't perfect, or even if it's v long or v deep. at Int and above accuracy is more important unless the horse is amazingly scopey and amazingly honest and forgiving... some hold a 'miss' against you and are rattled by it, some don't care at all.
btw, the changes in front of a fence can also be down to tiredness, and also an early sign of leg trouble... my little mare who i retired due to very early signs of damage in check ligament on 1 foreleg, suspensory on the other (she was still 100% sound) was changing legs a lot before the fences, never changing at all (unless requested!) on the flat... but in your boy's case it just sounds as if it was cleverness, if he just did it that time.
 
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I love lucinda :) I think shes great!

Thats why in my very simple mind a lot of people have problems showjumping - they worry too much about placing the horse on a good take off spot and "fix" the canter, when all they needed to do in the first place was keep a good quality canter.
Certainly, that's what ive found at the lower levels anyways (basically novice and below, never gone higher to find out :p) - the course designers arent there to catch you out imo.

:)
 
I read this article too and had a lightbulb moment :) It showed a pic of a rider interfering and resulted in a bad accident. Very informative I thought.
 
Kerrili - thanks!

Interesting that lots of changes could be a sign of leg trouble/tierdness (suppose it makes sense really) but will remember for future reference.
I think he was just showing off, we of course have never repeated the 1-times on the flat...=)
 
Hutchie said:
I read this article too and had a lightbulb moment :) It showed a pic of a rider interfering and resulted in a bad accident. Very informative I thought.
Click to expand...

the worst example of that was Karim Laghouag's fall at the penultimate fence at the Euros last year, he hooked and hooked, the horse (clear until that point iirc) didn't even see the fence properly (didn't have a martingale on and response to the hookings was to chuck head up) and it totally misjudged the fence and somersaulted over it. vid at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPEtYY9b034
 
kerilli said:
the worst example of that was Karim Laghouag's fall at the penultimate fence at the Euros last year, he hooked and hooked, the horse (clear until that point iirc) didn't even see the fence properly (didn't have a martingale on and response to the hookings was to chuck head up) and it totally misjudged the fence and somersaulted over it. vid at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPEtYY9b034
Click to expand...

Yes that's the one, poor horse :(
 
I think the article just reiterated to me what I already know i.e don't mess with the last couple of strides up to the fence.
Hutchie - the bad fence approach photo was nasty.
I only do PN and hopefully N this year, so I am currently trying to sort out strides et to fences. I have a new xc trainer and she has evented up to 4* and she has noticed my messing with strides when she assures me the horse can work it out.
So for my next xc lesson i'm going to just worry about the line to the fence and the rhythm and let her work out the rest :)
 
Lucinda's advice is spot on.

I took one of my young horses to a training show recently and received instruction from a 4* event rider (who incidentally is constantly slated on here - maybe some would eat their words if they bothered to find out more about him). He made the point that he has completely changed his attitude to training young horses over recent years, in that he always used to concentrate on presenting them to a fence perfectly only to find that as they got older they were completely reliant on him, and they subsequently started to struggle. He now leaves it to the horse, coming in (to either a SJ or a XC fence) in a balanced canter with a soft hand, allowing the horse to find it's own spot and learn from it's mistakes - even if it's in the ring at a competition. He was, of course, referring to young horses jumping small fences - not 1.20m!

He says he's now producing a much better quality horse by doing this.

Interesting stuff.
 
mm, who was that? the only 4* rider i can think of who has been slated on here is OT, and to be fair i don't think it's his riding that's criticised (as this is usually excellent), it's his attitude/hunger to win.
i think what he says is spot on, with a balanced canter and a soft hand (and enough energy, but he prob takes that as a given!) a horse can always jump the fence. the soft hand is CRUCIAL though, the horse is then in self-carriage, and can think for himself... if the hand is hard and pulling, it takes the horse's concentration off the fence and stops him from adjusting himself imho (among other things...!)
 
God that video of the fall is horrendus! The horse's backend appears to come straight down on her head! Does anybody know how badly she was injured?

But it is a perfect example of rider interfering too much too late - full marks to the horse for trying really.
 
I really like her methods and they really helped us out on Monday. We went XC schooling, and my sister had a bit of a worry that she was ruining her horse as he is bold as brass usually but had started to duck out a bit. By remembering that actually telling Reg to sort his own legs out and sitting up and pushing him forwards into the fence she suddenly had her flying pony back. I think sometimes its easy to become obsessed by seeing strides- my horse doesn't let you so I've never got into the habit (just sit tight and pray) but once you think you can't it can really change how you ride.
 
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