I have moved cross country a few times the past few years and finally settled down at home base. I picked a lovely new barn after visiting many of them multiple times. I am lessoning with a jumper. In the past I lessoned with eventers, who taught me with a strong basis of flatwork. We would have entire lessons at the walk. I really loved it and my old trainer’s explanations carry over to everything I do now while riding.
Fast forward to today. The past couple weeks I have been doing a lot of groundwork exercise to bring my horse back after both of us having a year off. My mare and I are a happy pair and progress at the same pace, and we are both very in sync. In today’s lesson we did a lot of cantering, canter sets, and a lot of going over a small jump. I didn’t feel like me or my mare were ready for this today. It really hit me when I realized that I felt so guilty for pushing my horse like that.
So my question is the following. Do your lessons focus on flat, transitions, “the energy of the horse’s movement”, or are they more about the act of jumping, and associated patterns/form? Is this a fundamental difference between jumpers and eventers? Or am I just really missing my old trainer?
I do plan on politely approaching my trainer and asking her if we can go way way slower.
TIA
Eventers have some foundation in dressage and some tools for effective flatwork.
Jumpers may do minimal flat work in something that’s specifically billed as a jump lesson. Once the poles get set up, you aren’t going to do a whole lesson at the walk unless things go badly wrong. Some jump instructors want you to have your horse warned up already on your own by the time the clock starts ticking on your jump lesson.
Jumpers tend to assume canter is the basic working gait and that neither horse or rider will suffer from 45 minutes of work primarily at canter.
Dressage folks tend to see canter as a Very Big Deal that you have to take half a lifetime to prepare for, and either trot or walk as the primary gait. The more classical the slower until you spend half an hour doing flexions in hand.
Ok obviously I’m poking fun here a little. But no, it’s common enough for a jump lesson to be a jump lesson.
That doesn’t mean the instructor can’t do a flatwork lesson if requested. You can request that, if you want.
I think this is more of difference in training style than it is a difference in discipline. There are trainers that will spend 75% of the lesson on flatwork before putting the jumps up, and there are trainers that expect you to be warmed up and ready to jump when your lesson starts. I was just joking with a friend that finding a great fit with a trainer is like dating- finding the right mix of teaching style and learning style, working toward goals together, etc.
It’s funny, European riders spend a lot more time on flatwork, of the very correct type. The more organized you are between jumps and over jumps the better will be your jumping.
I think we have all seen the video of the rider who lost his reins but still tidily finished his course. That was flatwork over fences.
What ohmylivia said. Different instructors have different rhythms to their teaching and of course different areas where they focus. Although Scribbler - you are correct for sure in my experience - lol!
On the flip side - Jimmy Wofford - eventer- holds a lot of jumping clinics and he does minimal flat warm up and you kind of warm up as you are starting with poles and small gymnastics and “get right to jumping”. On the flip side, Linda Langmeier - TOP BNT - is a stickler for flat work and I have “lost my lunch” before doing her warm-up flatwork! (It is fabulous btw!).
Many BNT’s in H/J land work the canter A LOT. Those horses and riders are FIT. I just saw Karen Healey at a EAP - they worked hard and long at trot and canter, yet they were prepared to work and the horses were all muscular over their toplines and able to handle it. (I was sweating buckets just watching them honestly).
These responses make me feel very relieved, thank you!
Hah, this statement has so much truth to it. I know you said you were kidding, but definitely has happened to me
These responses make me feel very relieved, thank you!
Hah, this statement has so much truth to it. I know you said you were kidding, but definitely has happened to me
These responses make me feel very relieved, thank you!
Dressage folks tend to see canter as a Very Big Deal that you have to take half a lifetime to prepare for, and either trot or walk as the primary gait. The more classical the slower until you spend half an hour doing flexions in hand.
Hah, this statement has so much truth to it. I know you said you were kidding, but definitely has happened to me
These responses make me feel very relieved, thank you!
Hah, this statement has so much truth to it. I know you said you were kidding, but definitely has happened to me. My old instructor took her dressage training very seriously.
And this is what I am used to; jumping was a surprise/privilege each lesson. Your comment on dating was on point. It’s a very personal decision. She is a super nice lady and only wants the best for everyone so I think she and I can work this out 
You can only do so much in one lesson. If there’s something you want to do, it’s best to say so at the beginning. If you or your horse aren’t very fit, say that, too. And always speak up if you need a break or if that’s enough for one day. I ride with an UL eventer and the norm is to be warmed up and ready to jump at my lesson time. If I want to do flatwork or work on my warm-up routine I just have to ask.
We also only spend 10-15 minutes of an hour lesson on jumping. We spend a lot of time on rider fitness and effective flat work. I figure my horse only has so many jumps in him over the course of his career, and we are both best off if I use those jumps as effectively as possible!
I’m sure your trainer would be open to more flatwork. I think trainers have become used to students who want to focus more on the jumps since they can work on flatwork independently.
It honestly depends so much on the instructor and their style. I compete in hunters and jumpers, have dabbled in dressage and schooled xc. Both of my trainers (one who focus on eventing, but also does the hunters with some of us and one who is a former Rolex eventer who now focuses on dressage) do warm ups on the flat working on suppleness, quality of the canter, responsiveness to the aids, etc. Then we move on to jumping. Even while jumping my trainers will very much work with us to get a quality canter to the jumps. Sometimes we do courses and sometimes we do exercises (like yesterday was just small xrails and we were working on adjustability - 6 strides, 4 strides, 7 strides) and not so much course work. Not every trainer will focus time on the warm up and they expect their students to completely do the flat warm up themselves. Not every trainer will utilize exercises either and have their riders do a very basic w/t/c and then focus on course work only.
One of my favorite clinics the clinician was really harping on those just plodding around. “Really is that REALLY the trot you want this whole experience to be based on. Ride your warm up like you want your horse to be over jumps. If your flatwork is going nowhere and is la de da then don’t expect great things over jumps”. And it is so true. A great warmup on the flat sets the tone for over fences and I just don’t get how some people don’t correlate how their horse is going on the flat to how their courses go. Throwing jumps out there won’t magically fix anything and even highlights what is missing in the flatwork!
If you want more focus on the flatwork aspect you need to speak up. This trainer relationship is new and she can’t read your mind, you need to speak with her about what you are wanting out of your lessons, what you feel you need to work on, etc. I’m not sure if this was a group lesson or a private, but if it was a group and you want to work more on the flat than she is doing now for group lessons expect to start taking some privates.
Your trainer just added the low single jump to your flat work which is a very, very thoughtful way to help you get the most out of a lesson. The canter sets involve transitions up and down which are building the base to get around a course successfully within the time. The single low fences resets both your mind and that of the horse to focus on the canter and balance, not on the jump. Good multi purpose type lesson, the kind leading clinicians use.
Really doubt it was too much for your horse unless she was seriously out of shape. Instead rather sounds like a targeted lesson with a definite goal for the day. The best kind of lesson. Sounds like you got some homework you can do on your non lesson days too,
Its still a new trainer for you, you should have a polite sit down talk with her if you have any doubts. Each trainer has their own ideas of structuring lessons so some adjustment is required.
My trainers typically had us do correct flatwork, extension, collection, transitions, laterals then went to the fences but we spent longer on the flat and single fences then jumping courses. That was a Hunter, Jumper or Eq, we all did the same things. Typically 4-5 fences set in the ring that were moved every week to create fresh exercises. Rarely see 8-10 set in a course unless it was set for show prep.
More accomplished rider/ horse pairs taking private lessons were expected to do their own flatwork Correctly. Prior to starting the actual lesson which concentrated on the jump exercises, It was a privilege to be allowed to do that and we only get billed for a 30 min private. Win win all around.
I think this is definitely something that varies trainer to trainer. I had been riding with someone who was very oriented to the flatwork. Not always in terms of quantity of minutes but focusing on the quality of response. Sometimes she’d make us practice getting our horses ready to jump in a short amount of time to mimic a show environment, and sometimes most of the lesson was based on getting specific reactions from our horses on the flat. The flatwork was always purposeful, and I think that’s a key thing. Sometimes (and this is actually my tendency) it’s easy to get too wrapped up in the perfection of the flatwork and forget to relate it to our jumping work. This trainer had a great balance of getting the horse soft and rideable so that the jumping was as successful as possible. Spending an hour at the walk can be beneficial if it’s to a certain end (ie. if you’re working on a certain response to the leg or a certain strengthening exercise). But on the flip side, you can waste a lot of time perfecting the walk, rather than working on things that directly benefits the jumping.
So I think it’s a balance. Flatwork is massively important, but as hunter/jumper riders we have to remember the end to which we do it. It’s easy to get stuck in the flatwork weeds (and I speak to myself, here), trying to get that perfect xyz when we really just need to go jump the jump.
After a relocation, I recently visited a barn where the trainer gave no feedback while the riders warmed up on the flat and then very little feedback while jumping. That’s just not a style that works for me! I’ve also been at barns where the lessons were specified - for jumping lessons you should be warmed up prior to the start, and the focus was on pole/jumping exercises, while other lessons were set as flatwork lessons and were entirely devoted to that. I’ve ridden in clinics with BNTs where the flatwork was extensive and advanced and with others where it was simple and more of a warm up for the jumping. So there’s all sorts of styles out there.
I definitely prefer a more balanced approach.
I wouldn’t make assumptions on a coach’s lesson style based on one lesson. Some weeks my lesson plans have more flat work, and some weeks they have more jumping. Although I alter the lesson plan somewhat for each student’s ability and focus, we typically all work on a variation of the same thing…which is going to be more helpful for some horses than others.
I’m not sure how much slower you want to go, OP. You said you have had a year off but it sounds like you have had this horse a while, know him/her well, and I am going to assume you are a competent rider.
The coach had you jump one small jump multiple times and canter sets. That to me would be a pretty easy going lesson for someone wanting jumper training. It also sounds like fitness building, so to me it seems pretty targeted to what you and your horse need, which is building back up.
I’m pretty old school about some things, including “groundwork”–to me, that is not adding fitness or building your horse up. Yes your horse needs to lead, lunge and stand politely, etc, but that is not fitness and that is not riding. You get your horse fit–and yourself–by getting your butt up on that horse and making some wet saddle pads.
If you are uncomfortable with the pace of the lesson, then you do need to say something, as you are paying for it. But expect the coach to be surprised, because I would be. It sounds like a pretty reasonable lesson to me.
You may also want to clarify expectations–at my level all coaches I have ridden with expect me to already be warmed up and ready to work when they get there. I’m paying for a jumping lesson–if I wanted a flat lesson, I would tell them that. And as much as I know flatwork is important, etc, if a coach spent an entire lesson with me at the walk, I would quit using them. Work on that stuff on your own and utilize the coach’s time for things that you can’t practice alone. Many of us don’t have access to coaches each week, or even on a regular basis, so we make the most out of the time we do have them, which means not needing a coached warm up.
Sounds like you are going pretty slow already and I am willing to bet your mare had no bad feelings after the lesson. Sure politely talk to the trainer, but be prepared that her response may be a polite ‘maybe this is not the best place/program for you and your horse’ With trainers/barn managers you have ONLY 2 options trust them or look for another you do trust and this sounds like you are questioning her awareness and concern for your horse’s well being.
It doesn’t sound like you actually did much jumping, just “a small jump” and a lot of canter work. You need that canter work in a horse coming back into work to build fitness back up, which is what it sounds like your trainer’s goal may have been?
IME with both eventers and H/Eq trainers, the amount of flatwork can really vary by lesson. Some days are mostly flatwork, some days are mostly jump work, just depending on what we need to work on. That should vary by lesson, and by what the horse and rider need to do. For example, lately, because it’s been so ungodly hot and sticky here, we’ve been doing a lot less flatting before we jump, just so we don’t wear the horse out; I’ll work on the flat on an entirely separate ride, or we’ll do a pole/grid exercise that makes us use flatwork in a way that might not be obvious that it’s really what we’re doing, like altering track through a small bending like or adding/subtracting strides. Not everything needs to be either/or, and you SHOULD be applying those flatwork skills to what you’re doing over fences, that’s a big part of why you want to learn those skills.
That said, if there’s something you feel like is missing, or that you’ve skipped a step, absolutely ask your trainer to work on it the next lesson. “I feel like Dobbin and I have been having some trouble with our trot-canter transitions, can you help us with those today?” is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.
I’m not sure that there is a big difference between the two, but I do think that it’s very important to have that chat with your trainer. The more open you are with each other, the better you will be able to work together.
I teach a lot of kids who want to jump a lot and get bored if they don’t so tbh I just make them do very technical jumping exercises over small jumps because ultimately jumping and flatwork can be the same. I make them halt in the middle of lines, add a step, then leave it out, do circles between jumps, leg yield out of a circle to the jump, etc. Then I throw in a bigger jump at the end and everyone leaves happy lol. I think there are a lot of ways to progress and it just depends on you, your horse, and your trainer and as long as you and your horse are improving and having fun there’s not really a wrong way. Those kids I teach are brave and fun and want to jump a lot so I just find a way to include flatwork in our jumping for them. I also teach adults who are more timid so we do the same stuff minus the jumps. I don’t like to criticize the way other people do things again I think if you and your horse are happy, improving, and having fun then that’s good enough. Just communicate with your trainer because everyone is different and I always always consider people’s goals and desires.
