master_tally’s ‘more appropriate coaching’ should include teaching the student how to prepare for competition without the trainer’s help.
I see too many trainers yelling useless information at their students in the warm-up ring – useless because the rider is either too nervous to listen or because they’re just not going to have any schooling breakthroughs in the next 10-15 minutes.
For those of you who didn’t catch it, Denny Emerson registered on the boards last week.
He also donated a Loyal Pal breeding to the Baby Aiden Fund.
So Denny, what do you think?
“No time to marry, no time to settle down. I’m a young woman and I ain’t done runnin’ around.” - Bessie Smith
Blyth Tait I ain’t, and never will be! And don’t liken myself too. I just think it’s good to aspire to be better, and I think making excuses relative to the level is missing the boat entirely. Precision is achievable, even at the lower levels. With that in mind, yes, a US Novice horse would likely be really prepared if he could put 8 strides into a six stride line, and possibly lengthen for five on it (just as important, as JER notes). I hope you didn’t think I was making Rhodey put 14 strides into a four stride line. (Though it likely would appeal to him as that is his nature.)
I guess my point is that you cannot just sit up and be a passenger: just because you’re at a lower level doesn’t mean you don’t have to make riding decisions.
And, again, I brought the whole point of compression up because if you’re attempting to simulate higher level questions, with accompanying degrees of related distance, you must be able to address the impulsion/compression issue successfully.
Robby
You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
i agree that “psychological” fences and small technical stuff is AWESOME to ahve at lower levels. I just wonder- as in my previous post about 2 up from this one- why are people having issues with the little jumps on their courses that should be a snap? IMHO a lot of peopel are moving up WAAAAAAAAY too soon. i honestly think there should be standards you have to meet before moving up… but tha’ts just me. I find it ironic that people move up to prelim from training after a few good shows… and then my trainer and her daughter who have been winning consistently at training all year long, schooling some advanced level questions in a clinic with an Olympian, but yet they don’t feel prepared for prelim yet…
i guess i think the whole “level” thing should be changed (as stated in previous post) and standards should be met before moving up… but that is my opinion. anyone else with me? or an i loner on this…?
~laura~
kileyc! We can have lots of chardonnay at the barn!
Robby
You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
Pat on the Back - EXACTLY!!
19 year member of the New Hope clique! 
Robby, I think we’re talking more along the same lines than you seem to think.
My initial point was that I don’t think it’s necessary for a US Novice horse to be able to put 10 strides into a 6 stride line. I’d be comfortable if I could ride the poles (set at normal 6) in 5-8 strides on a green horse, provided there was no loss of rhythm/impulsion while making those adjustments. And I put the 5 in there because lengthening is very important too.
But before I did any adjusting work, I’d make sure the horse could work in a comfortable rhythm at the canter. This can take a while for some horses.
As I’ve said before, I’ve done a fair amount of foxhunting, some of it on inexperienced horses. It’s a good way to get the horse going forward in a rhythm. The horse learns to think about what he’s doing, how to keep himself safe, and how to take care of his legs and feet. Most horses, after a spell of hunting, would be very safe to take around a Novice course, not because they have a totally adjustable stride, but because they know how to take care of themselves.
And while you’re jumping around some N courses, you can be working at home on adjusting the canter stride. The pole exercise is a good one, same with gymnastic jumping exercises.
This is what we’re doing with our young TB right now. He did 6 months of trail riding, started jumping in May/June, did 1 jumper show, some hound exercise with the local hunt and 2 N HTs. Maintaining a rhythm is still the most important lesson he’s learning; we work on that first, then add a few adjusting exercises. He’ll do his first T HT next week, then spend the winter doing some proper foxhunting.
Longitudinal adjustments need to be taught by someone who knows how to do it properly. It is not simply pulling the horse back in front. I’ve seen groups of H/Jers do this and it’s just all wrong. It takes a fair amount of riding skill to put 10 good canter strides in a 6 stride line without losing rhythm or impulsion and I think N-level riders can be on their way to learning this (I hope they are) without having to be all the way there yet. A Novice rider needs to learn how to go forward and in a rhythm and stay WITH the horse; until they can do this, they shouldn’t be trying to micromanage.
We haven’t talking about straightness, but I think this is very important for this discussion. We teach horses to hold a line to a pole/fence right from the beginning and do tiny corners, buckets, single hay bales, small bounces, etc. The horse needs to know they have to stay straight and on their line, and the horse has to know that the rider is not going to ask him to deviate from this line – a rider who lets the horse get crooked or gets the horse wiggly is NOT safe even at the lowest levels.
I just wish yall were all hanging out in my den with a few beers and Chardonay for Robby! (O.K. Cokes for the minors!)
I want to introduce a concept that I think alot of you are missing. (Feel free to disagree!) For the horse, the difference in the difficulty from level to level has little to do with the height of the fences. It’s the rider that gets juiced up with the idea of “it’s over 3 feet (or whatever your mystical number is) OMG!” The horses just respond to the juiced up riders. I will conceed here that as you move above prelim this can start to change–but I don’t think it does as much as you guys probably assume it does.
As I’ve seen it, experienced upper level riders rarely are concerned about the height of a fence in a combination just based on the biggness of the fence. They tend to see it only in the sense of how a fence’s biggness effects the required ride and how that ride effects answering the rest of the question. (I can think of some exceptions here but I don’t think they show up very often.)
This very same concept is why alot of experienced riders opt not to run BN. The technical questions at Novice are so basic that there is zero advantage to making it “easier” for the horses with smaller fences. Also most pros/experienced riders are riding horses they expect to have some scope and would rather find out that they don’t at Novice (where it still acceptably safe to make such discoveries) than waste the time and money at BN. (I also agree with all of JAGOLD resoning as well.)
I don’t think “rating courses” will work just because often times courses don’t run how the designers/TDs/ organizers expect them to run! And often they very same course isn’t consistent from event to event as how it rode statistically.
No rules against Novice combination (a, b) fences. The first time I saw a combination on a Novice course this year, I checked the rule book. Nothing there.
In fact, the rules say that Novice cross country “should include…a double.”
COuldn’t fnd anything about 33 feet either.
The rules also say that Prelin cross country obstacles “May now include… simple bounces…”
[This message was edited by Janet on Oct. 26, 2002 at 12:06 AM.]
I am resurrecting this thread to see what people think now that the mini Rolex appears to have arrived. I am not eventing right now (old lame horse and old lame rider), but my daughter just went to a local BN event and had two combinations at BN. WTF? One was an up bank (with a little log on top) two strides to a jump. Are we happy with what we hath wrought?
http://eventingnation.com/lucinda-green-mbe-reviews-burghley-previews-blair-castle-europeans/
“I think if we can keep the top end of the sport at a very high level it will trickle down and encourage the course designers to be a little bit braver at the lower levels; at the moment the three star is almost a different sport than a four star, it’s more motivated by dressage and show-jumping which is a very important part but it shouldn’t be the all-important part”…Lucinda Green
Now, how far she would like this to trickle down is not known. If she is only referencing the degree of difficulty between 3 and 4 star is too great a distance, so be it. I do not think the levels BN-A need any playing round with. I have asked many times (and always maintained) that the 3 star level was a bit of a fluster f&ck with regards to what is actually expected of it. You often have 2.5*/3*/3.5* all lumped together as 3*. I think much work has to be done to really hammer out a consistent 3* level of questions. Or the simple fact is that 4* has become just too difficult under some course designers.
I may get flamed for this but I’m going to go for it. We have taken society to an angst level now. So what’s your perfect world for eventing? That everyone wins and there is no competition?
I learned to jump pretty much solely using gymnastics. I and the horse learned to go straight, balanced, and forward. I don’t remember having issues with xc, of which I never once had any opportunity to ever ‘school’ anywhere given where I lived at the time and the lack of resources.
Lately carefully watching at my DD’s clinic participations, the message that I am hearing from BNTs is to slow down! learn to balance your horse, and GO STRAIGHT, even on an angle there is straightness. Learn how to straighten your horse’s body parts to balance them, learn to ride correctly first. Teach the horse right from the beginning to begin to read fence problems at low heights. That alone helps the horse understand hey shit happens go forward. And I am not talking about just go forward when a rider dumps their shoulders on a drop and the horse refuses to save their ass.
I don’t see a multi stride low set combination to be such a huge problem if your schooling correctly at home. So what you’re really complaining about is the lack of instruction and schooling?
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