- Look to your fence early, practise seeing the stride as early as you can.
- There are only two stride patterns. You’re
half a stride out or you’re on the perfect stride. If you can’t see it just half halt and then carry on – don’t keep holding or checking as then you’re just swapping between the two. - Establish a good forward canter and stick
to it all the way around. Try to stay in the same rhythm. - Don’t hold your horse off the fences, let
him make a mistake and learn, “otherwise you end up with a Nations Cup horse not
one that’ll come back the next day and win the Grand Prix”.
- If you over-collect a careful horse eventually they’ll start to worry about hitting the back rail. Better to keep them bowling forward and let them learn to back off the fences and round for themselves. If the horse over-jumps in the ring, ride it even more forward.
- Soft hands. Establish canter early then stay
quiet into fence. Your job is to get the horse to the fence in a good canter
and then try not to distract him when he goes to jump.
- If you increase your hand you have to increase your leg. The horse must always be connected between hand and leg, never use one without the other.
- If the horse spooks just ignore it. You
can’t do anything about a horse spooking but you can avoid making a big deal out
of it. Don’t hit a horse that stops from a spook. Just turn him around and try
again. If he’s going to jump, he’ll jump, hitting him isn’t going to make a
difference. - Practise lengthening and shortening transitions within a gait. Start very gradual and tactful and then increase demand as the horse stays relaxed.
- It’s important for the horse to swing through the shoulders. Send the trot forward until his shoulders are moving well, and then collect trying to keep that swing. Sit quiet and straight and fold straight.
The horse must jump straight.
- Use tram lines and teeny cross-poles to
train an un-straight horse until it comes naturally to him. No point practising
his bad habit.
- Tom has never known a horse that’s scared
of height. They are scared of tense riders, as that tension goes straight to
the hands and so the mouth. If the rider is relaxed they can come down to
anything.
