Intermédiaire

The session starts with a warm-up in a varied terrain: transitions, figure-eights, lead changes… Michel takes advantage of the slope of the ground to encourage the mare to find her balance. He’s also trying to place himself in the same conditions as on a course and consequently he works on his position: speeding up, slowing down, wide turns, tight turns….

 At the beginning of the session, lead changes were not always successful. Michel doesn’t focus on that problem, and continues his work calmly. He knows that everything will get back to normal as soon as he has established correct communication between him and Zeta.

 After the warm-up on the flat, he works on several lines of fences. Some cavalettis, some combinations and different kinds of fences, like a water jump and a log oxer. He’s mainly looking for a steady canter. To reach that goal, he’s using, among others, some rubber foam poles to set up the tempo of the canter strides between two fences. He varies the exercises often, still with the idea of not fixating on issues.

During this whole session, Michel adapts his position to cope with the challenge of each exercise, and with the mare’s attitude. A good point of reference for every rider wanting to work on his/her position and looking for references and practical advice in that matter. Towards the end of the session, Zeta is doing good lead changes, and the control in the lines of fences is more than satisfactory.
 

The cavaettis set-up enables them to work on the quality of the turns. Michel notices that his students have a tendency to want to turn too quickly after the jump while leaning to the inside of the turns. Michel urges them to stay straight on the approach, over the fence and on the landing.

The second exercise consists of going thru a line of verticals set for 6 or 7 strides. The riders have to be able to re-establish their base position immediately upon landing. For this, they have to, among other things, use their gaze better.

The session continues with a series of exercises allowing the 3 riders to test their ability to control the speed, the path, and their position.

Luca uses his hands too much to control his horse. On the contrary, he has to prioritise his mind and his position. The goal is to put together a course calmly with a steady rhythm without using his strength.

So Michel sets up an exercise that will enable Luca to lock in good habits.

Michel teaches Dominique on Aiti. He executes the exercise at the same time with Nenuphar Jac to show his student the correct state of mind and body to reach the expected goal. The rider’s priority is to correctly prepare and anticipate each step of the sequence of movements. The set–ups with the flexy jumps are useful to get the horse to reorganize his canter between fences. For that, the rider has to focus as much on the ground poles as on the jumps. He also has to be aware of his vision. As soon as the rider looks down, he ruins his position, loses his connection with the horse; his actions become disorganized and out of phase with the situation. So it’s necessary to come out on top of the exercise mentally and physically with the correct panoramic vision. The rider must be aware of everything and above all of his mind-set to get rid of all the irrelevant thoughts that could disturb his interventions.

The exercise is to be practiced on both hands of course. The rider and the horse can be more comfortable on one side than the other. Even though it’s important to accept some mistakes, as we go along, the aim is to solve the issues and to balance the right and left side work.

If the rider has to push the horse on the approach, or pull on the landing, then the exercise is useless. The goal is not to jump no matter what, but foremost, to be able to reach a cadence and a precise track with minimal aids.

If the rider's looking down, the following movement of the exercise will be problematic as the preparation and anticipation are fundamental to the success of this exercise: « What am I thinking about?...… Why?..Is that useful right now? »

If something goes wrong, the root of the problem often occurs a few seconds before.

The difficulty of the exercise is also to stay very straight on the approach and on the fence. Again, keeping the panoramic vision is very important.

The horse also needs a correct trajectory on the jump to go thru the set-up properly. This exercise will help horses that aren’t comfortable on combinations to gain confidence. As this exercise is easy, horses of all levels can do it.

This set-up will enable horses that twist themselves or drift to the right or left, to use their potential on the jump.

Since the rider has a target to aim at after the fence, he will automatically stay symmetrical in his position. This way, he’ll be able to maintain a straight path between fences with no interventions that would possibly disturb the horse.

On this video, we can see that after going several times, Charles jumps right at the middle of the jumps still respecting the path asked by his rider

This exercise requires discipline from the rider. He has to commit to respecting:

- the path and getting the horse to jump the middle of  the fence

- a steady rhythm on the approach and on the landing

At the same time, the rider needs to focus on his position to let the horse move freely and to let him flow thru his movements.

For the horse, it’s an excellent gymnastic to allow him to improve the coordination of his movements. To be successful going thru the grid, the horse has to organize himself to correctly place the take-off stride at each jump. The exercise also allows the horse to develop his concentration and his ability to react quickly.

 

The low fences at the beginning of the grid allow the horse and rider to say calm and relaxed on the approach.
Since the distances were adjusted previously, the rider can focus on his position and his body motion in order to follow his horse’s movement over the jump. He only has to be alert to keep his horse straight and balanced on his 4 feet.

Heights: about 90 cm
Normal short strides

Heights: between about 40 cm and 1 metre – keep the first fence very small. The heights increase from the first to the last fence. For example: 50 cm - 70 cm - 85 cm - and 1 metre for the last vertical.
Normal short strides