Wandin Park in the Yarra Valley is a beautiful location for an event – indeed one of Victoria’s top CIC events is held here each March. Renowned for its Quarry fence and a view of most of the course from one spot, (not to mention the cocktail party!) it also has a lower level course, Little Wandin, which is perfect for cross country schooling.
We spent a couple of hours with well known eventing rider and coach, Will Enzinger as he took one group around Little Wandin recently and worked on some general cross country problems that riders face as well as the specific problems encountered by the horses and riders in the group.
The riders in the group were Katie Halkier, Brittany Thompson, Karensa Low, Stacey Sjogren and Rosemarie Hazard-Ellis and most of the riders are competing these horses at Preliminary level.
The first thing all good instructors do before letting their pupils tear off over cross country fences is to check their tack and Will’s eye was drawn to Brittany’s use of the Dutch gag bit and Grackle noseband. Although the gag bit is normally used without a curb strap, Will suggested attaching one (in this case a spur strap as that was all was handy!) to see if it would help increase Brittany’s control; over the course of lesson as Brittany’s horse became accustomed to the bit and with some consistent and calm schooling, the addition certainly seemed to help.
The lesson started over Thomas the Tank Engine – a very jolly little fence to kick off proceedings and warm everyone up. A lot of the focus of the schooling however was mainly on ditches and trakehners which are found in abundance on Little Wandin and, of course, some splashing through the water fence to finish off.
Interestingly at the Lakes & Craters event in December many lower level riders had a lot of problems at a seemingly innocuous ditch so maybe this was in Will’s mind as he planned the lesson.
He was happy for horses to have a good look at the fence if they stopped because they were unsure but then expected the rider to be on the job
“If this happens on course at a competition, you have already picked up 20 penalties” he points out “You can’t do anything about that once it’s happened but make sure you use the opportunity to re-present as a schooling exercise and do it well the second time”
For lower level riders or inexperienced horses there is huge benefit in schooling over courses like this, which have the real feel of a small competition course. At each of the fences Will made the riders repeat each obstacle until he and they felt that they had done a really good job.
“Keep doing it until it is really boring and you feel you’ve nailed it, then you take that thought away with you” he says “Our aim today is to take the adrenalin out of jumping. There is plenty of adrenalin when you’re on cross country at a competition but today we want to school the fences without the adrenalin”
Most of the fences were first approached in trot and then canter once the horse and rider were confident, and as we all know, confidence is the key to riding cross country well. One rider was reprimanded for shaking her head as she was half way through varying exercises which Will was quick to point out revealed a level of self doubt.
“Jump the fence, get the job done and then analyse it afterwards” says Will “Grumbling to yourself half way over a fence doesn’t help anything”
When starting to school over small ditches or trakheners Will advised using fences with a solid ground rail.
“You don’t want your horse’s feet to slide into the ditch if he stops when you’re introducing this type of fence. A ground rail will help them focus on the fence and prevent them from slipping in to the ditch, however small, until you they are confident about the question. Then you can jump them from either side, with or without a ground rail”
(Interestingly, as an aside, the rules about trakehner fences were changed after an incident in 1973 when British rider Rachael Bayliss and her horse, Gurgle the Greek, "cleared" a trakehner at the Badminton Horse Trials by going under it. Following this the rules were changed, requiring the horse not only to go between the flags but also to pass over the log)
Having successfully schooled a series of individual fences including logs, apex, small brushes and ditches, it was time for a small course before heading up to the water.
Finally to finish off the session the horses all had a paddle in the water fence before trotting and cantering through from various angles with different entry and exit fences.
By this point all of the horses were working really well and the riders looked really at home and confident on this little cross country course.
The challenge will come in March for those who choose to tackle the ‘real’ Wandin course as this year the Preliminary, Training 2 and 3 and Introductory classes will be running over new courses on Big Wandin while Training 4 and 5 will run on Little Wandin to encourage the less experienced. After training with Will I don’t think that any of these riders will have a problem moving up to the big time at Wandin
We’re delighted that Will Enzinger and Emily Anker will be joining us as regular bloggers – look out for their first blog coming soon
