Taking a lead from a more confident horse is not cheating, it's sensible
Everyone always wants to practise the water jump at a clinic as it is one of the few times they can school in water (not many folk have a water jump at home) and it is always helpful to have an expert on hand when introducing young horses to water
At the Andrew Hoy clinic in Melbourne, the water complex at Greenvale Equestrian Park provided the perfect spot to work with less experienced horses and get them happily splashing about. Even riders with more experienced horses in a later class were asked to trot around the pool of water ‘ring-a-rosy’ style before starting to jump in and out of the complex. This reinforced Andrew’s earlier comment that the horse needs to believe that “every time you ask him to do something, it is achievable and a simple exercise he can cope with” so starting on the flat in the water made it easy to then move up to jumping into the water
For the less experienced horses that are just starting out in competition, such as Nicola Lynch’s six year old mare I’m A Gem, the water was a little scary at first. I’m A Gem had also been unsure about the ditch complex earlier so Andrew had encouraged Nicola to take a lead through the ditch from a more confident horse and this simple tip worked again at the water
Nicola is an experienced rider, having competed up to 1.40m show jumping in Ireland where she grew up but decided to take up eventing when she moved to Australia and Andrew was complimentary about the ‘feel’ that Nicola showed in handling her horse’s hesitation
“Feel is a very personal thing. At the age of 20 I rode a Grand Prix dressage horse – I still remember that. It was the first time that I rode a flying change every stride. Wow! A feeling is something you have to experience and riding good horses helps you to develop that feel and become a better rider”
“What I saw at the ditch and through the exercises in the water is that you have a lot of feel in your riding. When I say you have a lot of feel, it’s something I observe in how you handled the problems you faced. She isn’t so easy and coming into the water, she didn’t want to go in but you stayed calmly in control and just followed someone in rather than made a big issue of it, which you had learned at the ditch”
I’m A Gem and Nicola happily through the water
Having become accustomed to the water, the horses were then asked to canter in a figure of eight in and out of the water jump. As with all of the exercises during the day, the aim was to have a good forward canter throughout, maintaining the rhythm going in and out of the water up and down the small banks and on the grass areas in between.
The constant entering and leaving of the water made the horses understand that it wasn’t an exciting or frightening thing, simply part of the cantering process and they all happily settled into cantering through the water without any problem, including I’m A Gem who earlier had found it daunting just to walk into. The only thing that Nicole could improve was the use of her eyes, suggested Andrew
“What I also saw at the ditch was that you were very good at holding her in the gait that you wanted, be it walk or trot, but the one thing that you weren’t very good at was looking at the actual point of going in to the water or the actual jump. You’re inclined to have your eyes too far forward; as soon as you position your eyes in the correct place you then ride according to what you are asking and it is easier for the horse to understand the question”
