Vittoria and her new found friend, Cliffy the cat
When I asked Vittoria Panizzon what she had planned for the morning session of her clinic near Melbourne, she smiled and said “We’re going to have some fun with grids” and indeed they did.
Vittoria may not be very well known here in Australia but she is definitely a rising star on the international eventing stage. 2013 was a very good year for her, as she told us in our interview, finishing 13th on the FEI World Rankings after good results for all of her horses. Attendees at the clinic on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria need not have worried about understanding Italian; as the daughter of a Scottish mother and Italian father and having lived in England since she was 17, her English is impeccable.
Vittoria only had one day available for the clinic as she was visiting Melbourne en route to New Zealand for a friend’s wedding so the format was slightly different to most multi-day clinics. In the morning two sessions were held with two riders on the sand arena at Denistoun Park. In the afternoon we headed out to Sara Madden’s nearby property, which has one of the best cross country courses around, and were joined by a few other riders
The horse has to be responsive
First up Charlotte Littlefield, Vittoria’s friend who had organised the clinic, rode the off the track thoroughbred Huey (above) while Alex rode the 6 year old Apollo 11 (apparently named because he ‘goes off like a rocket’), sired by Chris Height’s top eventing horse Blackall Park D’Artagnan.
Each rider warmed up individually as Vittoria spent a little time with them. For both horses she suggested that the riders use transitions to make their horses more responsive.
“Once your horse is warmed up in basic walk, trot and canter both ways, transitions are what will get your horse listening and more responsive without drilling them. When I'm riding I don’t want to break a sweat – the horse has to be responsive to me”
For Apollo (above) the transitions were used to help him sit back on his hocks a little more, particularly in conjunction with small circles. Vittoria also suggested using upwards and downwards transitions on the circle using two paces apart i.e. halt/trot, walk/canter to sharpen the response. Another tip was to use a canter diagonal across the arena and transition to trot on reaching the side of the arena as the arena wall or fence would help bring the horse back and underneath himself.
‘Try and make up some exercises of your own like this when you’re working with your horses – play around to find new ways to make your transitions smoother and more responsive. Bringing your horses' quarters underneath them really helps to improve their jumping”
From a cross rail and small vertical, the grid was gradually built
Jumping without reins
So on to the jumping and, as Vittoria had said, grids were to be her main focus for the morning session
“I want the riders to have fun so we’ll do some jumping without hands and pony club type stuff to loosen people up. It’s hard to get to know riders and horses quickly in a one day clinic but getting them to jump grids help me work out where they are in their training and what they need help with”
In the second session Carina Hiern riding Tali, a 12-year-old mare competing at Preliminary level, showed a very short canter stride in their warm up. Vittoria used a canter exercise flexing Tali to the outside on the long sides of the arena to open up the inside shoulder and then flex to the inside on a circle at each side of the arena. However it was during the grid exercises that Tali started to move more easily, especially, as Vittoria pointed out, when she made the riders jump without reins.
Vaughan and Jai show good style over the spooky dazzleboard
Vaughan Ellis was riding Jai, another off the track thoroughbred by the same sire as Charlotte’s Huey, the famous Encosta de Lago
Like Sonja Johnson in our recent article, Vittoria suggested that the riders generally needed to ride with much shorter length stirrup leathers for jumping than they were used to, saying that ‘shorter stirrups can help with your brakes as well as your balance; they give you something to brace against as well as balance on’
Poles between the grid of fences helped slow the horses down, especially Huey who tended to rush through. Gradually Vittoria built the grid up
Once the riders were comfortable through the grid, Vittoria added guide rails on the oxers and asked the riders to knot their reins. They were to let go of the reins as they approached the grid and to put their hands on their hips; this helps them ‘fold’ at the hips over each fence and stay in balance
One rider asked ‘What if my horse doesn’t jump straight without me holding the reins?’ to which Vittoria responded ‘If your horse is forward he will jump straight’ and indeed all of the horses jumped through without a problem.
From here they progressed to jumping the grid doing various exercises such as hands on head (first jump), hands on hips (second jump) and hands on shoulders (third jump)
They also had to jump and shout out to Vittoria how many fingers she was putting up at the side of the arena
Then there was jumping with closed eyes (that caused some nervous screams) and jumping without reins and stirrups
Finally, before we retired to the shade of a tree for lunch before cross country, Vittoria suggested to Vaughan and Carina that they tried a few exercises on their horse, pony club style.
When was the last time you did ‘around the world’, scissors or a back somersault off your horse? Well, that’s a whole story in itself and we have some fun videos from that here plus we’ll take a look at how the riders went in the cross country clinic with Vittoria later that day
It's never too late for pony club exercises - Scissors (above), Around the World (below) and we're really not sure about the bottom one!
