A frosty evening in the south west of England set the scene for a demonstration from one of our sport's most brilliant minds. Chris Bartle is National Coach for the German Eventing Team - current Olympic, World and European Champions - and his Yorkshire Riding Centre is home to some of the sport’s most decorated riders. The Englishman has not only coached the German team to two Olympic team and individual Gold medals but he has also competed at the top level in both dressage and eventing himself. Chris represented Great Britain at the Los Angeles Olympics in the Dressage, took out Badminton in 1998 and achieved much success at European Championships in both disciplines.
Helen West warms up her six year old Langaller Starring Role
The demonstration at Hartpury College was entitled ‘Modern Eventing’ and it was absolutely full of information that can be applied to horses and riders at all levels. We began with the young horses, one five and one six, who are both competing at the lower levels of the sport. Helen West and Madi Peniford were the demo riders for this session. Before the session had begun, we were introduced to Chris’ aversion to the overuse of running martingales.
“I like to do all training at home without a running martingale,” he said. “The pull or pressure of the martingale is a downward one against the rein,” Chris explained. “It exerts a downward pull against the jaw; it’s taking the bit away from the corner of the mouth, breaking away from that straight line that we want from elbow, to hand, through to the horse’s mouth.”
Whilst it can be a good discipline tool for young horses, Chris had every rider remove their running martingales before the start of each session. “Having no martingale teaches the rider to put their hands down.”
Another running martingale is removed
Chris asked the riders to warm up with a loose rein and build up into a working contact, encouraging the horses to relax without leaning on the bit or being behind it. “We want to get the horses relaxing over the back,” he said “In this first phase of work we are riding the horses positively forward to the contact but working on getting the horses to come up in the back.” To achieve this it helps to work on a smaller circle and ask the horse to place their inside hind leg under the body.
To achieve this you must ride with your inside leg to the outside rein. Chris explained that the outside rein is the controlling rein in terms of the size of the circle; it controls the speed, tempo and the degree of collection. The inside rein is for collection and rhythm. “It is not the rein which turns the horse.” This process was demonstrated fantastically with the use of a simple wheel barrow.
“I want to make the point here that legs and seat turn the horse and the hands guide the horse”
In this analogy the wheel barrow is the horse and the reins are the handles. “The hind leg should push the horse’s forehand along but I have to get the hind leg in behind the forehand. If I go from my inside hip and step across with my inside leg that way, as I keep stepping with my inside hind across, I will execute a turn and if I’ve done it well, I will have drawn a circle. Just by stepping across from the inside hind and looking ahead.”
Sure enough Chris walked in a perfect circle with the wheel barrow just by stepping with his inside leg. Similarly Chris demonstrated that if you are to simply pull on the inside rein, the circle will not be executed as smoothly and correctly.
As the horses worked around the arena, Chris continued to divulge some more of his extensive knowledge. “The rise phase of the trot motivates the horse, the sit phase of the trot is the one where you would maybe slow the horse down if he is running,” he explained. “The trot is the one pace which we can make a lot of difference through training.”
“It is the riders responsibility to start the movement and for the horse to continue it”
Once the young horses progressed to cantering, Chris focused on the contact. “A lot of the problems that you see on the cross country course boil down to non acceptance of the contact. The horse is chucking their head around and not concentrating on the test.” This is also a problem within the show jumping phase. “Hind leg mistakes come about because of tightness in the back because the horse is not working over the back, they may be a little bit frightened of the contact for whatever reason.”
Before finishing with a stretching and relaxing phase at the end of the session, the young horses worked over some simple cavalettis. “Try only to feel the rhythm rather than look for the stride,” he encouraged. Riders had to pretend that they ‘had a glass of water on their head,’ keeping the upper body very still. “I want dressage to go on within the jumping.”
“Without riding accurately in our training work, we cannot expect to ride accurately in our test”
The second session covered Novice and 1* horses, with Rob Barker and Jessica Williams taking part as the demonstration riders. With the horses entering the arena already warmed up, Chris had the combinations jump straight into some canter exercises. This involved canter to walk transitions on a small circle and turns around the haunches within walk. This brought the horses back and encouraged them to take the weight on their hind legs.
After this the combinations worked on a type of figure of eight exercise over two small fences. After landing and turning a circle one way, the riders would jump another fence placed at an angle next to it, jump and circle the other way. This helped riders generate a good rhythm, reduce the tempo and encouraged the horse to land on the correct lead.
“When you have a problem with the horse landing on the wrong lead it is usually because you have not used enough inside leg on the turn,” Chris explained. The exercise can also be used to help slow down a horse if they run after a fence.
As the final session of advanced horses came in to the arena, Chris took the time to discuss where he thinks the sport of eventing could be heading. “There is discussion at the moment within the sport about how much further it can go.” Ideas of half pirouettes in canter, serious changes including flying changes every four strides have been thrown around. “The question is: what is the relevance to eventing?” Chris argued.
“In my opinion, if we think about canter pirouettes which is a very extreme collection, it is a very sustained collection whereas the event horse needs to be able to collect but not necessarily to hold it there for so long.” This is different to flying changes. “There is not such a degree of collection required for flying changes but whether serious changes are relevant to eventing is an interesting one.” Chris can see the benefits of introducing serious changes to top level eventing, particularly when it comes to training his riders. “If I start training them in serious changes they get much better at keeping a horse on the line and that of course is very relevant to riding corners and skinnies.”
With this in mind, Chris had Helen West and Laura Collett work through some flying changes on their experienced horses. “Don’t twist your body towards the flying change,” he instructed. “It’s got to come through your hips in the end and not through your shoulders.”
Combinations also worked on shoulder in and travers. “All this work in the shoulder in is the first step to collection, that’s why it comes in at the 3* level,” he said. “Travers and half-pass are effectively the same movement, just ridden on a different line.”
After they had worked on the flat, Laura and Helen began working over some more technical cross country like fences that were made with show jumps. By jumping oxers to corners and oxers to skinnies as well as angled fences, Chris finished off the demonstration by providing some insightful cross country knowledge. “You don’t want to be throwing your body forward when you then have turn to a skinny,” he encouraged. “The higher you keep your eye, the more still you keep your upper body.”
Click here to hear our recent interview with Chris Bartle
Article and photos by Emily Penney
