Throughout her recent trip down under, Mary King won the hearts of Australian equine enthusiasts as she shared her knowledge over four days of Melbourne’s Equitana. Her daily ‘Training for Eventing’ classes were extremely popular and audiences had to get in quick to secure a seat or they were left standing amongst a great crowd around the arena.
Hold those wine glasses Mary
Over the course of an hour, Mary focused on two exercises whilst emphasizing the importance of maintaining a good seat and steady hands. “Look down and see what your hands are doing, check they are behaving themselves and doing what they should do,” she said to a laughing audience. Mary came out with some great one liners that apart from reflecting how human and approachable she is, truly had a message. “Pretend you’ve got a glass of wine in each hand, the last thing you want to do is to lose your wine.” Now that’s an analogy I can get my head around!
Good hands Edith Kane!
The first exercise had riders working over two canter poles on a circle. At first this exercise may seem simple, but Mary ensured that it helps when it comes to jumping a round. “You might think it’s quite easy cantering over a pole but it’s not, it’s quite difficult,” she said. Emphasis was placed on making the horse relaxed over the pole and comfortable in the exercise. “The pole is to be just included in the canter stride.”
Katja Weimann finds the perfect canter stride through the pole exercise
Mary also wanted horses to move forward freely and advised riders to use short sharp kicks to get a reaction. “Kicking the sides constantly can make the horse duller and they’re less likely to move on when you want them,” she explained. “They shouldn’t be like bicycles that you need to keep pedalling to keep going.”
Fiona Hawkes aims for the centre of the pole to keep the size of circle consistent throughout the exercise
Once the horses were working confidently, Mary introduced two more poles so that there were four poles placed evenly on the circle. The aim was to adjust the amount of canter strides between each pole. Sometimes doing four strides between the poles and then shortening the canter and doing just three. It is important to canter over the middle of the pole and not cheat by changing where you jump (shortening or lengthening the circle defeats the purpose of the exercise). “Changing strides helps you be aware of the horses stride pattern and teaches you to be more effective.” It is a very effective exercise that requires little equipment and can be tried at home and adapted for all levels of ability.
