Gemma's hands were relaxed and giving on the flat but Stuart worked on her 'soft hands' during the jump
Training at home is where the hard work is done. We stopped by Tinney Eventing on our way to cover the Sydney @ SIEC Mid-Week competition late in 2016 and, when we found out that they were about to work a couple of their horses, we asked if we could be a ‘fly on the wall’ during one of their normal work sessions
Gemma's main eventing horse Annapurna, the CCI2* Young Rider winner at the Australian International 3 Day Event, was having a well deserved rest so Gemma is focusing on show jumping until the new season. She rode Medusa (who she introduced to us in a recent video interview) in one of the work sessions with some help from her dad, dual Olympic medallist Stuart Tinney
It was a hot, sultry day at Maraylya near Sydney where Tinney Eventing is based in idyllic surroundings. Working in the large sand jumping arena, Gemma lightly warmed up Medusa on the flat and over cross poles before Stuart put them through their paces, working on the two areas of Gemma's hand position and angling the fence.
Stuart had noticed in the warm up that, although Gemma's hands were relaxed and giving on the flat she was tending to rest them on the crest of the neck over the fence in one position. However Stuart felt that Medusa actually needed to be given more rein; this would enable more neck stretch in the air and on landing to allow her to use her back more and also her hind legs.
He deliberately asked Gemma to slightly loop the reins and follow the mares mouth over the fence and, like all of us, even the Young Rider champion found it hard to immediately change her ride to adapt to Medusa .
Gemma agreed that she was not aware that her release needed to change for this particular horse. But, with repetition and exaggeration of the movement to help ingrain the new feel, Gemma soon started to change her hand position and become more aware of her hand position over the fence. This helped Medusa to put her nose forward and use her back more over the fence and also land more balanced.
“Soft hands during the actual jump are very important” says Stuart
“In this case Gemma had a problem on the landing side of the fence but it can happen at any point of the jumping motion; other riders may encounter the same problem in front of a fence. I don’t necessarily want a loop in the rein while jumping but it is a valuable training tool to help Gemma, or any rider working on developing ‘soft hands’ to help feel the difference”
With the improvement in follow through over and after the fence, Stuart moved on to improving straightness down a line. The six strides down the line between two fences saw Medusa start to drift to the right
“When she is pulling you right on the way to the oxer, what aids do you use?” asks Stuart
“My left rein” responds Gemma but Stuart can detect the use of the right leg and asks Gemma to use a less ‘theatrical’ but more effective rein aid. He also uses the analogy of riding straight down the centre line in a dressage test to help Gemma focus on the straightness of the line between fences
Coming up in Part 2: Straightness and control, especially for narrow fences
