Every horse tackles the job we have planned for them differently, however every success story has the same vital ingredient - the competitive horse is brave enough to take up the challenge, but remains careful enough to not knock the fences down.
Not all horses come with this perfect mix of courage and carefulness. In fact, when they are taking those first few steps along the path to greatness, the majority of success stories begin being a bit too careful.
This careful aspect of the horse's character must be protected and nurtured so the horse can become a confident individual, willing to take on the challenges course builders dream up.
The points that I am going to discuss will have a large impact on how well your young horse negotiates the challenges of his first year of competition.
For the very careful and timid horse to be able to complete a course without problems, the rider must be effective.
The horse needs to respond to the rider. The voice, leg and stick should be used, and strongly enough to have the desired effect of maintaining impulsion.
The most common fault at the problem fences is that as the careful horse approaches the fence, he starts to lose impulsion. As a result, the jump is usually awkward, and if this particular problem fence happens to be an oxer, then sometimes the horse lands heavily on the back rail. You are but a breath away from a stop - usually more than one and followed by elimination.
When this happens, the rider has not been effective enough at maintaining impulsion and the horse has not had enough exposure in training to that type of fence. He has been thrown in the deep end. There are many talented horses that are catastrophically wasted at this stage of their development.
Until the rider is effective enough to be able to maintain the horse's impulsion, then jumping should kept at a very low level, until the rider's aids become strong and co-ordinated.
At this stage I will assume that the rider is effective. The aids are strong and well established, the use of the voice, leg and stick behind the leg, come as second nature. The combination should be capable of maintaining collection in the canter - galloping at frightening fences serves very little purpose.
Developing Confidence at the Single Problem Fence
Confidence over any fence or series of fences develops with exposure to that fence.
If for example your problem fence is an oxer with a full wall as filling, you should start your training, by making the fence as a vertical. The fill should be parted.
This exercise is designed to stop the run out and allow full use of aids.
The placement of the guide poles allows you to be able to use the stick without the horse running past the fence - avoiding an argument with the horse's mouth.
The approach to the jump should be in a strong, well established, collected canter.
Once the horse is happy jumping the fence with the fill parted, join the fill and again jump it in combination with a few other easy fences till the horse's confidence level has been developed.
Development of the confidence to tackle the oxer can now begin.
CHECK LIST
*Make the oxer very narrow and rising, so the front rail is lower than the back.
*Keep jumping the obstacle until the horse is content and confident.
*If the horse hangs up in the air, or stalls in the jump - the stick should be used behind your leg.
If the horse's lack of confidence is only mild, a cluck supported by the leg should be enough but the moment the stall commences, so should the stick!
The oxer can be made wider and jumped in combination with other fences using as much different fill as possible.
This style of exercise will have to be repeated over many months - depending on how timid the horse is, and how effective the rider is.
In Victoria, the use of freshman's jumping as an aid to getting some mileage before you embark on your first Maiden D grade is a crucial part of you - and your horse's - development.
Your horse should be able to jump a series of fences, all with fill, without losing confidence Analyse your problem fence - or fences. Find out what it is that your horse is frightened to jump, and practise over that bogey fence regularly until it is no longer a problem fence - then and only then, can the level of difficulty be increased.
I generally find that careful horses have problems with solid loud coloured fill - but I also find that with repeated correct exposure to this sort of fill, you can solve the problems.
Getting used to combinations
Once you have exposed your horse to enough single fences with the widest possible variety of fill, and given him a positive ride (by using leg, stick and voice) you must now go through the same education process with combinations of fences.
I often build a placement fence which gives the horse an even, powerful canter to the series of fences.
For both single fences and combinations, filling should be introduced when the fence is a vertical and not a spread - again part the filling to commence with. If you start off with oxers you run the risk of the horse being hung up on the back rail because his timid nature has not allowed him to be bold enough - and the rider has not had the ability to ride the horse forward strongly enough to get over the back rail.
In Europe this year, there were quick release cups, which allowed the back rail to fall quickly if more than a 20 kg weight was applied to them. This is another move to try and preserve the horses' confidence, and for the timid younger horses, this is crucial to their development.
(Melbourne Royal Show did something similar 20 years ago when they used wooden pegs - who says every change is for the better?)
Build this combination small with the spread reduced to a very narrow rising spread. Build a small placement fence, two strides in front of part A of the combination.
Introduce the fill as the horse becomes more confident. Increase the size of the spreads once the horse has become accustomed to the new fill.
Again, repeated exposure and a variety of combinations should cure your problems.
Once your horse will go through a combination with fill under small oxers, and do this at one and two stride distances, the guide poles can be removed.
The horse is confident when he is not overjumping and scaring himself, and possibly you, in the process.
Now practice over a full course with single fences and combinations - move the fill from fence to fence. When this exposure is complete your horse will think freshman's is just a stroll in the park.
Unfortunately there are no shortcuts. You must get off - move the fill, alter the fences and train at an increasing level of difficulty.
If your learning curve is too steep, your horse will soon let you know - rememberer those crashes and stops add up, and not many horses have a totally generous nature which allows them to keep on giving it a try.
There are no shortcuts in a horse's education and this style of exposure takes time, But in the end, the trusting horse/rider relationship is your goal.
Training the Liverpool
Over the last decade the liverpool has been used with increasing frequency. Most of our more experienced horses are very good at this style of fence and many trainers have a liverpool and a ditch as part of the training set up. This year in Europe, all the Aussie horses jumped these fences extra well, with Zaphod in fact winning the Derby in Norway over a course that contained numerous nature fences.
A liverpool should never be met for the first on course especially with your timid and careful young horse. You must train over this fence at home, or with your instructor.
The ideal way to get started is with shade cloth or blue tarp. I prefer shade cloth as it is easier to move, and has less sound if a horse steps on it.
Firstly set up your shade cloth on the ground, between two wings using guide poles.
Jump this until confident.
Again the effective rider will determine how quickly your horse completes and accepts this as part of his jumping routine.
This should be done every two or three days in the last month leading up to your debut freshman's.
At most small freshman's the rail can be removed from the liverpool at your request.
Once your horse has jumped a number of freshman courses with liverpools included, you should be ready for your first Maiden D Grade.
Most course designers of any quality build the liverpool towards the in gate and only have it as a vertical.
An oxer over the liverpool is best left till the graduation to C grade and that's another story!
We would also like to thank Sicca and Dirk Dijkstra, whose imported stallion, Inspiration we used as a model in these photographs.
The first fence to begin to build confidence should be built like thisThe stick should be used behind the leg and is a valuable aid.As your horses confidence grows so does the difficulty of the fence
One of my favorite horses in the last few years was Wingadee. He was a sixteen hand grey gelding by Copper Glow, who in my opinion was the best son of Souvenir, and who from very limited opportunities produced some great horses - Gilgai and Blazing Bridles to name only a couple.
Wingadee went on to win the NSW Showjumping Council Futurity and the Champion Jumping Horse of Melbourne Show.
However Wingadee tended to over-jump EVERYTHING! The first time he saw a brick wall, it was all I could do to get him near it, let alone over it!!
For Wingadee, the fill had to be added gradually to allow him to develop a high level of trust in the rider.
I used the method I've outlined in this article with him - gradually increasing the difficulty and correspondingly, the level of fill in the jumps. We started with verticals, and then on to oxers, using the guide poles we had made for this horse.
Throughout his career he remained careful, and although not a real World Cup horse, he continually won classes everywhere he went.
Back in those days I didn't have a liverpool at home. However after trying to get him to put five strides down a line to a liverpool at Dapto Indoor, and having Wingadee add another stride (or chip as the Americans say) then falter on takeoff, and land all over the small vertical above the water, I decided that a little more training at home was necessary - especially if such a good careful horse was going to survive.
Competition is no place for training a promising young horse.
Very soon, our home, Wellington Park had a double of inground liverpools dug, and we'd purchased enough shade cloth to make a two metre wide liverpool.
Since those days, all my horses have had the home education and haven't let me down when we've met these obstacles in competition.