{"id":15078,"date":"2019-07-09T15:20:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T05:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=15078"},"modified":"2019-07-12T13:54:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T03:54:05","slug":"jump-by-jump-with-george-sanna-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2019\/07\/jump-by-jump-with-george-sanna-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Jump by Jump with George Sanna – Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Missed part one? It\u2019s here<\/a>. Part two is here<\/a>\u00a0Part three is here<\/a><\/p>\n

This month, George Sanna applies himself to what is often the most exciting jump in any course \u2013 the Water\u2026<\/h2>\n

\u201cLiverpools are really in themselves distractions, they are not jumps that in themselves \u2013 like verticals or oxers \u2013 need to be ridden in a certain way. Liverpools either have a vertical in front of them, or they have a vertical on the back side of them \u2013 or they go under an oxer. If the horse is absolutely unconcerned by the water element, then you don\u2019t need to ride that jump any differently from any other oxer or vertical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut some horses have a natural aversion to the look of the water. Liverpools get some horses looking down \u2013 or sometimes horses absolutely refuse to go near the jump. Even the horses that are normally pretty good with water, it gets them looking down and being distracted, so they are more likely to have a fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you ride a metre thirty vertical there is a certain ride that is ideal for that jump. You put a Liverpool underneath it, if you are riding a very very confident horse that has seen a million Liverpools and doesn\u2019t give a toss about them, you just ride it the same as any metre thirty vertical. But if you are riding a horse with a severe aversion to water, you\u2019ve got to have way way way more forwardness, connection, activity, power, strength \u2013 everything. You can\u2019t just come with a sweet soft ride and expect him to jump the jump. At best he is going to hesitate off the ground and at worst he is going to stop five strides away and spin around and run in the other direction. Then, of course, the stronger ride, which is not the appropriate ride for a metre thirty vertical will end up getting you to the other side of the jump, but you might have it down in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What causes that severe reaction to water \u2013 bad training, bad riding, genetics?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn some cases bad training. If you go to a show and your horse has never seen a Liverpool before, then that is bad training. Your horse gets scared, crashes through it, and develops an issue with Liverpools \u2013 that is clearly bad training. It is your job to make sure he is familiar with all the obstacles he is going to see at a show in a training situation, otherwise you are not properly prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHorses when they first start will jump a rustic pole, I\u2019m talking about a cautious, careful horse, he\u2019ll pop over a rustic pole, he might look a bit more at a painted pole. You put a plank underneath that, and he is already looking a bit \u2013 he pops it a few times, and he gets comfortable. Then the first wall he sees, or the first gate that he sees, each time you work through it. And some horses find some things more spooky than others. And some horses are much spookier than others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou set up Liverpools at home, and you jump them, and you jump them, and you jump them, until your horse realises that there is really nothing about them that is scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about if you get a horse that is really aversive \u2013 I think you had that with Cadbury didn\u2019t you?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOpen water, that was his issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"EmilyLiverpool2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u2019s the deal with open water?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMost horses have an initial fear of the Liverpool concept \u2013 whether it has water in it or not, just a big blue thing under the jump \u2013 I don\u2019t think the water actually adds or subtracts a whole lot to it, apart from a little shimmer occasionally if they are really looking for something that might add to it. It\u2019s just that big blue thing that is scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith open water it\u2019s again a matter of the canter, it has no height element, it only has a spread element and so your canter has to have a lot of ground speed and length \u2013 you need to meet it ideally on an ascending stride and get as close as you can to the front of it. When I say close as you can, not in a way that the last stride totally interrupts the horse\u2019s forward movement, but on an ascending stride right up to the base of the little wall or brush or whatever they have there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally the horse is on an increasing stride, jumping out \u2013 whereas our ideal vertical ride, will be on a slightly decreasing stride. The ideal ride to the vertical is to slightly compress to it, the oxer is pretty even, slightly forward maybe but to a deeper distance, and to the open water, for sure that should be a moving up stride.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Is it a problem of access, that people in Australia don\u2019t get to ride over open water all that often?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSure, I think a lot of horses, the first time they see open water is at a show. The professional riders don\u2019t do that – but there is certainly plenty that do, and it becomes the beginning of a lifetime of bad water jumping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing with jumping any jump, is that you have got to come through the turn to that jump with pretty much the pace that you want to jump that jump from. So that if your distance ends up being a waiting distance, you are not far above your ideal pace \u2013 and if your distance ends up being a moving up distance, again you are not far below the ideal pace for that jump \u2013 and if your distance is pretty much good, then that is perfect. So when we talk about the ideal pace, as we did with verticals and oxers, if we have exactly the right pace through the turn, that allows us to slow that pace a little for a shorter distance, or to move it up a bit for a longer distance, and still be in a comfortable zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we come to any jump mathematically we have one of three alternatives, either the distance comes up a little short, or a little long, or about right. If we come too forward through the turn to a vertical and we only see a forward distance, then we are going to knock it down because we are already at the top end of the ideal range, and then we increase from that \u2013 the horse is going to get long and flat. Accordingly if we come through the turn to the oxer and we are too slow, and we see only a waiting distance \u2013 then the horse loses power, loses his forwardness, and he is likely to get up in the air and land on the back rail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith water that is equally the case. \u201cWe need to come through the turn with the pace we want to jump the water, because it is possible that even though we are desperately wanting to catch a forward distance, it just might not be the distance that is there. We\u2019ve got to have enough early pace, that if we take a little off the pace, we\u2019ve still got the pace to get to the back rail. So early pace is critical.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Can horses get so aversive to a particular form of jump, that you get to the point of no return?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHorses can develop a phobia about water jumps and to a lesser extent Liverpools. I\u2019ve seen it with walls with horses that have been Puissanced \u2013 they were brave, they went up to a metre eighty, two metres, whatever, and eventually they\u2019ve chucked it in, or crashed through it. I\u2019ve seen horses in that situation take a strong aversion to a wall, and they won\u2019t even come back to Table A and jump a metre fifty wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wall is something that is very recognizable, and if the horse is aversive to it, he\u2019ll spot it. I have seen horses, that are very confident brave jumpers, that have been through an unpleasant Puissance experience, and they chuck it in at walls. Certainly Liverpools and open waters, are similarly recognizable \u2013 especially the open water. There are probably four or five horses competing at Grand Prix level in Australia, that you can guarantee if you build a course with an open water in it, they are not going to jump it \u2013 and yet they are highly competitive in every other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Have you had horses that you could never get their confidence over a particular obstacle again?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had one Grand Prix horse who had a water issue, that I didn\u2019t give up on but he was never entirely right. We sort of got to a stage where he might jump it, that was as good as we got. But he went from a situation where he absolutely wouldn\u2019t jump it, so I guess there was progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you do that?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cTotal persistence. Thorough thorough thorough preparation \u2013 every time I went into the ring with him when there was a water jump, I snuck off to the back of the showgrounds, behind the stables, somewhere, put a tarpaulin out, a plastic sheet \u2013 walked him over it, stood him on it. That I found was probably the best preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flogging them is not the answer?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNot with this horse, it was totally counter productive. He would stop thirty strides away if you pulled the baton. The only way to get him to jump it was to canter down to it like you were cantering to a metre thirty vertical. Soon as you pressured him, clucked him, moved him up, he immediately sucked back and wouldn\u2019t go. There was a chance if you just cantered down to it and he had a nice preparation, there was just a chance he might jump it. It was pretty un-nerving in the big Grand Prix to deal with that, but in every other respect he was just a fantastic horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe other aspect of the water jump is, apart from the jump itself, because really the jump itself is not such a big deal, if the horse is confident to go to it, the major issue is clearing the back line. We\u2019ve only talked about one aspect of the water, where the horse might have an aversion to it. Most horses are prepared to jump it, but they may not get to the tape and they\u2019ll have four faults. That can be a very frustrating issue because some horses not only don\u2019t have an aversion to water, they don\u2019t give a rat\u2019s arse about it. They have landed in one or two, they know it is not very deep, and they don\u2019t really make much of an effort.\u201d
\n\u201cIf you have that problem, when you school over open water, you school with a rail half way along \u2013 maybe a metre high. You want the horse to leave the ground with purpose and momentum, then he is going to make it to the other side. But if he is weak when he leaves the ground and is looking, then he\u2019ll probably jump in it, or if he doesn\u2019t bother jumping up high, and he just jumps out a little bit but he\u2019s not really concerned about it, then chances are he\u2019ll fault every time. They have got to have sufficient respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"EmilyOpenWater\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI sometimes wonder if open water really tests what a showjumper is about because I\u2019ve seen wonderful jumpers who just don\u2019t give a toss about water and they never win the major championships because they are the classes that have the water. As a result people try all sorts of fairly ruthless things for those horses that don\u2019t make much of an effort to jump water because they know it is not going to hurt them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously training with a rail over the top encourages the horse to jump up higher, and you are going to hope that when he gets to the next water jump he is going to think of jumping high. At the same time jumping a metre fifty doesn\u2019t necessarily make the horse jump a metre twenty any better. When it is a metre fifty he jumps a metre fifty, when it is a metre twenty he just jumps a metre twenty as well. I\u2019m not sure the rail over the water works, in my experience they jump it high when the rail is there and they jump it low when the rail is not, but you hope it will encourage them to jump out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen just as people try to get horses more careful jumping over poles by active or passive rapping, they might try to get the horse tuned to water \u2013 I\u2019ve heard of all sorts of things, like fishing line stretched over the jump \u2013 the horse can\u2019t see it but if he jumps a little low he is going to twang the fishing line. I don\u2019t think that hurts them, it doesn\u2019t tip them over, it is just a little surprise, and it may just make him think, \u2018what was that?\u2019 and jump a little higher the next time. Technically, it is against the rules, but as a training method I would favour that in front of the other method I\u2019ve heard of \u2013 where people put petrol over the water and throw a match as the horse is leaving the ground! I haven\u2019t seen it, it might be an urban myth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I have seen people dig deep holes and put the old timber fruit boxes in the hole, and the rubber on top of that, so if the horse jumps in it is going to collapse under him and give him a fright. I\u2019ve seen one very famous, old Australian showjumping rider throw his groom on a very frustrating horse \u2013 it was the best horse in the country by a street but it would jump into the water every time \u2013 he was a bit of a lateral thinker and he got a big rubber sheet as the water jump, and he tied it with a wire rope to the tow bar of his truck, and he had the groom cantering in, he was looking out the window of his truck, and as the horse left the ground, he drove off, so as it landed the sheet was moving and it pulled the rubber out from below him. I\u2019ve seen some interesting things getting horses to jump water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you are doing when you do that sort of thing is playing the balance of caution and confidence, which is what professional riders do all the time. Fine tuning the balance of caution and confidence\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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Next \u00a0we look at combinations\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liverpools are really in themselves distractions, they are not jumps that in themselves \u2013 like verticals or oxers \u2013 need to be ridden in a certain way…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[518,77],"class_list":["post-15078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-show-jumping","tag-george-sanna","tag-showjumping-training"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15078"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46366,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078\/revisions\/46366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}