{"id":24807,"date":"2015-10-14T12:02:42","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T01:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=24807"},"modified":"2018-02-08T13:58:34","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T02:58:34","slug":"michelle-strapp-talks-about-seeing-a-distance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2015\/10\/michelle-strapp-talks-about-seeing-a-distance\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Strapp talks about seeing a distance\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

You\u2019ll often hear people talk about \u2018seeing a short one\u2019 \u2013 just what do they mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let showjumping coach, Michelle Strapp explain:<\/p>\n

If the horse is travelling down to a fence, and there is what we call an open option where the distance is a little further away, all of a sudden the rider will take hold, and add a stride\u2026 seeing a \u2018short\u2019 distance.<\/p>\n

Generally we don\u2019t like to see short distances \u2013 or do we?<\/em><\/p>\n

There is nothing wrong with a short distance, it depends on how it is produced. So if you end up with a short distance, and your canter matches the short distance, three or four strides out, or six strides out \u2013 then we can call that a short option within your canter \u2013 and there is nothing wrong with it. But if you come in at a twelve foot canter stride and suddenly you end up doing a six foot last canter stride, then the canter is not symmetrical in the last strides, and that is when it is not a good thing.<\/p>\n

We want a shorter stride when we are jumping verticals?<\/em><\/p>\n

Verticals are more often jumped on a shorter stride because a rider finds it easier to balance and elevate a shorter canter so it matches the horse\u2019s peak of its jump which is a lot higher over a tall vertical. The shorter stride could match a shorter distance if you have two verticals with a short stride in between.<\/p>\n

A vertical can also be jumped from a longer stride, for instance, against the clock. However for this to be successful the big canter has to be coming from the back legs not running on the front legs so the horse can get the peak of the jump over the top rail.<\/p>\n

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

A balanced distance<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Riders need the option to ride a fence on a big stride or short stride …… you have a course like the World Cup at Equitana, there was vertical \/ oxer with two short strides in the middle. Because it was 1.50 metre oxer, the horses had to be able to close their canter on a shorter canter yet still have the power to jump the oxer, so that means the quality of your short canter still has the jump in it, and the power in it, and that\u2019s where horses can get into trouble \u2013 because the rider shortens the canter and it is behind the leg – resulting in a weak canter .<\/p>\n

Jeroen Dubbledamm and Zenith show how to tackle a double and become European Champions…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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more follows<\/em><\/p>\n

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And when you take off from a long way away \u2013 that\u2019s the reverse?<\/em><\/p>\n

You could say, it was a long spot, or the horse has \u2018let drive\u2019 from a long distance. Quite often it is because the horses end up with much too much freedom between hand and leg, so the rider\u2019s connection between hand and leg has such a big gap, that the horse\u2019s natural instinct \u2013 when it gets long \u2013 is to see that distance. The horse will either let drive because they have enough speed (rather than power) in that long, floppy canter, or they will \u201cchip\u201d where it is a miss (meaning the rider has mis-judged the take off) \u2013 the rider is a little away and expecting the horse to leave the ground, and at the last minute, the horse will do a little chip stride.<\/p>\n

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

Or a drive with no chip in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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It all comes down to getting an established, even, canter?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sure, the answer is to improve the quality of your canter so the horse is more secure between hand and leg \u2013 so you have more strength between hand and leg, then you have better options for your distances.<\/p>\n

But sometimes people let drive because they are not patient enough to wait for the distance. It\u2019s not only the horse that has a tendency to see that option, the rider may start accelerating because they are not comfortable to wait. A lot of riders aren\u2019t comfortable to wait because they have never ridden in a canter that is good enough to wait.<\/p>\n

Those riders always get what we call the ‘chase’ distance. They chase a horse and then they start to ride a distance with their upper body. They will see a long distance and start throwing their body at that distance\u2026 and then letting drive because they are not confident to wait with their body for the second option.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that a George Morris maxim \u2013 if you see a long distance, wait and a better one will come up?<\/em><\/strong>
\nTake the second option\u2026<\/p>\n

With jumping it\u2019s two opposites: you have to have the horse in front of the leg and forward to see a distance, but also waiting \u2013 you have to feel that your horse is going past you a little bit, that it is taking you to a distance and you have to be patient and wait with your upper body.<\/p>\n

What happens is you teach a rider to get the horse in front of their leg and learn to mentally ride forward to a fence, not to see these wild long ones because they are not willing to be patient and see the next one.<\/p>\n

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Have trust in waiting<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

They are not confident and want to grab whatever they can see \u2013 it\u2019s a bit of a panic eye. \u201cGee, I\u2019ve seen one, thank god, let\u2019s take it.\u201d<\/em> They have to learn to have more trust in waiting, and to start to feel they are containing their canter for the second option, not stopping it.<\/p>\n

What exercises can riders do to get their eye in so they can ride a better distance?<\/em><\/p>\n

I think the most important thing in the beginning, is to get them sitting on a canter that is going to work. Timing is something you develop, you need exercises to get them understanding what a large influence your canter has in seeing a take off spot.<\/p>\n

more on being in the right spot follows<\/em><\/p>\n

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Cantering down to a single fence, I get them to tell me what option the canter produced at the fence every time they land. I just let them come in with the canter they think is good enough to jump the fence and then they start to say, well that canter brought me really long and flat. And you say \u2018exactly\u2019, and give them some flat to change the canter then reapproach and repeat the exercise.\u00a0\u00a0 Then they start to realise \u2013 quite quickly \u2013 that the canter can produce a deeper distance, a longer distance or be so strung out it will produce nothing unless they start to pull it around the last 3 or 4 strides which we do not want… (which could be called breaking the canter or checking to find a distance)<\/p>\n

When they learn to produce a good canter it has to become instinct because on course they can\u2019t be thinking about it. A very good jumping rider is one who can feel the canter eight strides out, it\u2019s just going to produce a distance. The canter feels us if they can open or close it, and the power level stays \u2013 the torque in the canter is really important. I sometimes get riders to canter down, and within that canter actually tell me what their option is, three or four strides out. This helps them read their canter better and with more focus.<\/p>\n

Often riders don\u2019t think about it \u2013 they\u2019ll canter to a fence and they have so many things on their mind, they haven\u2019t thought to read what option the canter can deliver, so they lose focus.<\/p>\n

Australian riders once had a weird concept of \u2018seeing a stride\u2019 which involved lots of interference, bouncing up and down in front of the fence\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Checking was what they called it. A lot of the riders didn\u2019t know how to produce a canter but they understood they needed bounce to see a distance \u2013 it\u2019s like what you see human high jumpers do in the last few strides before a jump, the stride gets more springy.<\/p>\n

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

So some Australian riders figured out that they needed spring to see a spot \u2013 and they took it to the other extreme. They came around the corner, got the revs, and then went bounce, bounce, and the horse felt really springy, and then they picked an option out of that. The problem with the bounce bounce approach is that the horse becomes inverted and unsettled.<\/p>\n

We like to put our horses between leg and hand with a round, over the back, soft outline so you produce a lovely round soft jump off the floor.<\/p>\n

more follows<\/p>\n

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Those riders were putting their horses between leg and hand in a whole different fashion..<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 their way of getting the horses between hand and leg was to bring their heads up high with big bits and use the big spurs, sure they got bounce but it was inverted, the opposite of what we want to do but it created the distance, and it created the jump \u2013 because the jump is the product of your last three strides, always.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t an ideal way of seeing a distance, but those riders had found their own way because there wasn\u2019t anyone coaching who could help. They just found their own way, they had a bit of talent and feel and discovered a way they could find distances.<\/p>\n

I think it was something Bill Steinkraus said when he came to Australia in the early 80\u2019s \u2013 he said, the only way you can ride around this course is because your horse is going from jump to jump, if I took out the jumps you couldn\u2019t ride the line of the course\u2026 he said what was important was how the horse travelled between the jumps, not what happened over them, but very few of the riders of the time related to what he was saying\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

It was only a lack of understanding of what produced a better distance and fence… The flat work training often had no relationship to what they needed to ride a fence. I will always suggest to pupils who first start with me to never do flat without poles. They train in a canter that does not produce a distance and are not yet aware of this. If you give those students a pole to ride on the ground, they start to change the quality of the canter to enable them to source a more consistent distance.<\/p>\n

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Are you more \u2018picky\u2019 now about the quality of canter you will accept?<\/em><\/p>\n

In this industry you never stop learning. It\u2019s like I loved watching the dressage master class at Equitana, because you can never learn too much. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m fussier about the canter but I think my knowledge is greater. I was always an over-perfectionist and my first training was on the flat \u2013 so I always knew that my canter was seriously important. My coaches \u2013 George Sanna, told me that, and Marion Gilchrist who I did flat work with, and then I went on to George Morris, Steinkraus \u2013 I did all their clinics so I was always very aware and I think I was always a bit of a man-made rider. Was I as talented as a Gavin Chester? I don\u2019t think so, but I had a lot of knowledge of how I wanted them to go, it allowed me to produce horses and give them good rides.<\/p>\n

Can you make a canter?<\/em><\/p>\n

It helps your job if they are born with it. I think you can really improve a canter, and I think a lot of the dressage training I did when I stopped jumping for a while, taught me how to improve a canter because I think even before I did that dressage training I realised I was trying to produce canters from the front \u2013 not from behind. If you have a horse with a weak canter and you are able to ride them from the back, and always ride you canter forward to a very good half halt in the front, then you can improve canters. Amy Graham\u2019s Transatlantic had a very weak canter and he travelled short in the neck and not straight. We have improved his canter out of sight, and her feel has improved. You can improve canters by getting them straighter, getting them more from the back, you definitely can improve them.<\/p>\n

How far do you go down that dressage road with your jumping horses \u2013 would you do working canter pirouettes for example to improve the canter?<\/em><\/p>\n

Absolutely. Any of the flat work I do, I wouldn\u2019t judge it as a dressage test movement, so if we do a canter pirouette, we are not so fussy as if we were doing it for a test, but we definitely do training pirouettes. We do that with Charlie (Transatlantic), you won\u2019t stay in it very long because you don\u2019t want to stifle your canter. We spend a lot of time coming into a canter short enough for a canter pirouette, but then getting out of it very quickly.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never ridden Grand Prix dressage but my feeling is that it would be the same training for that, because I think riders can canter too short for too long, and the canters get stifled. A lot of it is always feeling that your horse is always taking you forward \u2013 when you start to do some shorter canter, if that horse is falling behind the leg or the hand, or the rider is having to be too active to drive it \u2013 then it is important that we work back in the canter where the horse is starting to take you.<\/p>\n

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In the right place, Jamie Kermond at the WEG in 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

If you come to a jumping fence you want to be able to wait and if you are waiting on a short canter, the horse has to be in front of your leg. So if you train them in a short canter and all you do is push, and push, and push to keep that short canter, then you can\u2019t wait at a distance because it\u2019s not in front of you.<\/p>\n

You can only wait at a distance if the horse is taking you \u2013 whether you are on a four foot stride, five foot stride or 12 foot stride, it doesn\u2019t matter, the horse has to take you.<\/p>\n

You grew up riding Thoroughbreds off the track, how different is it when you get something like Baloubet Australis, concentrated jumping blood, to play with?<\/em><\/p>\n

His canter is just natural canter, it\u2019s totally different \u2013 more ground covering, but when they ground cover, they have more elevation and suspension \u2013 that\u2019s the biggest thing. That\u2019s why with a Thoroughbred if you canter down a five and a half stride line, and you do it in five, by the time you get to the next fence, you are flat ( with some exceptions). Thoroughbreds have a tendency to lower because they are bred to gallop.<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s just a total luxury to ride horses like Baloubet because you feel when you open up your distance, you are actually getting more off the ground. You think you could gallop at 400 metres a minute to a 1.60 vertical sitting out there, and if you keep the horse balanced, you feel you\u2019ve got the same jump as you have at 250metres a minute. That\u2019s what gets bred into them, the jump and elevation in the canter, it just makes the jump so much easier. To compete at international level now, to make the time around a big track, you have to be moving \u2013 and with the Thoroughbreds, you are having to break the canter to keep the suspension in the stride.<\/p>\n

With these horses that are bred for it, it\u2019s like sitting on a big rocking horse. As long as the horse is very obedient between hand and leg & you can control that power. A horse like Baloubet has got all that power, and if he is not obedient, that power will work against you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not so much seeing a stride, as finding a canter\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Totally, your eye should complement your canter, your eye works within the canter you are riding rather than working the other way around. You don\u2019t have an eye and then fit the canter to your eye \u2013 which is what some riders try to do. It really all comes down, every time, to the quality and control of your canter, get that, and it is easy to find a distance\u2026<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the February 2009 edition of The Horse Magazine<\/p>\n

There are lots more articles with Michelle on this website, like this one:<\/em><\/p>\n

Or to see a directory of all Michelle’s articles, go to her Who’s Who…<\/p>\n

Strapp, Michelle<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n