![\"olivia-over-fence3\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/olivia-over-fence3.jpg\")
Words by Chris Hector and photos by Roz Neave<\/h3>\nWords by Chris Hector and photos by Roz Neave<\/h3>\nOlivia Dawson-Grove arrived for her lesson with Vicki Roycroft with a real baby, Honky Cat – just five years old, and just starting out.<\/strong><\/p>\n Aside from the general greenness of her\u00a0horse, Olivia confessed to having a\u00a0tendency to desert her horse in front of\u00a0the jump: “I tend to drop my shoulders in\u00a0front of a fence, instead of riding them into my hand I desert them when I don’t see a stride.”<\/p>\n It’s a good analysis according to\u00a0the teacher, Vicki Roycroft –\u00a0but in truth there is no one\u00a0stride to see. “The question\u00a0is, which distance do you\u00a0want? Up to a metre, metre\u00a0twenty, there are five or six\u00a0distances that can work,\u00a0three lovely ones, and\u00a0two that will still\u00a0work. The problem\u00a0is not the\u00a0distance but the\u00a0quality of the\u00a0canter.”<\/p>\n “What you have\u00a0to work on is the\u00a0quality of the\u00a0approach, and the \u00a0quality of the depart, that’s the main thing.\u00a0Come and go in a beautiful balance. That is\u00a0the difference between ‘pure’ dressage and\u00a0showjumping dressage. Pure dressage is\u00a0always on the same size, same shaped\u00a0arena whereas we are always working in\u00a0different areas, our reactions have to be\u00a0that much quicker.”<\/p>\n And showjumping dressage moves along\u00a0very similar lines to every other sort of\u00a0dressage…<\/p>\n “The first priority is that the horse moves\u00a0away from your leg. He can’t accept your\u00a0hand until he accepts your leg.\u00a0First we want to get him going\u00a0forward, nicely reacting to\u00a0your leg, then<\/em> try and get\u00a0him better into hand.” So they worked on a few\u00a0circles, a few transitions, and\u00a0then started work over a\u00a0single pole on the ground…<\/p>\n “What we are working on is a straight approach. Let his nose come out a bit because you need him to be able\u00a0to\u00a0see the fence, let him\u00a0look and figure\u00a0out what he is\u00a0doing. When you\u00a0are working him\u00a0away from the\u00a0pole, change pace all\u00a0the time. I am not an even pace person, a jumper has to be\u00a0reactive. You think forward and he goes,\u00a0think back, and he waits. It is a little bit\u00a0hard for you to make him wait at this stage\u00a0because he has the tendency to suck back\u00a0on the bit.”<\/p>\n We move on to the cross bar, but the\u00a0message is much the same:<\/p>\n “Eyes up, straight approach, straight depart,\u00a0look at the fence, look at the line. When\u00a0you land keep the canter forward, then half\u00a0halt in the corner. When you land you tend\u00a0to sit up into him. When he jumps you\u00a0have this glorious big canter – try to keep\u00a0that a little longer. Sure get your eyes up\u00a0but keep that lovely canter, and use the\u00a0corner to half halt and shorten him.”<\/p>\n “When you come in off that right corner,\u00a0he is dropping his shoulder and drifting\u00a0in … ”<\/p>\n And of course, Ms Roycroft can’t resist the\u00a0temptation to have a sit. Once aboard her\u00a0first exercise is to really get the horse\u00a0round her inside leg, and giving to the hand:<\/p>\n “Any horse has to love your hand, has to\u00a0accept your hand. It is far more natural\u00a0for a horse to move off the inside leg. It is\u00a0far harder for him to understand the\u00a0outside leg, while still keeping the inside\u00a0bend.”<\/p>\n “He’s like any young horse, when you\u00a0make a half halt, he wants to dive on to\u00a0his front end – that’s normal.”<\/p>\n And when he pokes out a rail, Vicki is not\u00a0too concerned. “That’s good if he wants\u00a0to make a mistake – that’s the only way\u00a0they learn. Obviously he gets a bit uptight\u00a0with a different rider on his back, and that\u00a0is where you have to slow things down.\u00a0With Warmbloods you have to sharpen\u00a0them up, with Thoroughbreds, you have\u00a0to slow things down. Franz Mairinger\u00a0always said that the art of riding was to\u00a0ride your pace, your direction, your line –\u00a0and that is most important in our game\u00a0because of the tracks we have to jump.\u00a0Especially with young horses, I like lots of\u00a0straight lines. Don’t let the horse decide\u00a0when to make turns. When you are\u00a0landing don’t try to force him to land on\u00a0one leg or the other, ride a nice straight\u00a0line, then turn.”<\/p>\n What is important in that last turn to the\u00a0fence?<\/em><\/p>\n “Eyes”, says Olivia<\/p>\n After eyes, the next thing?<\/em><\/p>\n “Half halt.”<\/p>\n Vicki agrees: “You are balancing the\u00a0horse. The half halt is not something\u00a0mysterious, you don’t have to follow a\u00a0set of rules, as long as you get the result.\u00a0With a young horse you may have to use\u00a0legs, seat, hands, with an educated horse, just your seat. With a\u00a0jumping horse you do\u00a0zillions of half halts.” “Use your corners to\u00a0help your half halts.\u00a0You need to slow down\u00a0enough going into the\u00a0corner to be able to\u00a0come out with a bit of\u00a0power. Ride out of that\u00a0corner with outside leg\u00a0and outside rein. It’s\u00a0amazing how many\u00a0riders don’t think about\u00a0corners – they just ride\u00a0on the steering wheel,\u00a0with their hands. Less\u00a0hands, stiller hands,\u00a0more riding with your\u00a0leg but that doesn’t mean the horse\u00a0doesn’t have to be submissive to the\u00a0hands – but don’t try to drag the horse in,\u00a0bend him and hold the bend, make him\u00a0submissive that way. George Morris in a\u00a0recent article in Chronicle of the Horse<\/em>,\u00a0talks about people always saying give and\u00a0take, when it is really take and give.”<\/p>\n “What part of the body do the legs\u00a0control? The hindquarters, later they\u00a0influence the shoulders. The hands\u00a0influence the head and neck. You must be\u00a0able to separate the three parts of the horse’s body, and you must be able to \u00a0bend his neck without the horse turning.”<\/p>\n And the horse was not neglected:\u00a0“With a horse like this who is a bit dangly\u00a0in front, work with a biggish ground line,\u00a0give him time to get his knees up. Once\u00a0we start to canter, then we have a whole\u00a0new set of criteria. You’ve got to be\u00a0careful with this horse, on most distances\u00a0he tends to get in a little deep – and when\u00a0we are schooling we usually want them to\u00a0get deep, but with him, we want him to\u00a0jump from a little further away, that is\u00a0going to encourage him to bring his\u00a0wither and shoulder up more. Don’t drag him in too deep every time.”<\/p>\n “Ninety percent of jumping is flat work.\u00a0Riding fences with this guy is a bit tricky\u00a0because the canter is still a bit strung\u00a0out.” And the rider is still under stern\u00a0scrutiny…<\/p>\n “Don’t lean forward and flap your\u00a0elbows, Think more upper body than\u00a0hands to make him wait, don’t help him\u00a0with your hands too much, let him make\u00a0a mistake. It’s hard because you don’t\u00a0want him to jump totally over his front\u00a0end. Stay in the middle of the horse, even\u00a0if you have to stay back to correct him. In\u00a0the ring by all means give him that little\u00a0support off the ground, but when you are\u00a0schooling, let him find his own way.”<\/p>\n By now, little Honky had had enough, time to put him away, time to reflect on\u00a0the lesson. For Olivia, time to analyse…<\/p>\n “What did I get out of the lesson?\u00a0Keeping him connected in the canter, not\u00a0letting him fall off my leg, using lots of\u00a0inside leg to get him bending and\u00a0listening. He is still very young and green,\u00a0so the lesson was what I expected in a\u00a0way. I’ve never seen anyone else ride\u00a0him, so it was good to see Vicki on him,\u00a0and get her opinion. She reinforced\u00a0everything that I need to do with him,\u00a0which is good. She also worked a bit on\u00a0my position which is what I really need\u00a0to be doing now.”<\/p>\n You have been riding showjumping horses\u00a0for a couple of years now – before that it\u00a0was eventers, why the swap?<\/em><\/p>\n “Eventing gets a bit scary when the jumps\u00a0get bigger and they don’t move. They\u00a0don’t fall down – horses and riders seems\u00a0to fall easier than the jumps do… I had a\u00a0horse that was showjumping quite well,\u00a0and the people I was involved with were\u00a0more into showjumping.”<\/p>\n “I prefer showjumping now, I wouldn’t\u00a0ever think about going back to eventing. I\u00a0like the skill involved. Some people look\u00a0at showjumping and think it is easy, but\u00a0it’s not, just the skill involved to get them\u00a0jumping round that course of ten or\u00a0twelve jumps, to get them through the\u00a0start flags and the finish flags, properly.\u00a0People don’t realise how much flatwork\u00a0is involved, but there’s heaps, once you\u00a0get the flatwork going, they seem to jump well.” How many horses have you got in work?<\/em><\/p>\n “I’ve just got three – this one is the only\u00a0one in work right now, the other two\u00a0are on holidays, so that makes it easy. He\u00a0was just broken in four weeks when I got\u00a0him at the end of 1999. He’s by Majestic\u00a0Supreme. He was a little bit difficult to\u00a0begin with, but now he has really started\u00a0to come to the party, he is starting to\u00a0listen and behave himself a bit more. But\u00a0I suppose it is like any young horse, they\u00a0always play up a little bit. He’s the first\u00a0horse I’ve had that I’ve started out just\u00a0broken and taken up to competition\u00a0stage. Everything the horse does, if it is\u00a0right or wrong, I can only blame myself…\u00a0any credit is mine alone, but if it goes\u00a0wrong, then it’s my fault as well. It is a\u00a0good feeling to be able to do it all\u00a0yourself.”<\/p>\n Vicki sums it up:<\/strong><\/p>\n “That lesson wasn’t exactly how I expected it. I thought we might be dealing with a horse with distance problems but her biggest problem was\u00a0working with a young horse. It was a little\u00a0hard to deal with Olivia because the horse\u00a0is a very green five-year-old. Very sweet,\u00a0but I couldn’t do a lot with her problems.\u00a0Her biggest problem was getting the\u00a0canter, but it is not something you do in a\u00a0great big rush because it is only a baby.\u00a0We did things like try to improve the\u00a0canter\/trot transitions.”<\/p>\n “Okay Olivia tips her body,\u00a0which is a fault she is aware of. More\u00a0important is to make her aware of her\u00a0aids, and the use of her aids. That’s the\u00a0biggest thing I find with all riders. They\u00a0have very little perception of the aids,\u00a0which are the most influential aids. They\u00a0have problems with basic things, like how\u00a0to turn a corner.”<\/p>\n “I watch Wayne teach someone, and he\u00a0says ‘do a shoulder-in’. Okay they do a\u00a0passable shoulder-in, but I say to him do\u00a0they really know how to do a shoulder-in.\u00a0If you ask them, half the time they can’t tell\u00a0you how they did it. ”<\/p>\n “Often then I will say to them ‘how do you\u00a0turn a corner’. Especially when turning\u00a0corners is so important for jumping riders\u00a0– for jumping you need balanced corners.\u00a0Many of those things we do instinctively\u00a0but it is so much better if it is clear in your\u00a0own mind. That’s why teaching is a very\u00a0good thing for any rider, because you have\u00a0to have things clear in your mind – if you\u00a0can be clear to a student, you can be clear\u00a0to a horse. Our communication with\u00a0horses is so poor, and because they are\u00a0not bright, that unless you make it\u00a0extremely clear to them, you will have real \u00a0problems – horses are wonderful\u00a0characters but they are not intellectually\u00a0bright. I want any of my riders to know\u00a0why they do things, why they put their leg\u00a0on now, why they have their heels down.”<\/p>\n This is incredible though – we had Bill\u00a0Steinkraus come to Australia almost twenty\u00a0years ago and say that what happened over\u00a0the jump wasn’t important it was how you got\u00a0from one jump to the next, we’ve had George\u00a0Morris here a dozen times, you have always\u00a0taught like this, as have most of our top\u00a0rider\/trainers…<\/em><\/p>\n “We all teach much the same but I find the\u00a0greatest difficulty is in the perception of\u00a0how we do it. The easy way out is to let\u00a0the horse get a bit sloppy through the\u00a0corner because it is a bit too hard to teach\u00a0the horse to leg yield, to stay on\u00a0inside\/outside leg. The horse doesn’t like\u00a0it, so the rider gives up. Unless they are in\u00a0a situation where they are under a lot of\u00a0supervision, the riders just don’t do things\u00a0correctly because it is ‘too hard’. They\u00a0become scared when they get resistance,\u00a0and in a lot of cases with Thoroughbred\u00a0horses they get quite resistant, they get\u00a0silly and upset, and the first thing the rider\u00a0thinks is that they have done something\u00a0wrong. Of course the horse is going to\u00a0resist when he doesn’t want to do\u00a0something, that is natural – the rider has to\u00a0figure out the best way through that\u00a0resistance.”<\/p>\n But what has to happen before riders realise\u00a0that these basic sorts of things are important?<\/em><\/p>\n “I think being a little more aware of it. It is\u00a0hard in this country where you see the\u00a0success of a rider who has come up\u00a0through the old school – like Ronnie Easey,\u00a0although Ronnie has embraced the ideas of\u00a0Alexa Bell and works very hard with Chris\u00a0Chugg, but it is very hard to get rid of old\u00a0habits, and he is also very competitive. And\u00a0then because a top rider like Ronnie – who\u00a0after all has just taken an eight year old to\u00a0the Olympics – is unorthodox, so a lot of\u00a0people think you don’t have to be\u00a0orthodox to win. Which is true in\u00a0Australia, our standard is not so fantastic\u00a0and you can get away with being a little\u00a0unorthodox.”<\/p>\n This article first appeared in the February 2001 issue of THM.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Olivia Dawson-Grove arrived for her lesson with Vicki Roycroft with a real baby, Honky Cat – just five years old, and just starting out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28909,"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":[647,67,452],"class_list":["post-28904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-show-jumping","tag-jumping","tag-showjumping","tag-vicki-roycroft"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904","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=28904"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32136,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904\/revisions\/32136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"vicki-port\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/vicki-port.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"olivia-pole\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/olivia-pole.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"olivia-approach\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/olivia-approach.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"MoreOlivia\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/MoreOlivia.jpg\")
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