{"id":4376,"date":"2010-11-12T00:51:40","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T00:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=4376"},"modified":"2017-04-10T16:02:04","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T06:02:04","slug":"the-education-of-amy-a-showjumping-clinic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2010\/11\/the-education-of-amy-a-showjumping-clinic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Education of Amy – A Showjumping Clinic Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"A brilliant lesson is one of those magical moments. A moment when the three vital ingredients come together\u2026 Take one talented, well-prepared horse, one intelligent and highly motivated student with equestrian feel, and add a brilliant, involved, enthusiastic and insightful instructor who passionately cares about the craft of riding and sit back and watch the chemistry bubble\u2026<\/p>\n

Amy Graham has been one of the surprise packets on this year\u2019s World Cup Showjumping circuit, bursting onto the scene with her imported Dutch grey gelding, Transatlantic, for a third in the World Cup at Toowoomba (that was only their third WC start!) and a third in the Silver Final at Elysian Fields.<\/p>\n

But Amy doesn\u2019t only have a talented horse, she is wise enough to listen to one of Australia\u2019s finest jumping coaches, Michelle Strapp. Michelle was a Grand Prix competitor herself, and brings to her art of teaching a knowledge of what it is like to be in the competition arena with the adrenalin flowing plus a theoretical base honed by her time with George Sanna and George Morris\u2026<\/p>\n

In the middle of the EI outbreak, with the World Cup circuit abandoned, Amy shifted camp from her home in Arthurton on South Australia\u2019s Yorke Peninsula, to David and Michelle Strapp\u2019s training centre in Victoria\u2019s Beaconsfield.<\/p>\n

Like her mentors, the two Georges, Michelle has a wonderful way of explaining herself, and while recognizing the complexity of the challenges involved, she is also able to break it down into manageable chunks for her student to digest.<\/p>\n

And as with George and George, it all comes down to good work on the flat\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Amy started with me, she had ridden a lot of hot horses, quite buzzy horses, so her tendency was always to have them a little short, and a little running,\u201d Michelle recalls. \u201cWhen she moved onto this horse, he is a horse that has a super attitude, he is really brave, really careful, but he had a tendency to get short in the neck, and he would be very crooked. He used to jump everything with a bit of a twist. He would throw his right shoulder out, and he travelled like that. He travelled on two tracks all the time to the left, which made his canter short and mincey, so what she was having trouble with was related lines \u2013 not being able to ride the distances with a bigger canter.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can still see it in the warmup, the grey gelding wants to hold his neck short and tight and bounce along the ground\u2026 Michelle is encouraging Amy to slow the movement down, to let the horse loosen up.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was a whole learning procedure for Amy because she has gone from hot horses where she rides with no leg and a tight arm, then trying to learn the balance between hand a leg, and how to teach this horse to be straighter, and yet be more ground covering without running.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a gradual training process of teaching Amy to feel how much hand you need to stop the front legs getting fast, how much leg do you need to get the hindleg to become bigger, so the horse can use every part of his body. When Amy got him he might not have been the scopiest machine but he was only using 20% of his body \u2013 he was stiff, he was tight, didn\u2019t take much rein.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like a lot of good instructors, Michelle is ready to demonstrate what she wants in the saddle: \u201cI rode the horse for a week to try and get him softer in the neck so that he would take more rein, become more ground covering, and he started to feel like a World Cup horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just a gradual process of teaching people that feel. It is that grey area in riding. Not getting to the point where you have too much hand and he won\u2019t come through from behind \u2013 but still pushing him through enough with enough contact to make him rounder\u2026 the grey area.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It seems that Amy is getting a good handle on that \u2018grey area\u2019, the gelding has started to slow, started to lengthen\u2026 Now Michelle is working on the straight bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cSlow the trot down, slow the front legs, and tuck his left hind. What we\u2019ve been doing is a little shoulder fore to the left, and even a little baby renvers to the left, so that Amy learns to straighten him by tucking that left hind leg, but not letting him fall over his right shoulder. Not letting him get into a false shoulder in, just with neck bend. So Amy has been learning a little shoulder fore on the left rein and on the other, a little baby travers, because it was the opposite, he\u2019d leave the left side still short, and throw his hindquarters out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over and over again, the teacher emphasises that we are not doing the dressage to get points from a dressage judge \u2013 it\u2019s to improve the jump\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the fences are coming straighter off the ground, which allows the horse to use a lot more jump. He was losing half his jump \u2013 especially down a line. In a line, he\u2019d jump to the right, so when you landed his balance had fallen right and then the rider had to work to get going. That makes the distances long. But now he is starting to learn what a straight horse is\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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As part of her work as Amy\u2019s coach, Michelle has formulated a strategy, using the different ages and stages of development of each of Amy\u2019s horses\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAmy has got five horses with her that she is riding, and we are using each of them for her to learn something different \u2013 right from a three year old to this World Cup horse.\u00a0 It\u2019s right from the beginning trying to show her how to produce her horses so that they turn into athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

read on<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cBefore she came to me, Amy was actually conscientious and worked quite hard on her flat work but it had no relationship to the jumping. The two pieces didn\u2019t fit together. You\u2019d do circles, but it didn\u2019t have a purpose in trying to improve a horse\u2019s weakness. If the horse was crooked, or it ran, or it was a little short in the canter, or too big in the canter \u2013 it never really connected the two pieces together.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat we\u2019ve been focussing on, is getting Amy to recognize where the particular horse\u2019s weakness lie, and where does it need to improve, connected to the problems she may have on course. What Amy is developing is a total connection between the way she rides the horse on the flat, and what she needs to get around a track. Now we\u2019ve got her on the three year old, and she actually has to learn how to get a baby to go straight and start to acquire a contact by riding the horse forward to the bridle rather than bringing it back to her, so there is quite a lot of learning at this stage for her\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t do any really complicated exercises with this horse. What I am really working on is Amy being able to keep a good rhythm,\u00a0 a good canter, to get down her lines and keep the horse straight. I\u2019m not into a lot of little tricky exercises. This horse is a really careful jumper, he\u2019s got a really good attitude, his weakest link is that he would jump a fence, jump a fence a little crooked, land, stay tight in the neck and go no-where \u2013 the last thing I want to do is make pokey little distances which are going to encourage that. I want him to actually jump through his body, land so he is travelling and stay through his body to get down the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to ride lines where Amy has to think, and think about whether she does a long four or a short five, and work on her preparation to get to the fence. What happens if he stays short in the neck, short in the canter, is that she gets caught out when she comes round turns to a fence \u2013 and if he gets a bit short in the corner, then she has to chase him out of it, or she\u2019d get caught a little backwards. It\u2019s a matter of getting the canter she was getting on the circle, where it feels like it is travelling through his body so she can still get a good distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo we worked on getting the canter bigger but went through a stage where she met a few fences a bit long and sloppy because she is just starting to get the feel of a horse covering ground, but still having the hind leg coming to the bridle. At first we got the horse to soften and go longer, but the hind leg was getting further and further away. They have to go through the process of bringing the hind leg further towards the bridle. That\u2019s the main focus rather than saying, let\u2019s do grids. We keep connecting the work we are doing on the flat, to the work over the jumps and letting one flow onto the other and back again\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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Find out how Amy selected Transatlantic below<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u00a0Amy Graham \u2013 Finding the horse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amy found her world cup horse, Transatlantic in Europe\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI found him in Willi Melliger\u2019s stable in Switzerland. I looked at a number of stables in Switzerland before I found \u2018Charlie\u2019. He was the third horse I saw, and I was pretty sure that he was the horse. We just had to get a vet check that day because he was already sold to a stable in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved his attitude, that was the biggest thing. He just had a fantastic attitude and he felt like he loved what he was doing. He was the sort of in-between horse I was looking for in my move up to the more Warmblood type of horse. I\u2019d been on some really hot horses and he had a lot of natural energy \u2013 but that day was the first day the ice had broken on the arenas, so he was very very fresh. As I\u2019ve gotten to know him, I find he can lose a lot of motivation on the flat \u2013 and even jumping when he\u2019s home but he\u2019s got a lot of adrenalin in the ring. When he canters into the ring he just loves it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How long have you been working with Michelle?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost a year. It\u2019s been amazing learning how to produce horses on the flat \u2013 how to make athletes out of them. Working on their weak links and getting the most out of them. She\u2019s a fantastic instructor, sure she is tough but you have to be tough\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s toughest, her on you, or you on you?<\/em><\/p>\n

Amy laughs: \u201cI don\u2019t know. I find that with Michelle she has a great understanding of how you feel in the ring \u2013 she can really relate not just to how the horse is going, but how I am feeling emotionally\u2026 the pressure and all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the working session this morning, you certainly got a huge change in his frame and his stride between the first five minutes and the last five minutes\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSure, but that\u2019s what we\u2019ve got to look for, getting the work we had in the last five minutes in the first five minutes, and his improvement in the last six months is huge. Every now and then we have another break through, and it won\u2019t be long until he is travelling like that right from the start. Obviously his fitness plays a huge part in his motivation, especially at home. Because we have no shows it\u2019s hard to get his fitness back \u2013 jumping fitness. I can\u2019t jump at home because the ground is too hard. We are in the middle of a bit of a drought at home. Every now and then I can jump him but it\u2019s great to be here at Michelle\u2019s with a beautiful surface I can jump him on as often as we like. I\u2019m hoping to get his fitness back up for when the shows do start\u2026 When there is a show! It\u2019s great to school well and practice at home, and I know he is an amazing horse in the ring, so I don\u2019t have to worry. No shows means that I can really work on my young horses and I\u2019m really excited with them, I think they have real potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in the February 2008 issue of THM.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Interested in breeding jumping horses? For the best European lines\u00a0available in Australia, see the range of stallions on offer from International Horse Breeders.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Stallions like Kanndarco who combines the established line of Darco with the rising star, Kannan. Ring Glenis for more information: 03 5439 7251 email:sales@ihb.com.au or go to www.ihb.com.au<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Education of Amy – Part 2 \u2013 Jumping Exercises<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n