{"id":8816,"date":"2012-08-15T13:56:14","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T03:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=8816"},"modified":"2015-01-22T07:31:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:31:31","slug":"training-jumping-horses-with-soren-pedersen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2012\/08\/training-jumping-horses-with-soren-pedersen\/","title":{"rendered":"Training Jumping Horses with S\u00f6ren Pedersen"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Before Roz and I went to the Games selection trials in France, we enjoyed being part the Oldenburg tour group. We had interesting lectures, saw a sale preview, plus we saw some real live horses in action, and our first stop was the showjumping yard of Danish star, S\u00f6ren Pedersen. S\u00f6ren has been an international showjumping rider for over 20 years, competing at the 1999 European Championships on Carlo Colucci \u2013 and more recently, enjoying great success with the Landor S son, Lobster.<\/p>\n

S\u00f6ren has a pretty unique set-up. His 40 horses are all owned by a Norwegian lady, Katrin Lund, whose horses all have the prefix, Tailormade, they are all mares or stallions, and none of them are for sale\u2026 and despite the fact that there are stallions by stars like Cassini, Darco and Stakkato, they are not breeding stallions, but S\u00f6ren says eventually the stud might become a breeding station.<\/p>\n

S\u00f6ren\u2019s yard is one of those understated set-ups that says \u2018horsemanship\u2019 not \u2018ostentation\u2019, and his riding style is a bit like that. Nothing fancy, just tried and true gymnastics, although S\u00f6ren himself has a distinctive way of using his back and upper body, and perhaps not unexpectedly, his bereiter, Sashia Astrup-Jensen has a similar style.<\/p>\n

The first horse S\u00f6ren showed us had been purchased from Paul Schockem\u00f6hle, the six-year-old mare, La Centa, is by Landcap out of a Centauer Z mare, and in the background \u2013 those two stallions that were so influential in Schockem\u00f6hle\u2019s breeding program, Continue and Sandro. Indeed Ms Lund has obviously been a good customer at PSI, the next, a bay seven-year-old, was by Chacco Blue out of a Baloubet mare.<\/p>\n

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La Centa was being prepared for a Bundeschampionate qualifier the next day. S\u00f6ren likes her, \u2018she\u2019s very careful, but too stiff, see what you can see in trot, a little stiff in the body.\u2019 The mare has had a break, been worked out in the fields and no jumping. So Sashia works on softening the mare and asking her to relax, working her around the large jumping arena in changes of tempo and pace.<\/p>\n

Surprise, surprise, out come the poles and Sashia is trotting then cantering her over them, first two strides, then one. \u2018This is work we can do every day without taking it out of the horses, small play without stressing the bodies of the horses\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Finally they jump several combinations and a course. Sashia\u2019s (and S\u00f6ren\u2019s) way of using the upper body over the fence looks so flexible and sympathetic to the horse, really encouraging the horse to bascule.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t take my young horses to many shows. This nice young Cassini II\/Singular Joter is not a dressage horse, but loose in the body and an amazing jump\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will go to one or two more shows this year, and no more. For me he is a special horse, not for sale, so why should we work him so much?\u201d<\/p>\n

The first time through the grid, the young stallion jumped so enthusiastically over the small jump that S\u00f6ren added a rail on the other side, which made it easier for his young rider.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve put that there to encourage him to land and not jump so big and run off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important that he stays sound, just two more shows this year \u2013 then out in the fields. The same when he is five years old, when he jumps well and everything is going good, then another break \u2013 not just going show, show, show. The same when he is six years old, good breaks, two months, for sure we still ride the horses, small dressage work, out in the field, out in the paddock, on the walker, but they will not see a jump. I do a lot of dressage with my horses, I think it is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not complete breaks from work, where all the muscling is lost.<\/p>\n

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Next S\u00f6ren himself is riding a bay stallion, by Quidam\u2019s Rubin out of a Grannus \/ Weltmeister mare. Quinnus, a seven-year-old, has had four or five weeks with no competitions.<\/p>\n

S\u00f6ren has planned his campaign for the season:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe competed on grass at Redefin and was really spooky and had two down, then he competed at Hamburg and had the first fence, he looked at a tent and came in too deep. I have made a plan to take him to lots of different places: a show at Klattes, the Danish Youngster Championships, then Poland and Switzerland, five or six shows, but always with a week\u2019s break in between\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDressage and \u2018jumping dressage\u2019 are maybe two different things. To me, what I showed you today with two poles on the ground, that is dressage, it is something we can do every day \u2013 we don\u2019t need to jump a horse until it gets lame. Do a lot of dressage work, do a lot of working with poles, little things. One day, just go out in the field, you can always ride half pass in the field, that\u2019s dressage, the horse moves away from your leg, and you can do that in the field. Then you are working with them, the horses are happy, you are playing dressage, when you ride down the road, go a little to the right, a little to the left, small dressage work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who influenced your jumping style \u2013 did you grow up jumping in Denmark?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI lived in Denmark for the first 20 years of my life and I have lived over 20 years here in Germany. My father and mother had a small farm with horses. I started to ride when I was 12 years old, with ponies. I won the Danish Jumping Championship two or three times, and then I thought, something has to happen if I want to go more into the sport. Denmark is not so big\u2026 I went and worked for two years in Hugo Simon\u2019s place, after that I was very lucky and got a job with a very good rider, Gerd Wiltfang and I was with him for two years. After that, I started my own place.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was Wiltfang\u2019s style?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a lot of feeling for horses, he couldn\u2019t tell you it, but he could feel it, and you could learn by watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

You stopped the horse before the yellow jump and said, he has to listen to me\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe has to stay with me so he doesn\u2019t get the wrong distance. I try to give him a good distance so he can jump \u2013 he must listen if I want to go forward or wait. I have walked the distance, he hasn\u2019t. It is my job to bring him in the right distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Your rider, Sashia, is a lovely rider, has she been with you long?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cShe has been here two and a half years. She is also from Denmark, and I think she is a very good rider. She has a lot of horses that she has started off in the small classes, and now they are ready to step up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Do you have any Grand Prix horses at the moment?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI have two Grand Prix horses, Tailor Made Esperanto de Revel, and Tailor Made Cavetta \u2013 two Grand Prix horses and Sashia has one Grand Prix horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe take riders for training but they have to come with their horses and stay for a longer time. We have one Danish girl who has been here for a year with two or three horses. Last year we had a girl from Prague with five horses, we had an Indonesian girl with six horses. We train with them and manage the competitions, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

You are very lucky that your horses are not for sale, most jumping riders are always nervous their horse will be sold\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment I hope my horses stay for a long. We have a very good sponsorship, and it is a very lucky situation that most riders don\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just a week or so after we visited, S\u00f6ren won the Danish Showjumping Championship on Cavetta (Careful \/ Grannus)…<\/p>\n

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S\u00f6ren has been an international showjumping rider for over 20 years, and he is a regular member of the Danish jumping team…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8817,"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":[77,949],"class_list":["post-8816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-show-jumping","tag-showjumping-training","tag-soren-pedersen"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8816","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=8816"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18351,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8816\/revisions\/18351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}