Denya’s Jessica Phoenix Young Riders Clinic Report

EN reader Denya is back with multiple reports from recent clinics taught by Clayton Fredericks and Jessica Phoenix. Denya submitted one of our favorite clinic reports for 2012, and we’re excited that she’s back to share more from Canadian eventing. Her third and final report looks at a Canadian Young Riders clinic taught by Jessica Phoenix on June 1 and 2. [Denya’s 1st report] [Denya’s 2nd report] 

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Jessica Phoenix gives instructions for the bounce.

From Denya:

Nineteen Canadian Young Riders attended a two-day clinic on June 1 and 2 at Arthur Teteishi’s farm given by Jessica Phoenix, coach of the Young Riders, a very successful competitor and extremely articulate. I’d not had the opportunity to see her as a clinician, and she was excellent. Her groups were talented, brave and hardy given the heavy footing and demanding exercises on the cross-country day. What was particularly interesting — as I dashed back and forth in my trusty 4-wheel drive through the mud — between her clinic and Clayton’s was the similarity in the core messages, yet each had different phrasing and used varying exercises. So it was really novel to be following two clinics at once …

Day one was dressage, and it included a talk with Jacqueline Brooks, one of Canada’s top dressage riders and coach. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to day one, but the second day was cross country, and, of course, it was fun. Jessica was using bounces, working up to big bounces, to teach the core principles of cross-country jumping.

A two-part bounce was used to demonstrated the necessity of preparing the horse, finding your distance and allowing the horse to have the freedom of movement to act like a bungee cord through the bounce. In a perfect world, the rebalancing zone must not be too early — too far out and the horse will get fussy — nor too close — not enough time to adjust the distance to the fence smoothly — and the change between the gallop position and the position to rebalance the horse for the upcoming jump must be clear.

As all of us know from experience that if you get into a big bounce wrong, there is no time to recover, so it’s our job to get them into the right spot. Then it’s our job to free up their head and neck so they can use the whole scope of their body to do their job. On landing, GO! Don’t land in a heap!

Riding bounces poorly or overfacing a horse with bounces can harm their confidence, so keep the horse in front of your leg, balanced, compact and confident you are there for them. Quite independently, both Clayton and Jess agree on using the distance of 10 strides out, and Jess reiterated using the last three strides to “jump” — no more fussing. Jess stressed that when the jumps are bigger, it’s not more speed, but collection and impulsion for success. And commit commit commit to your line. Let them see the questions as clearly as possible, try not to surprise them, be clear where you want to go — they need time to think too. Never ever let the horse cross its line when refusing or in trouble … stay straight at the obstacle.

I asked if horses could see the angles on corners, and Jess replied that horses learn to see the flag. When she set an in-and-out of two verticals on a hard angle, the horses jumped them easily. They jumped the left end of the first and the right end of the second for two strides, and then switched to jump the right end of the first element (greater angle) and the left end of the second for three strides. We’re not talking small verticals either!

Perhaps one of the easiest lessons to understand was practice bounces on a hillside up, on a hillside down, on a side slope … don’t do all your work on even flat ground with great footing. Ride in the rain, the wind, the heat, the cold. Events seldom have perfect footing and perfect weather. But we can always hope … Go Canada! Go Eventing!