Karen, Mandiba, and Mark
The last time that coach Mark Phillips and the US High Performance riders got together for training sessions was four months ago in the weeks leading up to the WEGs. The mood today was understandably quite a bit more relaxed, but there was a clear sense of urgency. It did feel strange watching the riders train with Mark knowing that the next international championship is 18 months away, but that just means that these training sessions are more about fundamentals and less about making things competition-perfect right now.
Mark was on top form today–he gave three of the best lessons I think I have ever seen him teach and I only watched 6 full lessons. I have said this before, but for all the justified flak that Mark takes for management of the Team, he can be an excellent instructor. I have included my thoughts and observations from some of the sessions, and while I know I will get a few angry texts tonight from folks I didn’t write about, I promise we will cover everyone a lot over the next few months of training sessions.
When you take highly skilled, tightly wound, perfectionist, and often obsessive riders, and combine them with cold weather and months of dressage in an indoor arena, the risk is that they will overwork their horses too round, too collected, and too bottled up. If there was an overarching theme of the day, it was getting the riders to work their horses forward and stretching into a consistent contact. Mark spent hours among the different lessons focusing on contact in one rein or both, straightness, and stretching the horse into the contact. The day started off overcast and foggy but turned into sunny with highs around 70. Here is an overview of a few of the rides:
1) Karen O’Connor and Mandiba (Jumping)
Today was Mandiba’s second time jumping this year so Mark kept all of the exercises very simple. They warmed up over a single fence and then focused the rest of the time on a 5 stride oxer-to-vertical line, jumping it both ways and focusing on adding strides from a proper half-halt. Initially, Mandiba would fuss in the contact several times during the half-halt, and Mark emphasized straightness and lateral control of the shoulders to get Mandiba accepting the half-halt more. Mandiba jumped well, but Mark commented once that “we don’t need to see that pogo stick jump.”
2) Hannah Sue Burnett and St. Barths “Nike” (Dressage)
Hannah and Nike won the Fair Hill 3* last autumn, and they look even better on the flat after a winter of work. Hannah is a perfectionists to the extreme and Nike is a naturally tense horse, so Nike started off looking a bit too round and too bottled up. Mark had some good phrases about how to improve this, including “move his feet to the place where he stretches more” and “ride the shoulder to the contact all the time.” As with most of the lessons, Mark didn’t focus too much on movements. The most sophisticated thing that Nike did was counter-canter, where Mark emphasized avoiding too much flexion and controlling the inside shoulder. If Nike can stay relaxed in the arena, nobody is going to beat them on the flat.
3) Karen and Quintus 54 “Quin” (Jumping)
Mark spent a long time working with Karen and Quin on the flat before they got to jump. They worked on keeping contact with the right rein, even when going to the right. In a world where our coaches are always telling us inside leg to outside rein, I always find it hard to remember the importance of the inside rein contact. When they started jumping they worked on jumping the same line from Mandiba’s lesson in 6 strides, keeping things the same whether jumping vertical-to-oxer or oxer-to-vertical. All in all, I was really impressed with Quin’s development over the winter. Quin is incredibly athletic and the pressure this spring is to get the fundamentals confirmed in time for Rolex.
4) Jessica Pye and Lightning Bound (Dressage)
I don’t have nearly as much experience watching Jessica as I do with Karen and Hannah, but I heard that Mark was impressed with them yesterday and I was quite impressed today. I watched most of Jessica’s lesson from afar because I had to take a phone call, but her position was very good and Lightning Bound is a great looking chestnut. I mostly wanted to write about Jessica to point out that she stayed after her lesson to watch her fellow Texan, Heather Morris, have her lesson. Staying to watch the lesson after yours sends the message that you are interested in learning and supportive to your fellow riders, and it was a classy move from Jessica.
Jessica (left) watching Mark coach Heather
5) Heather Morris and Slate River (Jumping)
Slate River is VERY athletic, and he is a really quick jumper with his legs. This kind of thing might not be the most beautiful to watch, but it comes in handy when things get dicey on the cross-country, if you know what I mean. Mark had Heather do a great deal of flatwork before they started jumping, and they probably ended up doing more complex movements, such as shoulder-in and flying changes, than many of the dressage lessons. Today’s jumping lessons were a good reminder of the importance of flatwork in the jumping warmup–it all starts on the flat. Heather has a very nice forward seat coming to the jumps. Many eventers (including yours truly) have a tendency to needlessly move our position away from the jump and sit slightly in the last few strides. This tendency is probably an artifact from our earliest days riding those wonderful ponies who would slam on the brakes at the last moment and leave us sitting in the middle of the jump. My only criticism of Slate River is that he gets a bit tense in the half-halts before the jumps. Other than that, Area V was certainly well represented today, which should warm the hearts of Jessica and Hather’s fans sitting at home in Texas buried in snow.
Fitness: As I mentioned Thursday, USOC fitness, nutrition, and sports psychology experts are working with the riders this week. The High Performance riders (Karen, Hannah, and Buck) took a baseline fitness test Friday morning that involved testing max time planks, and max rep full body weight squats, and sprints. Apparently Buck was impressive, which doesn’t really surprise me because he’s both very competitive and very strong. Hannah won the plank with a time of about 2 minutes, Buck won the sprints, and he won the squats by about 100. Apparently they eventually stopped him because he wasn’t showing any sign of getting tired by about 150.
Go eventing.
