Diane Portwood kindly sent us a write-up of the clinic she attended last weekend; dressage with Jacquie Brooks and cross-country with Clayton Fredericks. Diane is sixteen years old and in the Wheeler Magnet Program for Math and Science in Marietta, GA. With her ten year old gray OTTB mare Layla, she hopes to make the Area III NAJYRC 1* team this summer. Layla and Diane have completed two preliminary events since they first started working together in Thanksgiving 2011. At the time, Layla had never evented or had any dressage training. Layla and Diane have been moving up the levels and learning together. Many thanks to Diane for the awesome clinic recap! If you have a clinic report or something to share on Eventing Nation, send it to [email protected].
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Jacqueline Brooks and Clayton Fredericks Clinic at Longwood Farm
From Diane:
Day One: Dressage
Two-time Canadian dressage Olympian, Jacqueline Brooks kicked off the first day of the clinic with an educational and extremely positive note. She worked well with all different types of horses and riders, from pairs that had never evented to advanced level competitors. No matter what the skill level, she had each rider place a looped rope around their horse’s neck so that it rested over the base of the neck near the withers. The rope was loose enough for the rider to grab and hold along with the reigns. Most riders, to some degree, ride with too much hand aid which causes the horse to start bracing against its rider. The rope helps to prevent the rider from relying on his or her hand to force the horse into a frame. Jacqueline Brooks stressed that forcing a horse into a frame using the hand is not correct; proper dressage is all about keeping the horse balanced and letting it find self-carriage. The rope helped the rider achieve this without using too much hand. The goal was to use fifty percent pressure from hand and fifty percent pressure from rope.
If you look closely, you can see the ropes around the bases of the horses’ necks.
Turn on the forehand, turn on the haunches, and halt
With all of the groups, Jacqueline preached the importance of these movements. The turn on the forehand and turn on the haunches allow the rider to establish control of the horse’s entire body. The halt is used when the horse becomes unbalanced or breaks from a gait. My group started off with trot to halt transitions. Instead of pulling on the horses with our reigns, we pulled upwards on the rope. Normally my horse, Layla, braces against my hand during the halt and falls onto her forehand; however, pulling upwards on the rope kept her from bracing and also helped her stay balanced. Next, we moved onto turns on the forehand. The same aids we used for this movement were also used whenever we did any bending. The turn on the haunches is used to gain control of the horse’s shoulder.
Getting the horse to swing through its back and bend
Layla has a tendency to become tense, especially through her back. Because of this, establishing enough bend can be difficult. To combat this, Jacqueline had Layla and I figure eight around the ring, constantly changing direction and speed. She expressed speed in miles per hour. Having control of speed is incredibly important. She had us do subtle transitions, from a 10mph trot to an 11mph trot and back, and larger transitions, from a 10mph trot to a 15mph trot and back. We did the same at the canter, and then she had me figure eight around the arena at a trot. To help Layla start to bend through her body, she had me open the outside reign just as far as I opened the inside reign. She had me hold the rope in my outside hand so that when I opened that hand, the base of Layla’s neck would be pulled to the outside of the arena, encouraging her to bend more. While doing this, I also continued to constantly change speed. I stopped doing figure eights but continued asking for more bend (opening the outside reign as much as the inside reign while holding the rope in my outside hand) at the canter. During this process, if Layla ever started to fall on her forehand or become unbalanced, I pulled upwards on the rope to help her regain her balance without tugging on her mouth.
At this point Layla was bending very easily and swinging through her back a great deal more than when she started. Jacqueline put us on a circle around her and had me start to really collect Layla at the canter and get her using her hocks. At first I had a hard time creating any difference in the level of collection. After that I started really using the rope and my body to collect her. When I wanted the collection, I pulled back on the rope to make her sit on her hocks and slightly upwards to keep her off her forehand while I sat deep in the saddle and kept my legs on. At this point I was able to collect Layla more than I ever had before without losing power. We did the same thing at the trot.
Jacqueline did not work on any movements we would need to perform at an event except the halt, turn on the haunches, and turn on the forehand; instead, she worked on developing balance and self-carriage which in turn helped develop the horses’ gaits. She stressed that when the horse is balanced and carrying itself, it should be easy to do any movement that is necessary in the actual dressage tests. Unfortunately, it is very hard to hear what Jacqueline has to say because of the wind, so I tried to explain everything in as much detail as possible.
Day Two: Cross Country
Warm Up
After doing a brief canter and trot, Clayton had riders make sure their horses were in tune and sharp off the leg before even starting to jump. He had riders do walk to canter and canter to halt transitions to make sure riders had control of their horses. If horses were dull off the leg, then the riders were to “pony club kick.” Horses could not suck back behind the leg even in warm up. To halt, riders had to use their bodies to ask instead of a lot of hand. At this point Clayton started to notice flaws in the positions of riders; I happened to be one of the offenders. Many of the riders, including myself, had horses that tended to become strong. When Layla pulled on the reigns, I tended to allow my upper body to move forward while my lower leg slipped back. Basically, as I was asking her to slow down with my hands, my body and legs were telling her to move forward. The correct way to get Layla to slow down or collect was to sit back and slide my legs forward. I was to use my body more than my hands, and eventually Layla would learn to slow down in response to just my body movement. Clayton stated that riders must feel like “3/4 of the horse is in front of you.”
XC Riding
I am still developing an accurate eye to fences, which can lead to some missed spots. Clayton encouraged that I count before every fence to get a feel for my rhythm, and this really helped when I could actually remember to do it! On the approach to a fence, the rider’s shoulders must always be behind his or her hips, and if the horse shows any sort of hesitation, the rider must immediately react with a “pony club kick.” If no correction is made for the horse sucking back, the hesitation will continue to get worse until the horse eventually stops. Also, if the horse is continually running off after fences, the rider must halt whenever it gets strong. While schooling, it is important that time is taken to teach the horse, not just jump a few fences. Clayton said that when he cross country schools his horses he doesn’t like to jump large fences; mainly, he focuses on banks, ditches, and water complexes.
Shoulders behind hips!
During my lesson, especially when I started working on harder combinations at the water complex, I tended to get very tense and did not allow Layla to use her head and neck properly. The head and neck are used to balance the horse, and when the horse cannot have full use of them because the rider is pulling, the horse tends to jump poorly. When coming to a drop, it is especially important that a horse can use itself. Unfortunately, this is when I started to hold the most. To add to the issue, I was not letting the reigns slip adequately so that Layla could stretch her neck down while dropping. Before this clinic, I had been having lots of trouble with up-banks out of water; now I know that this was because I wasn’t allowing Layla to use herself on the way into the water, causing her to become unbalanced. I cannot explain these concepts nearly as well as Clayton can, but fortunately my mom caught a lot of that on video. I’d like to thank Jacqueline Brooks and Clayton Fredericks for taking time to coach, Stepanie Rhodes-Bosch for organizing the clinic, the immaculate Longwood Farm South for hosting the clinic, and my parents for always being incredibly supportive of my eventing endeavors.
Go Eventing!
