Leah Snowden listens to Mary’s comments on the DVD of her ride on Ivy League
If they took the endurance out of Eventing, someone forgot to send Mary King the memo this weekend. Nonetheless, she was up bright and early for another long session of dispensing her words of wisdom, and for everyone listening the morning flew by.
“Virtual Clinic” (brainwave!)
What a brainwave to have a “virtual clinic” in January, and to spend a Sunday morning in a (somewhat!) cosy, meeting room with coffee and doughnuts, watching horsey DVD’s with likeminded people! We watched Beginner Novice up to solid Preliminary level, and the general consensus among those who’d submitted their rides to be critiqued was that they were getting the opportunity of a lifetime. Many of them took notes, and asked questions afterwards.
Mary had told us yesterday that after having her children she’d stopped teaching individual lessons so as to be able to spend more time with them; she also admitted that she much preferred training horses to teaching people, which honestly she found slightly repetitive, “I found myself saying the same things over and over again, ‘kick on, get on with it, lower leg!” Mary does still devote some time to clinics each year, and enjoys those, and we all seemed to be having fun at the virtual one on Sunday!
Rider Position and Fitness
If there was a common theme, it was perhaps the position and stability of the lower leg, Mary thinks this is probably the most important thing, followed by keeping the shoulders and upper body back. A couple of the riders we watched tended to get forward with their upper bodies, which meant they then “stuck their bums out”, and Mary encouraged them to think instead about bringing the pelvis forward. Another nice tip she passed on from Carl Hester, instead of just thinking sit up straight, he told her to “try and make the front of your body longer”. One of the ladies was slightly older, and Mary, who has featured quite extensively already in the Olympic media build up in England as one of GB’s ‘mature’ athletes, encouraged her to do whatever she needed to stay flexible, whether that be yoga, and she used Mark Todd (Badminton winner at 55 years young!) as an example, or stretching, whatever it takes. Also, the day before on weight Mary had commented, “A bigger rider on top of the horse is going to be harder on the horse, and may not be as quick to react. Try and be strict with yourself, and if you need to, go on a diet.”
On the flat several of the riders were told they needed to work on keeping their lower leg more parallel to the side of the horse, not sticking their toes out and constantly bumping the side of the horse with their heels, ( “Your horse shouldn’t need a constant aid to go forward, it is NOT a bicycle and doesn’t need pedaling to maintain motion!”) and that jumping they could have shortened their stirrups by a few holes. Lower leg should be rock solid cross country and forward, and when asked how to achieve it, “constant nagging”, and keep practicing, almost overdoing it, jamming it forward, and don’t grip with the knees, “you should be able to see your toes when you look down as you’re galloping.” Mary is a great advocate of watching yourself on video to learn from, not only your mistakes, but just what you look like. If you can’t get a video, sometimes it’s a matter of something as simple as telling someone to LOOK at their hands while they’re actually riding, yes, they are in their lap, not in front of them, or yes, they are holding one a lot higher than the other, and until they make that brain/eye connection they honestly don’t realise!
Riding Cross-country
On watching one combination stop twice at the same jump, Mary reminded us about carrying a whip, and swapping it from hand to hand during the cross country depending on the next jump, although she said she much prefers the “invaluable pony club kick” to a slap down the shoulder if your feel your horse might be faltering in front of a fence. Mary reminded us to get in the habit, even at the lower levels, of moving away from a fence immediately upon landing, if you save a second at each fence, that’s about half a minute on an advanced course.
Schooling your horse
When assessing the horses on the flat, she immediately looked for straightness, and correct bends through the corners,and was very strict about this with each one. One horse seemed to be slightly bridle lame and Mary recommended lots of strengthening work at home, very forward rising trot, sometimes on the “other” diagaonal, and addressed again that rather than call in a chiropractor or physio, if she feels a horse is beginning to get stiff, or favour one side in particular, she likes to work through it at home in her riding – lots of working through and into the contact, forward work, suppling work; she feels that as a professional rider it’s her job to help her horse as much as possible first via her riding. Interestingly, she also told us she likes to travel away for lessons, and often goes to William Fox-Pitt’s yard in neighbouring county, Dorset, when GB squad Dressage Trainer Tracie Robinson, or Jumping Trainer, Peter Murphy is visiting to share lessons. She feels this gives her a more accurate feel of how the horses will behave at shows, and is another opportunity to get them a little out of their comfort zone, and besides, she told us, William has an amazing arena!
Hitting the Deck
Once we’d been through all the DVD’s submitted by Area 8 riders, we watched some of Mary’s rides with a running commentary, which was a real treat and absolutely fascinating. The first one she picked was her hard fall on Imperial Cavalier at the European Championships last year, and although I found it hard to watch, especially when she’s on the ground, Mary had no such discomfort, happily rewinding it again and again, pointing out the lip of grass coming out of the water, telling us how she’d do it again if she had the chance – “much more condensed canter, I came in too free. The narrower a fence the less a horse will want to stand off it”, and singing the praises of her Point 2 Air Vest!
WInning Rolex
Next we watched her winning cross country round at Rolex last spring on Kings Temptress, and Mary, ever the perfectionist, told us, “no matter how old and experienced you get (wry smile!) you’ll never have a flawless round”, and began to pick out the tiny mistakes she’d made, although to us it looked pretty darn good! Mary knows ‘Tess’ so well, and the mare was so experienced by this event, she told us, that she could afford to cut some corners, take some very tight lines, and really save time on her that way. Mary pointed out that she jumped the trakhener before the pond on the left so that she could put in nine strides to the water, whereas most people got at least eleven. Tess, the mare she bred, broke and has produced herself, goes cross country in a snaffle.
The Difference in riding a CCI****
Mary is still annoyed at herself for taking a long one at the hedge heading for home, pecking on landing and losing a stirrup, and said she gave herself a mental talking-to after that, “For heavens’ sake, Mary, sharpen up, that was really bad riding!” but also addressed how a horse changes during the course of a four star cross country,
“Although they may still have plenty of run left in them towards the end of the course, they just feel very different in their bodies; somehow looser, their reactions are slower, and they can be a bit dull in the body sometimes. Galloping along in straight lines may be okay, but if you have to take a long route, and do twisting and turning near the end that can be much harder work for them.”
Mary used her second placed horse at Rolex last year, Fernhill Urco, as an example of this, explaining that as he was doing his first four star she wasn’t even sure if he’d get the distance and had told Yogi if he got too tired out on course she intended to pull him up. Urco, Mary told us, wouldn’t have been her ideal horse when she first saw him, but won her over with his big movement, lovely jump and presence, but being a mixture of Portugese, Warmblood and TB, he lacks a bit more of the TB blood she prefers, “they’re built to gallop for long distances at speed.” Fernhill Urco is on enforced holiday until the autumn with a minor tendon strain, but Mary expects him to come back in 2013.
The Rolex and Badminton Courses
Mary was full of praise for Derek Di Grazia’s Rolex CCI**** cross country course last year, his debut at Lexington, and at this level,
“I was really impressed with the course in Kentucky. It was quite a tough track, I was surprised; in comparison to Badminton even, it was as technical. There were a lot of questions and I thought it was a fantastic course. It made Badminton seem rather plain. Badminton is not the biggest, boldest, most rider-frightener event it used to be, I think it needs a new course-designer to come in and shake things up a bit.”
Coping with Nerves
Mary spoke about nerves, saying she still suffered from them, and to some extent all the top riders do as much as anyone, but that it’s a matter of learning to cope with them. Everyone is nervous, but everyone deals with it differently, and you need to find a way to stay strong so you can help your horse, and not let nerves get the better of you so that you become weak and loose in the saddle. Mary told us she prefers things quiet before a big cross country, she likes to go to her horsebox and focus and get organised without many people around her. Before a high pressure show-jumping round, for example at Badminton, she’ll try and block everything out of her mind except cantering from one jump to the next, concentrate on getting a really good canter, and to pretend she’s jumping at home, even though she admitted it’s easier said than done!
Once out on the cross-country, Mary said she wasn’t really aware of the crowds or the commentary, except for occasionally on landing after an especially difficult jump, she might hear cheers and the odd, “Go, Mary!” incentive to shout louder as she flies by, hugging those turns, Go Mary, and Go Eventing!
Thank you as always for reading, thank you to Mary for sharing her wonderful stories, knowledge and expertise, and thank you to Area 8 for bringing us all together!
