Staying soft yet secure over fences is something we often attribute to the rider, but what does the same phrase mean for a horse? Alex Bragg offers this training exercise on a fan to encourage engagement and softness on a curve.
“A horse can’t engage the hindleg and deliver a powerful jump if he’s tense or crooked,” says the five-star event rider. “We look for softness in flatwork, and in dressage training you’ll often want that ‘spiralling out’ feeling where the horse yields to the inside aids and seeks the outside rein, stepping under and through with the inside hind. If we apply that same feeling over fences, we keep the engagement of that hindleg for better balance, softness and power.”
Cultivating that softness takes conditioning: “You imagine the core strength a horse needs to lift his whole body – bearing in mind he is around 600kg – and keep it all carried. They need to be strong.”
To achieve this as well as banish tension, the muscles need to be strong in all directions.
“You want to stretch and flex the muscles,” explains Alex. “The further you can stretch and flex, the more range you’ll have and the more athletic your horse can be.
“The young horse I am riding to demonstrate this training exercise has a short neck,” Alex Bragg continues. “I want him to develop self-carriage, but first, he needs to use what neck he does have to the maximum.
“It’s important I get his topline as long as possible before I start to collect him, or that’s when you’ll develop tension and blocking at the base of the neck, which will hinder his back end.”
Alex Bragg training exercise: keep the curve
Working on: the horse’s softness, strength and balance, keeping him true to the path through the fanned fences
You’ll need three upright fences set out on a curving line, with about seven human paces between each at the middle. Alex uses a solid groundline for each fence and leaves poles on the floor at the inside edge of the curve in case they’re needed.
The fan consists of three fences with one horse’s stride between each, on a curve. Credit: Elli Birch/Bootsandhooves
Aims
“We’re trying to get the horse to jump, but stay engaged with the hindleg,” says Alex. “We’re turning slightly, so we need to make sure the horse doesn’t fall out or knife in. We almost want it to feel as if they are cantering on the line and the jumps are just in the way.
“My focus is maintaining balance on the line, and the horse just has to soften.”
Warm-up
After loosening up in all three gaits, Alex comes onto a circle in canter.
“Here, I’m pushing with my inside leg and using more angle – like a shoulder-fore position,” he says. “This is asking him to engage the inside hind for better balance.”
Alex has a tell-tale sign to detect self-carriage: “When he’s carrying himself, he doesn’t lean to the outside and I don’t have to keep trying to guide his shoulders with the inside rein. I can actually soften the inside rein, which allows him to seek the outside rein.”
The angle of the horse’s shoulders is mirrored by Alex’s, turning slightly inwardly on the circle.
“My outside leg is around him just so he can feel it, and support as much as required,” he explains.
Shoulder-fore positioning helps encourage this six-year-old to carry his quarters in line with his shoulders.
“You need to make sure your horse doesn’t get into the habit of carrying his quarters on an inside track, because he’ll just remain crooked and always fall out.”
On the right rein, Albert falls out a little – perhaps counterintuitively, Alex applies a firmer inside leg aid “to get the right hindleg underneath the body and help him to carry himself”.
Working on the canter in the warm-up to encourage the horse to soften to the inside contact. Credit: Elli Birch/Bootsandhooves
“By applying a little pressure this way, he starts to yield to the inside which then softens into the outside contact,” he continues. “That is riding leg to hand. Then, I’m using that shoulder-fore turning feeling to stop him falling out.”
The resulting picture is one of balance and harmony. Then, it’s time to ask for a little more forwardness – encouraging some stretch in the muscles.
“The contact is feeling spongy,” remarks Alex. “Every time he wants to go forward and dive out of balance – which is easier than carrying himself – I just keep my upper body tall. I’m rebalancing him with little corrections all the time, because he’s a young horse.”
Stage one: canter poles
The first time through the fan, elements one and three are lowered to canter poles, and moved towards the middle element by one human stride to make them appropriate canter distances.
Initially, only the middle element of the fan is a jump; elements one and three are poles on the ground. Credit: Elli Birch/Bootsandhooves
“On the approach, I’m thinking about the shoulder-fore hindleg positioning we had in the warm-up,” explains Alex, as the young gelding bounds through confidently.
“He really lowered his neck there, which we like, but his shoulders wanted to go down as well. This is what we’ll try and improve.
“I’m keeping that shoulder-fore feeling,” says Alex as he approaches the exercise again. “The inside of my body is tall, my shoulder opening to the inside, and my inside leg keeping pressure into the outside rein.”
Stage two: low fences
Once the pair have had a spin through the fan on both reins, Alex’s wife Simmone builds three small fences as the next step. The fences are lower on the inside, which Alex explains is to help guide the horse on the turn.
Starting small: note the poles are lower on the inside, to encourage the horse around the curve. Credit: Elli Birch/Bootsandhooves
This time, the horse throws a bigger jump over the middle element.
“I didn’t quite have him forward enough there, so he leaped and jumped himself out of balance a bit,” says Alex. “I want him to be forward, not flat, to give him the best chance for success.
“He’s a scopey horse, and might get lazy,” Alex adds. “He needs to interpret this as a jumping exercise, not a canter exercise.”
That’s the cue to raise the fences.
Stage three: up the height
As the challenge increases, the rider must stick to their guns.
“It’s important to keep the inside heel down,” says Alex. “A lot of riders clamp up and the turn pushes them to the outside, so you just have to stay tall.”
This horse is lifting his shoulder well over the fences now, never deviating from the line through them.
“I can’t afford to be as passive as I’d like just yet – he’s still learning to keep his shoulders up and support himself,” Alex says. “I’ll hopefully be using less and less outside rein as he learns to balance.”
Throughout Alex’s training session, his horse has worn a focused yet calm expression as he has carefully solved the puzzles in front of him.
“You need to get the horse to the point where he is challenged, because making mistakes is how they learn,” says Alex. “But, you want them to be confident and calm enough to come up with a solution. They need time to soak up what’s happened and work out their response. If it’s all rushed, they won’t remember how they did it.”
Trouble-shooting
“This training exercise is good for horses who rush,” says Alex Bragg. “If they rush, they’ll run out, and the turning line helps keep all that energy contained.”
Another common problem riders have on the curve is horses knifing in to the narrow part of the fan. This is where the poles on the ground come in.
“You place them on the inside third of the fence and angle them out. If a horse wants to cut the line and dive in, isn’t yielding to the inside leg or holding the ark, this will help keep him off the inside shoulder a bit.”
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