The key to safe and effective cross-country riding is a secure lower leg and impeccable balance, so you can use your core and seat to influence the horse, rather than always going to the hand. In this exclusive article for H&H subscribers, Olympic event riders Ginny Elliot and Nicola Wilson to share their top tips to help you improve your position
Some riders have incredible balance and a lower leg that never moves across-country whatever the conditions and whatever they jump. How can you improve your eventing training to become one of them? We asked Olympic event riders Ginny Elliot and Nicola Wilson to share their top tips to improve your cross-country riding position so you can ride stronger, safer and smarter.
“I used to watch videos of top riders, particularly Lucinda Green, who had the most superb lower leg. I tried to analyse how her leg was so brilliant and copy it, although I don’t think I quite managed it,” says three-time European and double world eventing champion Ginny Elliot, who’s a big fan of self-analysis.
“In those days, we had a video camera and I would watch myself back and analyse it. I would go over it saying, ‘that wasn’t great. Why wasn’t that great?’ I think that was one of the reasons why we did quite well because I was never good enough, I had to be better.
“Today with mobile phones you have access to videos of yourself which you can watch instantly and that’s an incredibly important tool. Being critical on yourself isn’t a negative; it’s a positive because you’re going to get better from it.
“You have to accept your mistakes. If there had been a problem, I always asked myself, ‘what did I do wrong?’ and I tried to learn from it. I never said, ‘what did the horse do wrong?’”
Exercises to improve your cross-country riding position without a horse
Like self-analysis, several exercises to improve your cross-country position can be done from the comfort of your own home.
“Practise jumping off the last steps of your stairs, or any step, and landing on your feet elegantly, as light as a feather. Make sure you bend your knees and ankles and land in a crouch position so you absorb the weight but remain balanced and secure on your feet. Keep your upper body above your hips. This is how you should be landing after a fence,” explains former European eventing champion Nicola Wilson.
Ginny adds: “You can practise jumping a drop by sitting on a chair. Lean back and push your heels forward. I would also walk upstairs on the ball of my foot so I stretched the tendons at the back of my ankle. When my foot was in the stirrup, it was much more used to having my heel really down.”
These exercises are much easier to perform if you have a good level of fitness, balance and suppleness. Ginny reveals she used to swim and run to maintain her general fitness while Nicola is an advocate of Pilates and yoga.
“Working with horses, we can get a bit one sided from things like mucking out so we often shorten muscles and lose the elasticity and ignore the other important muscles. Doing Pilates or yoga and some strength work makes a massive difference and helps you to maintain good balance,” says Nicola.
Exercises to improve your cross-country riding position on the horse
As well as ensuring your fitness is up to speed, it’s important to have a horse who’s also fit and strong.
“Do exercises on your horse like stepping over raised poles, stretching and hill work so the horses are as strong as they can possibly be, which gives them reserves when they’re going cross-country,” says Nicola. “If the horses are always inverted, dropping their tummies, not engaging their core, being hollow through their back, then they’re going to find it very difficult to carry themselves as well and will pull you out of position.
“Practise bringing your shoulders up while you are galloping cross-country, engaging your core and supporting the horse through your lower leg as you bring them back to a coffin canter.
“Through training and repetition, you will be able to go through the gears so that you can efficiently go from a cross-country gallop to a coffin canter within a number of strides.”
Ginny would also use canter work to help improve obedience and the fluidity of speed control.
“As I was cantering the horses to get them fit, I would practise moving forward 10 strides, then shortening them and coming back before going forward again and then coming back. It’s a very good way of working yourself as well as the horse,” says Ginny.
“The other thing to remember is your head is the heaviest part of your body, and if you drop your head, the whole balance of your upper body goes so keep your body upright and your head still.”
“The head is the heaviest part of your body,” says Ginny Elliot (pictured). “Keep your body upright and your head still.”
(Image credit: Alamy)
If your horse is particularly strong cross-country and you find your shoulders being pulled forward out of the saddle, Nicola suggests riding with a longer rein.
“Strong horses have a habit of pulling on the rein then we get a little bit shorter in our rein which pulls our upper body forward and that puts the rider in their most inefficient and weakest position possible,” explains Nicola.
“It’s important to have a longer rein, keep your hands down so that your upper body can engage its core and be in its strongest position. Then with your lower leg, squeeze to say half halt with your hands low and just in front, engage your core, tuck your seat underneath, bring your shoulders and eyes up. Train your horses through these transitions – use technique and repetition of correct training to develop that ability to rebalance your horse.
Nicola Wilson demonstrates a balanced seat combined with a longer rein.
(Image credit: Alamy)
“We must not have a lazy seat,” Nicola adds. “You need to be able to ride staying in balance with your horse.
“If you’re sitting heavy in the saddle, the horses are naturally going to hollow away from the seat, they’re not going to use their core and they’re going to be looking for the hand. You’ll have to use more hand to steady and balance them. They will run through the bridle more, so the stronger that you can become as a rider, in your core, in your ability to stay in tune and in balance with your horse, the more success you are going to have with your horse.”
Model position
In terms of riders to emulate to improve your cross-country riding position, both Ginny and Nicola are big fans of reigning Badminton and Burghley champion Ros Canter.
“Ros has the most fantastic position,” Ginny says. “She’s never in front of the movement and her leg is perfection. She’s tiny so it’s by no means anything to do with physical strength, but she trains those horses so brilliantly on the flat that they pull that through into the cross-country. It’s all to do with her upper body, her lower leg, and she’s got very soft hands. She’s always in the right position, sitting up and that’s to do with training and balance.”
Nicola adds: “Another excellent example at the other end of the scale would be William Fox-Pitt, who’s incredibly tall, and had to work very hard as a young rider to be strong in his position so he didn’t hinder his horses. He was very disciplined with his strength, his core strength and his balance.”
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Working on a freelance basis, Emily has attended a wide range of horse shows and events as Horse & Hound’s onsite reporter, as well as writing features for both the magazine and website since 2004. Emily assisted the British Horse Society with the launch of its national equestrian awards initiative, and also plays a key role in the press teams for major sporting events including Wimbledon and the London Marathon.
