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Leonora Smee’s blog: One of my most useful schooling tools

Playlist 18 Videos The road to the Badminton Mitsubishi Cup: if you have a dream, go for it! 03:31 Leonora Smee’s blog: these are a few of my favourite things (I wouldn't be without them) 03:21 Leonora Smee's blog: it was an emotional moment that words just cannot describe 07:10 Leonora Smee's blog: packing for all eventualities 02:21 Leonora Smee's blog: see behind the scenes of an incredible show in St Tropez 05:25 Leonora Smee's blog: hoping my luck continues 03:37 Danielle Dunn's Badminton first-timer blog: it didn't quite go to plan 01:16 Danielle Dunn's Badminton first-timer blog: I'm disappointed but this isn't going to be a dressage competition 01:31 Danielle Dunn's Badminton first-timer blog: the cross-country is one thing, but first I have to survive the dressage 02:14 Leonora Smee's blog: come and have a sneaky look inside my horsebox 04:22 Kirsty Short's Badminton first-timer blog: so near, yet so far away 01:25 Kirsty Short's Badminton first-timer blog: Badminton's cross-country course looks right up our street, but will we or won't we? 00:26 Leonora Smee's blog: Polos are key 09:59 Leonora Smee's blog: One of my most useful schooling tools 04:53 Leonora Smee's blog: How is this going to help me in competition? 04:09 Meet new H&H blogger Leonora Smee 04:33 H&H dressage editor’s Area Festival video diary: Disbelieving the results of my small and fairly average horse 05:03 H&H dressage editor’s Area Festival video diary: Playing with the 'proper' horses 04:42

  • Hi everybody,

    As you can see, we have just finished a grid work session. I really like to incorporate gridwork into our weekly routine on a regular basis. I think it’s great for building muscle, helps develop and improve your horse’s technique and it helps to give both horse and rider confidence.

    I’m going to run through how I like to build a basic grid at home. I start off with trot poles which are spaced 1.5m apart from one another. There is 2.7m between the last trot pole and the first cross-pole and between each bounce is 3m. Then between the final part of the bounce and the upright is 6.1m and from the vertical to the oxer is 6.4-6.5m.

    It depends on what you want to achieve with your gridwork or how you would like to jump as to the distances in between each part of the grid, but the measurements I’ve stated are roughly where I like things to be.

    Continued below…

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    It’s also really important that you approach the grid on both reins and also land on different canter leads.

    While jumping through the grid I’m always thinking about my straightness, balance and rhythm.

    I like to build my grids up progressively — we start with just the trot poles, then introduce the cross-pole, then the bounce, then the vertical and finally the oxer.

    I’m really pleased with how my horse, Waltons Top Flight, has jumped today and we’re really excited because we’ve got so much going on at the moment.

    See you guys soon!

    Leonora

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