Chessington Gridwork Clinic 2nd December 2018

Hugh taught a gridwork clinic on 2nd December 2018 and trained five riders over 2 and a half hours, setting up a grid comprising of three bounces, one stride to a double cross, one stride to a spread.

Hugh says, “Bounces help the horse to engage. A double cross is a profile of fence that horses don’t come across often, thus it encourages the horse to pick up and give the fence some space, thereby giving the rider a good feeling over the spread.”

The main problems that arose for riders on the day were their horses being behind the leg or their horses being rushing through the grid.

Hugh has the following training tips:

For horses who are behind the leg

“The main issue if the horse was behind the leg, is that if the horse needed to make up ground through the distances then the rider had no clear means of expressing this to the horse. This disconnect often resulted in the striding feeling too feel long and the jump unbalanced.

The use of transition work will help get the horse responding to the leg before coming through the grid again.”

For horses who rushed

“The horses that rushed needed to be kept in balance via the seat, rather than via the rider’s hands. Pulling on the horse’s mouth just gives the horse something to lean on and pull against, thus exacerbating the problem.

It also sometimes results in the horse throwing its head up, which hollows the back and thus ruins the quality of the jump.

The correction takes time and practice, but it’s a matter of putting the work into your core and seat to tell the horse to wait, so that whilst the hand stays connected, it doesn’t become restrictive.”