confidence, they’ll always try to save themselves; if they’ve lost their confidence, they’ll stop or give up. They don’t try as hard. The ones that are confident want to stay upright and fight for it a little more.
Gina Miles: What I find to be tricky about what we do in eventing is the idea of preserving the horse’s initiative for cross country, while they have to be the opposite for show jumping and dressage. They have to be much more submissive to handle the demands of the dressage work, especially these days, as well as show jumping, and both the cross country and show jumping courses are tougher and require adjustability. So you have to have the horse have both initiative and still be organized. You want them to be clever with their bodies and move their feet, and have lots of grids and gymnastics so they use their bodies and are aware of their bodies if they get into trouble. Old school cross country was sort of “turn them loose, drop the reins and close your eyes;” now it has to be more of a clev- erness thing.
Q: What are some ways that you encourage horses to
use a “fifth leg” and what exercises can you do to make your horse quicker with his feet?
Beth Perkins: Out of the ring you can cross a creek or, at road crossings that aren’t perfectly manicured, let the horse put his head down and figure things out. A lot of horses who go fox hunting have the fifth leg because out hunting they don’t try to have the perfect distance, they just let the horses scramble over anything in their path. I like to canter down to a coop, for example - and hope- fully the horse is educated enough to pick his legs up – and really just sit there, close the leg and keep quiet with my upper body. I let the horse put his head down and look at the jump and allow him to use his body. He should be able to size up the jump and not sort of freeze with his legs—he needs to be able to use his feet at the same time.
Beth Perkins
A member of the U.S. Eventing Team at the 1974 World Championships at age 18, and a member of the 1975 gold medal winning team at the Pan Am Games, Beth has continued competing at all levels of the sport and returned to the four-star level to ride at Rolex Kentucky in 2013 aboard Sal Dali. She lives and trains at her own Hobby Horse Farm in Rutherfordton, North
Sometimes when I’m in a competition, for the first couple
fences out of the start box I’ll really try to keep the same rhythm and just sit there and let the horse realize he has to look at the fence and pay attention to the fence. It takes a certain amount of nerve to just sit there and do nothing, but that’s what you need to do so the horse looks at the jump. Going up and down tricky terrain helps, as do mound jumps going up and down, and jumping over little logs. Horses don’t like going down sometimes, so find a place where they can walk down a little slope and keep their balance. The main thing is a steady, even rhythm and a quiet upper body. If you need to go with another horse or whatever, do that. Getting out of the ring, over different terrain, is very valuable, and so is letting the horse use his neck, not holding him up too much with your hand. If the horse takes a step forward, you don’t want to pull on the reins when you want him to go forward; a lot of the time they do have to drop their neck and head to check something out. The main thing is not to rely on finding a perfect distance every time. I make sure to get out really regularly in the woods, go up
and down and out cross country schooling pretty frequently so horses see a bit of everything. The horse has to trust himself and trust you. Another suggestion is to trot fairly big verticals in the
ring—not solid fences—and let them hang a leg. This is the best thing you can do for some horses, so that they learn to pick up their feet. Just let the horse get there in a really bad spot, and hang on tight!
Will Coleman: The concept is a good one that horses should follow their instincts and preserve themselves when they’re jumping. You can always look at the horse, figure out where he needs help and practice. We use a lot of bounces in training— young horses jump small bounces into water. You can practice all your hard fences with show jumps at a young age. It’s not that different with the more advanced horses; the
jumps are bigger and things are more complex, so their grids might look different, but it’s the same idea. If the horse doesn’t have a great front end I’ll build grids with some bounces; if he has trouble with verticals we’ll build up to trotting good-sized fences. It’s a great exer- cise; it’s not particularly cool or nouveau but it’s effective. If you trot a jump consistently and build up you learn a lot about your balance and your horse’s technique. It’s an expansive topic—William has some
Beth with her dog “Bean.”
Carolina, with her husband Mick Doyle, who is a farrier. Beth has two children, Sean Doyle and Gray Hales.
30 March/April 2017
great ideas but it’s never all just the horse or just the rider, it’s a mix of both. A good grid isn’t going to be that helpful for someone who’s not that balanced. You need a good set of eyes on the ground helping you make that judgement call. There’s no sense making it more complicated than it is. Trotting more jumps really helps people a lot. It may look simple but you’d be surprised how many people make a total mess of it!
Amber Heintzberger
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