Posted: 1st June 2017 | Back to news feed
James Sommerville’s Top Tips on Training a Young Horse
Grub’s sponsored Yorkshire- based event rider, James Sommerville, first started eventing in 2002. He has a reputation for getting the best out of difficult/tricky to ride horses and in this article he offers tips on how to train a young horse.
Firstly, when buying a young horse to event, James says he looks at their conformation. He is particularly focusing on a nice head and a kind eye. He also studies their feet, limbs and the straightness of the horse from behind. Once satisfied that he likes what he sees, he moves on to consider how the horse moves and specifically, how it jumps. His biggest consideration is whether the young horse will be trainable, so he is looking for an intelligent horse that is quick to learn.
Once the decision to purchase has been made, then the really hard work begins. For all horses, he begins with lungeing and long reining. Underpinning this is the need to build trust so he moves on to leaning over them, sitting on them and riding them, all in a safe environment.
James quickly introduces a lot of pole work to push a young horse forward into bigger paces and a lot of lateral work. He says this is extremely important to build suppleness and to get the horse properly using all of its body. However, he does not begin jumping until the horse is fully responding to the rider.
Starting jumping, he begins with small fences, basic cross poles, straight bars and parallels, ultimately aiming to jump them together.
Said James: “I am looking to establish manoeuvrability within the pace. I begin exercising over a double of cross poles, shortening and lengthening the canter.”
A top tip from James is that he hires many arenas for show jumping practice and cross country schooling before entering any competitions. Once he feels a horse is ready to compete, he begins at BE90.
James is quite pragmatic in his approach to getting a horse to have the confidence it needs for cross country. He admits that for the first few events, he actually rides the horse quite quickly, propelling them forward without giving them the opportunity to look too much at the fences. This way, he believes they learn to enjoy cross country.
To get a young horse fit for cross country, James recommends hacking, road work and hills, with some light canter work. However, it is important to manage this carefully in order to prevent straining young limbs.
He suggests using or creating skinny fences, barrels and corners in your own arenas if you are looking for exercises to do at home to improve your cross country ability.
For further information please contact Grubs on 01204 567700 or visit www.grubswarehouse.com
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