Horse&Rider Magazine – February 2021

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Issue number 614 February 2021 ■ Accuracy with Nicola Wilson ■ Tina Fletcher’s form guide ■ Creative polework layouts ■ Interview: Laura Collett ■ Horsey MOT ■ Hoof supplements ■ Rider safety ■ Winter ailments

FEED

The UK’s best-selling equestrian monthly

Nicola Wilson’s simple set-up for total accuracy

Interview

LAURA COLLETT on why 2020 was her dream season Boost your

jumping technique

FROM THE VET

WINTER AILMENTS

with

Tina Fletcher

and how to avoid them

HOOF

HEALTH

The ultimate

gymnastic workout

WITH ONLY SIX POLES

Step up your

safety in the saddle

The supplements to look out for GIVE YOUR HORSE AN

MOT £4.25

10 December 2020 - 6 January 2021

Banish the winter blues!

As told to Bethany Searby. Photos: Jon Stroud

In this feature. . .

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➤ Get

to grips with using pole shape layouts

In the saddle

➤ Improve

your accuracy ➤ Have a go at flying changes

Poles to problem-solve PART 1: THE BOW TIE

Our expert

Tania Grantham is a dressage rider and trainer who made the move up to Grand Prix with her top horse in November 2019. She specialises in innovative polework formations and holds clinics in the South East.

Our models

Seni Ilustrisimo III (Igloo) is a nine-year-old 17hh PRE stallion owned by Michelle Van Meurs, working at Advanced Medium level.

In our new series, dressage rider Tania Grantham’s creative layouts will help you get the most out of polework. The best part? You only need six to get started

R

iding a simple line of poles definitely has its place in training – and the rewards can be reaped whether you’re a regular over fences or between the boards. However, a line has its limitations and so adopting a little creativity in your schooling can really boost a pole’s impact. Experimenting with weird and wonderful layouts can be a great way to breathe some fresh air into stale schooling routines or draw a young or inexperienced horse’s focus away from distractions outside of the arena. And, generally, the wackier the shape you set out, the more versatile your horse’s workout.

Whether you have six poles or 26, if you want to work on straightness and accuracy, improve your horse’s strength and paces, teach him something new or just inject a bit of fun and focus back into you flatwork sessions, using your poles to make schooling shapes could be the answer. This month, we start with a simple allrounder – the bow tie.

One size fits all

Have you ever set out a line of trot poles and had to get off to adjust them for canter work? Not so with shapes. This layout can be used for all horses, from 11hh ponies to 17hh warmbloods, and they can all work through the layouts in any pace without making a single alteration. You might have to tweak your route through the shapes or ask your horse to collect or extend for the perfect fit but, in doing so, you’re enhancing your horse’s adjustability and improving his responses to your aids – all in all, it’s a win-win.

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In this feature. . .

➤ Perfect

your walk-to-canter transitions

Maximising your movements part two

Join Alice for another boost to your training as she ups the ante with leg-yield and simple changes

Our expert

Alice Oppenheimer is an International Grand Prix dressage rider and trainer who produces and breeds dressage horses from her base, Headmore Stud.

F

rom suppleness to a quicker reaction to your aids, leg-yields and simple changes bring a whole host of benefits to your training even if the white boards aren’t your cup of tea. Hacking and jumping horses can certainly benefit from these movements, but if dressage is your primary focus, they’re essential skills – you’ll be able to use these movements to improve your scores and prepare for a successful move-up by creating a more responsive ride and generating a more powerful canter, tidying up your transitions and producing more suppleness.

Our model

As told to Megan Hurley. Photos: Jon Stroud

TOP TIP

If your horse becomes tense during a transition, maintain a little flexion and stay soft in your hands to encourage him to relax. It’s hard work, so he may stiffen to help balance himself. By being tense yourself, you’ll only unbalance him further.

Wurlitzer, or Toto to her friends, is a five-year-old mare by Totilas and out of White Mischief. She’s owned by Rebecca Hulme.

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TOP TIP

Make your aids for canter the same whether you ask from walk or trot, as this will help your horse understand what you’re asking.

In the saddle

➤ Put

his balance to the test ➤ Improve suppleness with lateral work

Spend your warm-up working your horse forward in all three paces

Perfect prep

As always, your warm-up is one of the most important aspects of your training, especially as you introduce movements that require increased balance and engagement, which need the foundations to already be in place.

Spend your warm-up working your horse forward in all three paces.

Adopt only a light contact, using your seat and leg aids to move him on and back around the arena. Sharpening up his reactions will set you up well for tougher tasks, such as simple changes, where the transitions come up quickly.

It can be helpful to practise giving and retaking the reins during this time, too, as this will test your horse’s selfcarriage to ensure he’s off his forehand before asking him to knuckle down to harder work.

DID YOU KNOW?

Horses are all individuals, and some may be naturally supple while others are naturally strong. Often a strong horse will be less supple, and vice versa, so bear this in mind in your training.

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HORSE&RIDER 49

Photos: Bob Atkins, Jon Stroud, Ostranitsa Stanislav/Shutterstocm.com. With thanks to CVS Equine practice, B&W Equine Vets for their help with this feature, bwequinevets.co.uk

Seasonal ailments By being savvy about these winter woes, you can get ahead and help prevent them. Charlotte Sinclair shows you how Our expert

Charlotte Sinclair BVSc PhD Cert EP Cert ES (Orth) FHEA MRCVS is one of the senior ambulatory vets at CVS Equine practice, B&W Equine Vets. She’s also a senior lecturer in equine health and disease at the Royal Agricultural University, and has a particular interest in sport horses.

A

s if the reduced daylight To ascertain the severity and cause hours and the ever-present of the cough your vet can perform a threat of rain, wind routine clinical examination. This and snow weren’t could lead your vet to also enough, the perform a tracheal wash or winter months bring with bronchioalveolar lavage, TOP TIP them a heightened risk of which enables analysis of If your horse must be your horse developing airway secretions and helps stabled, pay close attention to a number of seasonal your vet devise a treatment the quality of your pick of feed, maladies. However, as plan and monitor response forage and bedding. These are with all things equine, to treatment. the main sources of dust. knowledge is power – so by The disease can be totally better understanding some or partially reversed by of the problems you might be treatment with bronchodilators, faced with, you’ll know what to steroids and environmental changes, do in the unfortunate event your horse though the latter option is a vital part of becomes affected. disease management and reducing the risk of recurring clinical signs. Consider…

• ventilation An outside stable is Equine asthma generally better than being in a barn, Most horses are stabled for at least and well-placed windows encourage some portion of time during winter and constant airflow are therefore exposed to a higher-dust • forage Feeding hay or haylage from environment than they would be in the the ground or a container on the floor field. Unfortunately, with increased is better than having hay in a net exposure comes a heightened risk of or high-level rack, because ground developing equine asthma (also known as feeding promotes secretion drainage RAO or COPD), a condition that results from the lungs. If your horse is fed hay, from a hypersensitive response to dust it should be soaked or steamed, or offer particles, especially to those found in haylage as an alternative poor quality hay or straw.

• bedding Keeping your horse on Equine asthma is typically identified dust-extracted shavings or a similar by a cough. Your horse may only cough minimal-dust bedding is preferable when ridden but it might also happen in to straw. However, if surrounded the stable – and this may be accompanied by horses bedded with straw, the by nasal discharge. Whatever the advantage of changing just one stable’s circumstances, a cough is always worth bedding is unfortunately negligible investigating.

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Ask a vet

DID YOU KNOW?

While dust particles are the most common cause of equine asthma, it may develop as a result of respiratory viruses or bacterial infections.

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