At a horse show this weekend I was coaching one of my students in the warm up ring and couldn’t help but overhear an older man discussing with one of his many students some  of his theories about successful jumping.

I paid attention to what he was saying because I’m always interested in theories and always interested in learning more and what this trainer was saying made sense and I agreed with him.

The first thing he said was that riders tend to concentrate too much on the jump and not enough on the quality of canter. He kept saying to his rider that the canter needed “spark”.

The second thing he rather loudly theorized was that it took hundreds if not thousands of jumps for a rider to be relaxed over the jump and for the correct rider position to become natural.

Warm up rings are a great place to keep your ears open. As a rider you might hear things that are interesting and helpful and as a teacher you might pick up a new way to communicate your ideas to your students.

Mara