Back to Earth…
After Barcelona, Gill returned to Australia wearing the first equestrian gold medal in 30 years – to instant fame and celebrity…
“And lots of parties. It was very good fun for a short time. The trouble is you are on such a high that getting back to reality is really quite difficult. There was so much euphoria when we got back. All of a sudden everyone wants to know you and there are a lot of expectations to live up to. I ended up doing quite a lot of media, I never found it exactly easy and natural but when something like Barcelona happens, then you have a certain amount of responsibility. I learnt reasonably quickly to deal with it. Even though I was really quite shy and retiring, my teacher training cut in. Standing in front of a class full of kids is a good base – and I did drama at college, so you can almost go out of your body and role play a bit. Equestrian sport hadn’t had much of a presence all those years, so we tried to keep the momentum going…
But when you are on such a high, in the scheme of things, you just know the lows are around the corner.
For me, that was the first big show back home, and one in my home state – the next Gawler! We were leading the dressage by quite a way – Reiner Klimke was judging and he gave me an 8 for my riding, that was something. The second last fence, Fred over-jumped, landed awkwardly, stumbled and fell, and got a big blood nose – and I came off too. So our local paper The Advertiser the next day had the headline, Golden Girl Hits The Dirt. You know that the high can’t go on forever but it still hurts. You’ve just got to pick yourself up. That was a reality check, a really good thing to happen because it made you think: What got you there in the first place? Bloody hard work, so that’s what I’ve got to get back to again.
It was a re-grouping after that, the next really big event was the World Championships at The Hague, that wasn’t a very good event for any of us. It’s amazing what gold medals can do. All of a sudden we were thought of as a real sport. We still had to find our own money to get over to The Hague – we had a little more help from the EFA this time, but it was still pretty much ‘get yourself over there to get yourself picked’. The Hague wasn’t the nicest competition I’d ever been to. It was a lot hotter than we were expecting, it was very humid. The roads and tracks were a foot deep in sand, it was horrendous for the horses. Fred had very thin skin, and he – as it turned out later – had an allergy to the sawdust that was there. We had to go from The Hague out to where the cross country was, and the sawdust out there, you could smell the pine tar in it. By the Monday he was covered with welts. He had an extremely high temperature even going into the cross country and pretty much was cooked. He just didn’t feel the same horse. I was having to kick him to the first fence, and that was so not Fred.
The Hague – not a happy memory
As a team we had an horrendous time. Everyone had stops. We finished fourth, ten points behind the Germans. It was still good but disappointing after Barcelona. Everybody had a really bad event, well apart from Pru Crib who was the lead after the cross country but then a few rails show jumping put paid to her great event… and I don’t know if even the medallists had a good time there.
It was after that, when Fred came home, that I found he’d had a T Wave reversal, he had a heart problem. I finally analysed it using a heart rate monitor. I was galloping down the beach and I thought – this heart rate monitor is going haywire. I took it in to get it checked and it was all okay, then I used it on another horse, it was okay. I got Morphetteville Equine Vet, Darren Arnold to be there while I galloped, and he used the stethoscope and said, ‘I think he has a problem.’ We ECG’s to diagnose the problem and then we had to use massive doses of quinine to reverse the problem. Either it works or it doesn’t and either they come through or they die. Pretty horrendous decision to have to make….Do we do it or not?? I didn’t sleep for a week over it. They said, he’ll be back to normal or even better if you do it, but he’ll be relegated to the paddock for ever if you don’t. We decided on taking the risk – and it came right. The next event was Lochinvar, 1995 and we came in 20 seconds under time, and won the Australian Championships on our dressage score… And back onto the Elite list…
A win at Lochinvar and back on the list…
So the next target was the Olympic Games in Atlanta. The next year we went to Lochinvar again and got beaten by Nicki Bishop and Wishful Thinking at the last show jump. Leading after the dressage, good cross country under time, showjumping super apart from the last line which was quite a short distance, and we just rolled the last pole, to come in second.
We were still on track to go to Atlanta, and that was an amazing turn around – this time we knew our horses were coming home no matter what. We had money behind us to fund the trip over. We had a fantastic lead up in the United States, and did a lot of work on all the horses’ fitness, and knowing how they were coping with the heat. We really did our homework so that we could go into that Games without the handbrake on – unlike most of the other teams. We knew we could just go out and gallop. Once again, Bear (Dennis Goulding), our vet was one step ahead. Dennis is very practical and he gets the job done. In Australia we are good with horses in hot conditions and knowing how to cope and get them back the next day. Dennis is not a high brow high falutin’ vet whose written all these scholarly papers, he’s just a practical vet who has been around for a long time and knows the ropes. I believe he’s been our secret weapon.
Over the years the Australian team management developed – Jim Dunn as the chef, Dennis as the vet, and Wayne as the coach. It’s the same team that was there on my first trip overseas to Taupo. Jim’s not part of the core any more, but the duo of Dennis, practical vet, and Wayne, practical horseman – and so knowledgeable about the competition – that’s what has got us through.
For me, Atlanta was not exactly the perfect event. My goal was a good clear round on the way to gold for Australia. I believed I had the best horse in the world. Wendy Schaeffer believed she had the best horse in the world… I wanted to go out and prove Fred was the best. At both Lochinvars, I’d had perfect clear rounds. The one in 95 was probably a bit too fast, but that was to prove a point. I had changed my gallop work a bit in the run up in 95, and that made a difference. The 1996 Lochinvar, then my cross country was exactly right, and that’s what I wanted to do on the world stage.
21 year old Wendy went out on Pony Club pony, Sunburst and did a fantastic job. She had a few time penalties but a fabulous trail blazer round when riders from a lot of other countries were hitting the turf. Then Phillip Dutton went out and did another superb clear – still with some time penalties. My job was to go out and go under time. I was in the box seat, third spot. Great I could just go out there following their two clears and go under time. First minute mark I was up on time, second minute mark I was up on time, third minute mark was the first water jump where lots of people had falls and I just made sure of it there. I was about 5 seconds down at the fourth minute mark, still good. Five minute mark I’m coming around the turn and as my watch was beeping, I was going round the five minute mark right on time, and Fred’s hindleg was slipping out from beneath him, and he was sliding along the ground. That’s where I broke my collar bone and ribs. He went sliding and I went splat.
Luckily for me, someone grabbed him, someone legged me on. I had no idea I’d broken myself. I was just so angry, I thought ‘those bastards are never going to believe that I was on time to here!’ Up to then, everything was absolutely to plan. I galloped up the hill to the next water jump. I was focussed on making up time, I knew that I hadn’t had any jumping penalties, and I had to make up time. I jumped in to the water, five or six strides on a curving line and a jump up, and tried to turn left, and my left arm didn’t want to work. I’m trying to get poor old Fred around the turn, I just couldn’t do it. He was so good he just had his eye on the fence and kept going and got there in exactly five and a half.
It was a big jump onto a bridge and a long long bounce back to water. Dear Fred, by rights he should have stopped but he kept on going. There are photos of me hanging on to the saddle by my ankles, that wasn’t quite enough. He went into the water, I came back down on the saddle and got flipped into the water. You can see in the photos, the cantle of the saddle actually broke. I went swimming at the Olympic Games – not quite the way I dreamed when I wanted to be a swimmer when I was eight – but I was in the water, and I had to get through the finish flags no matter what. For a fleeting moment, I thought, second fall – is that out? No, get me back on the horse because that first fall didn’t count.
I got back on with three kilometres and fifteen jumping efforts to go. Fred just kept on going, and he jumped everything so big, and every time he landed, I couldn’t breath but anyway we got through the finish flags. He was amazing because I couldn’t make him do anything, it was almost mental telepathy to get around the rest of that track. People say to me ‘why did you keep going? Why didn’t you pull up?’ For a start there was no way I wasn’t going to get through the finish flags, and when you are at a Games, you are so full of adrenalin, so focussed on finishing, nothing is going to get in your way. It’s like footballers playing on in a Grand Final after they have busted a hand… In the heat of the moment, you are oblivious to the pain.
When I got over the line, the getting off and weighing in, wasn’t particularly pleasant. Then I sat down and Wayne came over and said ‘Why the (expletive deleted) did you come off the second time? You couldn’t help the first one…’ He wasn’t very happy. Anyway we went off to hospital, busted collar bone and cracked ribs. I was devastated. After me, Andrew Hoy did a sensational job with me down and on a bad score. He jumped clear and under time, which under the circumstances was just amazing and great for the team. The team was in the lead by 60 odd penalties, an absolute country mile. I was determined to jump the next day.
I didn’t have any drugs in the hospital so I could ride. But as it turned out, I didn’t need to ride the next day because the other guys had done such a good job – they decided it was better for me not to jump. I still wish that I had jumped. That morning I believed our team was going to win a gold medal and I didn’t want to be on the podium with them because I didn’t think I deserved it. I actually talked to the team shrink over breakfast that morning, and it made me realise that sometimes, for whatever reason, goal posts change, what I did was the best I could under the circumstances.
He said, why were you going to be on the podium? I said for Fred, and Greg, and Kath my groom and for everyone else who had been part of it. And he said, you are part of the team, you deserve to be there. I thought back to Barcelona and what had happened to David Green, who didn’t get a gold medal because he didn’t finish the cross country – and I didn’t want to be up there. Anyway I got talked into it, and I did stand on the podium and got our medal, they’d changed the rules since Barcelona. I was allowed to have the drugs by then so I was feeling fairly euphoric. And I did feel very proud to be part of a great team. You don’t do it just for you. You do it for everybody behind you. To be part of that team – you might be individuals out there when you are trying to get into a team, but once you are in the team, you are very close and you are there to get a result. Along with Wayne and Jim and Bear and everyone else, it is a pretty tight unit.
It was great to be standing there, and great to accept a medal, but it wasn’t the way I wanted it to be. For Wendy to go out there and show the world, that she did have the best horse in the world on the day, that was wonderful. But in some small way I did show the world that I had an amazing horse for him to be able to do what he did, and to go around that track with very little help from me.
I retired Fred after Adelaide the next year. I came home to all this amazing ‘stuff’. When you are in the village you have no idea of what is going on at home. None of us had any idea how the media had blown up what Fred and I did. And that was tough to deal with because I was still thinking about slitting my wrists and feeling like a total failure, and I come home to being a hero, and poor Wendy is shoved into the corner – that wasn’t fair!
By rights after that Games I should have retired but I had unfinished business, I hadn’t done it the way I wanted. I’d planned to retire after Atlanta, but… Sydney Olympics…. Home crowd… I’m only 40, that’s not old. Keep going. I took Fred to Adelaide. The Event had made the big move to the City from Gawler after the Grand Prix headed east to Melbourne. What a perfect location to showcase the sport! That first year, 1997, was nearly a disaster. We had the biggest deluge of rain on the Friday. Fred was late in the dressage draw. Normally, that’s great but as it turned out he was knee deep in mud and Fred was never a mud runner. We did an awful test. He did finish sound, he went round the track, and jumped clear but not quite the fairy tale finish.
Fred retired, and it was time to try to find the next horse to get to Sydney. I had Endeavour (Benny) who came pretty much straight off the track from Western Australia. I did a clinic in the West and they asked me if I’d like to take the horse on. Nice horse, give it a go. I got the ride on Red Jarrah, nice dressage horse. I had two strings to the Sydney bow. Endeavour came through the grades quickly but never ever was settled enough in the brain to do a good dressage test. For the Sydney Olympics, you needed a horse that could do a very good test. While at Melbourne, the final selection trial, he went around clear under time cross country, clear showjumping, the dressage just wasn’t good enough. We didn’t deserve to be in the team for Sydney. I tried my hardest to get there but you have to be realistic, and realistically there were better people with better scores on the board. It was devastating not to be there, but hey I’d been to two Olympic Games. It was great to be in the stands and cheer on the third gold medal in a row for Australia.
I have found lots of other things to do. I love eventing, I’m passionate about the sport. I’m very lucky to be able to have a lifestyle that still supports my passion – thank you husband Greg. He’s still school teaching and paying the mortgage and I’m able to try and earn a crust with the horses but also step into these admin roles.
I love working with kids and the Mitsubishi Squad was a fantastic experience. When Mitsubishi was sponsoring Adelaide 3DE, the then general manager of the company, Tom Phillips, asked me into Mitsubishi and said, ‘right, we’ve got a big spend in Adelaide for one weekend, what can we do to maximise Mitsubishi’s involvement in the sport around the country?’ I said that one thing I thought was really missing was youth development, and Mitsubishi wanted to put some money into the kids and get their name around the country. I said how about putting some money into a young rider squad?
At the moment the kids are juniors, then all of a sudden they have to go up against Olympic gold medallists and pro riders, and there is nothing for them in the transition. They said, that sounds like a good idea. So that is where the Young Riders Squad was hatched – and with that the idea that the Inter-Schools would be a great way of funnelling talent from a broad base up into a squad, up into elite. So I came up with the concept of putting some money into running an inter-school competition in every state, looking at the successful Queensland and Victorian models, and try to do something nationally. The first couple of winners of the inter school in Queensland, and were eventual Mitsubishi Young Rider Squad members Lauren Schoedel who went on to win Adelaide two star and Lakes & Craters three star, Ali Foye who also won Adelaide 2* and Natalie Siiankoski, whose horse KS Archie is now on the elite squad. So the concept has already had positive results.
We had funding for three years through Mitsubishi, and even when they stopped funding Adelaide 3DE, the funded us for one more year, which was fantastic. Now the EFA has taken on the inter-schools competition, and gone with that. The development squads are now EFA development squads. We had great funding through Mitsubishi and we were able to get good coaches, good programs up and running, using nutritionists, sports psychologists, video analysis, giving the kids coming through, really good basics to go on with. We had a good support crew – Wayne and Bear and Andrew Hunt – so that when someone like Nat Siiankoski who’d never been to a three day event before, got there, there was someone to help them through. The kids who are training with Heath Ryan at the NSW Centre, they get all that support, they don’t need the squad, but there is a whole heap of kids out there who don’t have coaches or support crew. It’s also good for the kids with the very nice horses coming through, they get into the system, they get to work with everybody, get to trust everybody, it’s just a nice feel. The whole development idea is important – Heath Ryan might not agree with me – and okay, there are some young riders who will find a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, and drift out of the sport, but if you pickup one or two or three good ones, and keep them coming, that is really important.
You went over to the other side – became a selector?
I think the selection process these days is definitely more structured, and I think I’ve got a little bit of experience to offer, something to put into the mix. Maybe down the track I’ll have to make a choice between selecting and judging – down the track that may become a conflict. That will be a decision I have to make. I enjoy the judging. Again I am sitting on the other side of the fence, but someone has to do it.
I got into judging way back, as a show horse , dressage and eventing judge even before I was an eventing competitor of any note, because in the process of becoming an eventing competitor, I wanted to know what the ‘other side’ were wanting to see. I became a judge purely for selfish reasons because I wanted to know what those judges were looking for. I think more riders should get out there and get into the cars… even do some shadow judging, or pencil, and get a bit of an understanding from the other side of the fence, because it is amazing what learn from sitting in the car, that you didn’t realise was happening as a rider. I think it is really good to have that eye and that feel and that knowledge.
Then you get the big job, Director of Australia’s only Four Star Three Day Event – except that the year you get it, is the year EI hits… and that is on top of the major sponsor and the state government pulling the plug on the funding – what a challenge!
Again, someone’s got to do it! In saying that, I love the venue and it is a fantastic showcase for the sport, it’s got so much more to do, to give, to make it bigger and better. When the government was tipping in the funds that was great. The event managers from government maybe didn’t quite have the passion for the sport, and also didn’t have the vision, and the benefit of being to the biggest events around the world and seeing how you can do it, and make it even better for Adelaide. I’m sure there are better directors around than me, and I’m sure I won’t be doing it forever – but I know I can put into the mix some knowledge from the best events around the world – and have a passion to run a good competition – which the competition committee do anyway – but make the whole event better from the perspective of the sport as a whole, the state, tourism and television.
I want to make the whole event more appealing to the general public. Let’s face it, we have to get the sport out to the general public, we have to get TV involved. Our vision, my vision and the vision of the board, is to use the template of very successful major Events like the Clipsal 500 car race and Tour Down Under to make Rymill Park the ‘place to be in November’ in Adelaide . To reinstate the government’s confidence in Adelaide International 3DE as a major event and to use it not only as a showcase for Eventing but the other disciplines as well. To have the where-with-all to produce an event that is up there with Lexington, Badminton and Burghley and to have a number of complimentary ancillary events to get the General Public in. We have a unique and fabulous location, we have a wonderful and exciting sport we have the capacity to get there and the passion …we just need the support of the Australian Equestrian fraternity to help make it happen.
We probably have one last chance – this year – to show the government that our event is something they really want to be involved with in a big way.
We don’t want to lose the four star from Australia. Eventing needs a four star. Before our top young riders pack up and go overseas, they need to mix it and show they can produce the goods and be in the top five at a four star in Australia – then if they need to go overseas to prove themselves: go for it.
We need a four star here to give riders a reason to keep their horses, and keep their horses going, and not sell them overseas for heaps of dollars. If you don’t have a major event that you are working towards, then you tend to lose the focus – and we need to keep that focus. And I am an Adelaide girl after all…”
On Beaches and Fitness…
When I was getting my horse fit for Three Day Events, I tended to do more specificity training. In those days I’d start with a long trot (20 minutes) then I would do a couple of repetitions of canter, very short, sharp, fast, (2 x 2 mins up to 700m/m) because Fred needed that to spark up and go. Benton’s Way, obviously not. Then I’d do a bit more trot (1 x 10 min), then three longer canters. (up to 3 x 8 mins @ 500m/m) and a big cool down through the trot and walk… and recoveries through the trot as that replicated what they would do in phase C of the 3 Day.
I think these days you still have to have your horse fit and cardio vascular fit too. You probably don’t have to do so much of the long slow distance trotting we used to do for the roads and tracks – but in saying that, the cardio is such good work for your basic fitness levels. It may well mean that you do a lot of that in your dressage work – in dressage work you are working the horses quite hard, instead of doing miles and miles of long trot in the forest with the horse’s head up and being an orang-utan. Dressage is cardio work, not anaerobic work, it is the basic long slow distance work, but it is done in a dressage arena and works on the suppleness and submission as well.
For the cross country, I think the horses still need to be as fit now as they used to be. Even though the cross country these days is usually only ten minutes, sometimes eleven, as opposed to the 14 minutes with the hour long roads and tracks, up and down hill and the five minute steeplechase, that we used to have – they still have to be absolutely fit to go fast and be adjustable and rideable over the super technical courses of today and recover to be in good shape and careful for the showjumping.
I still like to use the repetitions because I like the gradual fitness build, where you want to get the heart rate up, and partially recover before doing the next rep. The fittening effect comes through each recovery so each rep and partial recovery builds the fitness.
I tend to use a lot more hill work if I can, to get the heart rate up without the wear and tear of speed on the legs but the beach for anything fast. Speed work down the beach is good because the surface is flat, and predictable.
Down the beach is perfect for the repetitions because you can go into the water in between. I still do the work in long trot first, to get the tendons, the muscles, the cardio vascular system, the respiratory system, all operating before you start to put the pressure on with the gallop work. Those techniques are still much the same…
When the roads and tracks and the steeple were scrapped, we still thought we needed something like that in the warm-up. Now I think we probably don’t need it. I think at the actual event you have to do your basic long slow work, your suppling work, getting the systems working – you can do that in around about fifteen minutes. Walk, trot, bending, flexing, leg yielding, shoulder fore, shoulder in, get the horse supple, transitions get the horse operating – making sure it will go forward and come back. Then into canter, similar work in canter, and then some fast forward, come backs. Again the specificity training of what you are going to be doing in the actual competition. Make sure you can kick the horse on, and he’ll come back to you. Circle, go forward, come back. Fifteen minutes of that, then to the jumping.
In the warm up, I don’t like to do too much jumping. I like to use a cross, vertical, oxer – get them showjumping nicely. Open the stride up, jump some open cross country fences, you might want to angle a couple. Replicate a line in your head that you are thinking about – say an apex and a turn, then finish off in a nice open feel canter and jump a couple of fences. All that should take a maximum of 30 minutes, but probably less, twenty. I don’t believe that you need to do an hour’s ‘stuff’ before you go cross country.
What you need the night before is to have a blow out – or if you are running late in the day, maybe do it very early in the morning. A blow out to open up the lungs and get them breathing – working up to a minute fast, 600+.
What you do before the final trot up depends on where the horse is at. Assuming the horse is sound, assuming you don’t have to keep it in ice until the very last minute, I like to take it out and just go for a walk around. Walk around, a little trot, a little canter. You might even want to go walk / canter for a while, just to loosen it up, loosen it up over the back, get it through – pliable, happy. Then back to the box. Make sure there are not sweat marks anywhere, have it well presented for the trot up – and then keep the horse walking until it is your turn to trot up.
If there is a little problem that needs some ice – then the routine might be: get on and ride, warm up, bring back, ice if there’s a bit of an over-reach or a bruised foot, whatever. It all depends on the scenario. There are lots of different ways you handle different problems. Always ask the advice of an experienced competitor or eventing coach.. That’s what I love about this sport, there is always someone there happy to and with the knowledge and experience to help.
Straight after the trot up, if there’s time, I like to chuck the saddle on the horse and do a little jump. Some trot rails a little trot and pop, a couple of crosses, get the horse’s eye, and get your eye, back into showjumping mode, get the horse going forward and coming back in balance. If it has the odd rail that’s fine. Would I set one up? Depends on the horse. With Fred we never needed to because he was so super careful, but maybe with another horse that is not so careful, if it trots into something a little loose and happens to have a rail – so be it.
I like to work on a couple of little exercises. Trot rail, cross, a little oxer, maybe shortish distance. Again it depends on the horse. With some of the Squad kids that I have worked with at Adelaide, in the week before we have worked out plans of action. Say with Ali Foye’s horse, we would do a rising oxer with a cross in front and a rail behind. Just get it jumping quite tall, then make it square. If the horse happens to feel the rail the first time he jumps it square, so be it. Put him away, come out, do a couple of fences, then go in for the round – that seemed to work with that horse, but there are no hard and fast rules. You need to work with your coach to find the exercises your horse needs to jump its best.
Warming up for the cross country at the One Day Event, it’s pretty similar. The same warmup attitude. Quite often at a One Day Event, you’ve done your dressage the day before, the horse has been in a yard over night – and it is going to come out of a yard not stiff, but not like they come out of a paddock, ready to ride. So you want to spend ten or so minutes walking around, just gradually getting the systems working. Getting the walk / halt / circle / submission happening. Go into trot, trot five to ten minutes, establish your rhythm in the trot, into the contact, suppleness, bending this way that way – maybe some leg yield exercises, maybe a little shoulder in. Getting the horse moving off your leg, into the contact, supple and through. You might want him to go a little deep, come over the back, pick him up, go into canter.
In canter the same sort of thing – big circle in two point, open up the canter, sit into the saddle, balance, ten metre circle, forward out of that in two point, gallop. The horse has to learn that in two point it is travelling, as soon as you sink into the saddle, it starts to come up and balance itself. You do that at home by doing your work in two point – go forward in two point, come back, ten metre circle, balance. Then at the competition, you replicate that work to prepare for the cross country.
Once the horse is listening to that, going forward, coming back nicely – then go to your jumps. Again, start off in trot, pop a couple of little low ones, into canter, pop a couple of little ones, move up a little, open up and jump some fences with more of a cross country feel – two point between your fences, sink into light three point as you come into your fence. Ride a few angled fences on your line to test the straightness , and then five minutes before your start, go over to the start box.
I like to walk around at the start – depending on the horse again, whether it is a nutter or not. Walk around the start box area for a couple of minutes, have a talk to the starter, make sure the time is organized, check your watch, into the start box. I always start my watch five seconds before the start, some people start ten seconds before the start, that way you can check it is working and still be ready to go, and know you’ve got a few seconds up your sleeve. Then when your minute markers come up, you know you’ve got five to ten seconds grace.
I can remember once I didn’t get my watch going. It was at Melbourne one star, when there were eighty odd in it. In the steeplechase, I came out of the box, thought I’d started the watch, realised half way that I hadn’t – got to the finish thinking I was okay. I.6 time penalties, bugger – so then I came second by 1.2 penalties! That really hurt and I never ever did that again…
Fixing it at home….
Working with Charlie Freeman-Finn
If it is not working then you have to do something to make it better – and that should start with your training at home. What Charlie needs to do is keep working on the flat work issues, keep working on the bending, the control of the shoulder and trying to make her horse give on the right side… she also needs to develop the mental pattern of knowing instinctively what to do when things go wrong. At the moment, she is in the habit of whenever anything goes wrong, the knees clench, the legs come off, the hands grab – one side more than the other – the horse puts its head in the air and goes hollow. And okay, she gets it over a fence, but not so nicely.
Charlie has to establish in her training at home, a pattern of things that work to keep the horse round, so that when things go wrong on course, she starts to instinctively do those things that are going to make the horse more balanced. Things like: immediately think right leg, keep the right leg on, soften the jaw, a little leg yielding to the left rein… when she has plenty of room on the track between the fences, use that to re-organize herself, and re-establish the balanced canter that she needs to meet the fence nicely.
Like lots of riders, Charlie needs to do lots of work on the flat, lots of work in her jumping saddle on the flat, so that as soon as things go wrong she doesn’t instinctively go back to her Tassie Devil mode. We have to get her position more established, her balance exercises better established. It is not going to change quickly because she is so entrenched in doing it not quite the right way. We’ve got to try and establish the habit by repetition every day, make sure she is very disciplined in her work every day, then sitting correctly becomes instinctive – we want a disciplined Tasmanian Devil. Number one is still to get over the fence, but we want to try and do it in a better way, a way that will work as she goes up the grades.
This has been the final instalment in our four part series. Our thanks to Charlie and Joe, Gill’s students for being our guinea pigs, and thanks to Gill for her time and effort in putting this series together… And Gill would especially like to thank the sponsors that make it all possible: Mitvavite, Nature Vet and Saddleworld.
This series of articles originally appeared in The Horse Magazine from May to August 2008