WELCOME to Coach’s Eye. My work has taken me on a wonderful journey over the last 15 years to Europe, Asia, and North America, working with riders ranging from children to experienced professionals. No matter where I go or who I work with, there are four key points I try to instil in my riders:

Over the next few months, I will share examples of specific exercises I regularly use, from warm-ups to jumping exercises. Most of these exercises can be adapted by height, distance, or number of efforts to suit young horses or more novice riders, or tweaked to challenge more advanced athletes.

This week I am going to focus on warm-up. I like to focus on three elements of a good warm-up:

In this exercise, we will set three poles in a straight line, four strides (16.5m) apart, about one metre in from the track. Starting in trot, these can be used for our suppleness element by creating a bending line, shown in the diagram opposite.

I use the other long side (one metre in from the track) to lengthen and shorten the trot, progressively asking for more collection each time. I then change rein lengthening across the diagonal and repeat on the other rein.

I would continue with this set until I’m happy that the horse is working smoothly through the movements and there is a well-established connection between horse and rider.

The parallel poles can then be used as focus points to create leg-yield movements, starting between the first two poles and working to the outside, and vice versa, from the track, leg-yielding in between the second set. Finishing our trot work, focusing on straightness between our poles.

Once we have established a solid working canter, we can start using our four-stride-distance canter poles.

Starting with five strides to five strides to generate some energy and focus on straightness in our collected canter, we can then move up our tempo to work four strides to four strides, which is our energised working canter.

To finish, I like to ask for four to five strides to ensure that we remain in good communication within our jumping canter. I alternate directions each time, which gives us many opportunities to work on our straightness and changes across the diagonals. Now we are ready to jump!

Keep an eye out on The Irish Field social media for a video of this week’s exercise to accompany these training tips.

The next Coach’s Eye will be out on May 9th to give you plenty of time to practice. Good luck!