YOU could have heard a pin drop at Gurteen Agricultural College as a rapt audience attended an instructor and coach training day, organised by the Irish Pony Club.

Over 60 coaches travelled nationwide to attend what proved to be a highly informative and interactive event.

Renowned Swedish coach and former gold medal-winning chef d’equipe for the British eventing team, Yogi Breisner was the main speaker, the last of three speakers in the morning session followed by practical assimilated cross-country orientated coaching sessions in the afternoon and evening.

Gurteen College farm manager Kenneth Flynn opened the morning session and welcomed all of the instructors.

Wicklow’s Derval Diamond gave the opening presentation looking at the changes which have taken place in the sport of eventing since it began. Diamond has been an instructor and a chief-examiner for the Irish Pony Club for over 30 years. Her presentation went through the history of eventing and how it has evolved into the present day sport.

Diamond touched on safety issues within the sport and how this affects instructors coaching at the grassroots level. She explained the range of new collapsable technology and the recent success of Equiratings and Eventing Ireland developing ERQI ratings for riders.

Over the last two years, ERQI ratings have been used by Eventing Ireland in order to help reduce the number of falls. On implementing the rating system, Equiratings and Eventing Ireland hoped there would be a 5% reduction of falls. The results were overwhelming. In 2016 there was a 60% reduction in the number of falls at one-star and two-star level and in 2017, there was a further reduction of falls across all levels by 30%.

DECISIONS

Dermot Brislane has worked as secondary school teacher for almost 20 years and has also been very involved in coaching equestrian sport, hurling and rugby. Throughout his presentation, Finding the balance, he drew on his own experiences in dealing with young people and shared his knowledge with the audience.

Brislane emphasised the importance of young people being allowed to make their own decisions and not being micro-managed. He also addressed more sensitive issues including the pressures faced by young people today and increasing mental health issues. Brislane gave the audience four essential life skills they should be helping to instill in young people: resilience, patience, control and time management.

FITNESS

Yogi Breisner began with a classroom presentation on horse and rider fitness. Taking into account the individuality of the horse and rider was one of the most important point he stressed, as well as taking a holistic approach to both horse and rider fitness.

Breisner touched on some points made in Diamond’s presentation on the safety aspect of eventing, especially in relation to riding at the incorrect speed.

Breisner advised that riding at incorrect speed can cause serious accidents, adding that incorrect speed doesn’t just apply to riding at the incorrect speed for a certain competition but also applies to riding at the incorrect speed on each individual horse.

Every horse has their own maximum speed and the closer the horse is ridden to the maximum, the higher the risk. Breisner highlighted importance of mental fitness, which was also mentioned by Brislane.

PRACTICAL WORK

The first practical coaching sessions took place after lunch. Breisner coached two groups with three local pony club riders in each group. The aim of both sessions was to improve each rider’s position and balance for cross-country riding. As is often the case when instructors are coaching within the pony club, the group was very mixed, this gave the audience a masterclass in coping with very normal problems.

Breisner took the audience through a number of exercises, including working with bounces and canter poles to a fence, which are suitable for using for coaching a group of horses and ponies of a variety of types and sizes. He also emphasised the importance of training both horse and rider to adjust when the stride isn’t perfect, especially in relation to training for cross-country riding.

Breisner explained that there are three key areas when things usually go wrong for riders when they are going cross-country, namely loss of rider position, incorrect speed and rhythm, and incorrect direction.

He then went on to explain how best to coach riders to avoid these mistakes happening.

As is very often the case with most coaching sessions, things do not always go to plan, Breisner was very open about how he felt he lost control of the sessions at different points and how he then went about regaining control. This was reassuring for all of the coaches watching and a number of coaches felt they gained hugely from seeing how Breisner dealt with problems.

In the evening sessions, Breisner coached slightly more experienced riders and worked on more technical elements of assimilated cross-country, such as corner and skinny fences.

Throughout both the afternoon and the evening practical sessions, Breisner asked the audience how they would describe something or their thoughts on how an exercise worked. This contributed to a very interactive and inclusive day for the audience.