Tag Archives: Long Lining

Clinic Reports, Personal Stories, Training Tips and Techniques

Motivating the Lazy Equine Athlete

December 30, 2015 christinakeim 2 Comments

Further Learnings from the Area I Scholarship

In 2015, I was lucky enough to be one of ten recipients of an Area I Eventing Scholarship. In my application, I indicated that I planned to focus on training rather than competing Annapony this season. I used funds from the scholarship to pay for lessons with Verne Batchelder, Denny Emerson and Nancy Guyotte (see Another Clinic with Nancy Guyotte). Throughout each session, one theme became abundantly clear: Anna is a capable, but somewhat lazy, athlete, and nagging her for “more” will get you nowhere. My lesson with Nancy focused mostly on show jumping, while Verne tackled dressage and Denny, cross country. In this blog, I will discuss the main exercises and techniques learned in the sessions with Verne and Denny.

Verne Batchelder: Using Double Longeing to Improve Suppleness and Impulsion

Verne Batchelder of River House Hanoverians in Williston, FL, gives clinics regularly in New Hampshire. I have really enjoyed working with him over the past several years both with Anna and Lee. One of Verne’s great strengths is his ability to find many different approaches to correcting deficiencies, all while staying within a clear training system and progression. Verne is also an expert with work in hand, including double longeing and long lining; he regularly includes such techniques in the training programs of his own horses, which I had the opportunity to witness on a visit to his farm several years ago (see Winter Training Sessions: Mini-Pro Style).

Having worked with Verne a number of times previously, he is well familiar with Anna’s tendency to be generally lacking in impulsion. Some of this he attributes to her inherent mellow nature, but some of it is due to a lack of suppleness. We have worked on improving her suppleness in a variety of ways, including improved neck control, the use of traditional lateral exercises such as shoulder fore, leg yield and haunches in, as well as longitudinal stretching work like long and low or lengthenings.

This spring, Verne decided for the first time to incorporate some work on the double longe into our session. His intention was to provide increased support through the outside turning aids while improving control of the curvature of her neck. I remained mounted while Verne ran two lines; the outside line was simply attached to the bit ring and ran over my leg and around Anna’s hindquarters, while the inside line was set up as a sliding longe. This meant that the line ran through the inside bit ring and then attached to a loop on the girth, underneath my inside foot. With the sliding longe, the ground handler can smoothly achieve correct inside flexion. The outside line allows for a clear and consistent support through the entire arc of the horse’s body while also providing a mechanism to apply a traditional half halt.

Here is a video which shows a little bit of basic long lining.

It is quite a strange feeling to essentially have one’s horse ridden from the ground while one remains mounted! Anna has longed only a little bit, and I was definitely mildly (well, greatly) concerned that she might not be a model citizen when put into these boundaries. My job was to essentially hold the reins evenly and to remain centered, adding leg to support Verne’s body position and voice. At first, Anna was somewhat resistant to the idea of accepting the newly imposed limits. It is important for a trainer to remember that resistance is only the horse’s way of expressing their displeasure. If the question the trainer is asking the horse is fair given their physical condition and previous training, and the aids are appropriate, usually the rider’s best response is to simply ignore the resistance and remain consistent in using the aids to ask the appropriate question. In fairly short order, Anna relaxed into the new parameters established by the double longe and began to more actively engage the muscles of her topline as well as increase the degree of thrust from her hindquarters. In addition, the connection further stabilized and the quality of the bend improved.

After this session with Verne, I incorporated the use of about ten minutes of warm up on the double longe with Anna on dressage days, with the inside line set up as a sliding longe. When the horse is unmounted, side reins set just a little bit on the longer side will help to maintain straightness; as always, they should not be adjusted in such a way that the horse’s head is forced down or in. In working with this technique independently, I noticed that Anna could find her own balance and begin to develop looseness throughout her back more rapidly than when warmed up under saddle. When I rode her after this style of warm up, she was much more willing to stay “hotter” off my leg and therefore I could use a much quieter forward driving aid.

Here is a video of some double longeing.

One of the other huge benefits of using the sliding longe technique to warm up was that the overall work session could remain “short and sweet”. Because she had already loosened up her muscles, it was possible to keep the actual “work” session much more focused and organized. I think this is super important with all horses, but especially those which don’t have an unlimited reserve of energy. If you can get in the ring, do what you need to do, and then go out for a hack, the horse’s attitude will stay fresher and more enthusiastic than when they anticipate a long session of drill work.

Denny Emerson: Jumping Fences off a Forward Stride

Anna and I spent the summer of 2014 up at Tamarack Hill Farm, where we worked hard to rebuild our confidence over fences (see The Tamarack Chronicles: Vol III). We left in August with a renewed sense of harmony and assurance in our jumping work and completed the fall season with placings at King Oak and Stoneleigh Burnham Horse Trials.

Keim-C-090714-3765 — Anna at King Oak Farm, September 2014. Photo courtesy of Flatlandsfoto/Joan Davis and used with permission.

Overall, I was able to continue to apply the techniques I had learned at Denny’s to our regular schooling routine and keep Anna’s jumping skills tuned up while working on my own over the winter. In general, I keep the fences low enough that “mistakes” are not a big deal. I have focused a lot of energy on further refining my jumping “eye” and improving the quality and consistency of Anna’s jumping canter.

Denny always says that when under pressure, all riders will show a tendency to either “choke” or “chase” their eye. What he means is that we all have a preference for pushing a horse to lengthen their stride, perhaps leaving a bit too long, or to overly compress the horse, causing them to jump from a deep spot. While either option might be the best one in a given circumstance, neither is ideal as a method of riding to every fence; this is why most of us have to develop, through practice, the ability and habit of organizing the horse’s canter to arrive at the “ideal” take off spot. It is my opinion that horses, too, have a tendency to prefer to leave long or to jump deep, and they also need to be conditioned to be able to jump from a variety of different reasonable points.

Anna would be a “choker”. She can be carrying a decent amount of energy and power in the canter, and then in the final few strides before the fence, drop behind the leg, compress her stride, and calmly decelerate to the base with increasingly shorter strides. It isn’t quite the same as a “chip”, which is when the horse will squish one extra small stride right in front of the fence. With Anna, it is a steady deceleration which allows balanced but small strides to be fit into the space where a few longer strides would have been better. She is simply more comfortable jumping from a slightly tighter distance off a shorter stride.

For a long time, I have allowed Anna to manage her fences in this way, as it seemed to be the place from which she was most confident. It is also incredibly difficult to prevent her from doing it, and when I try to address the issue, I feel like I am beating her with my legs and/ or crop to keep the canter going. I have participated in clinics (most notably with Kim Severson) where the entire focus became trying to eliminate this change in the canter, to get Anna to jump more “out of stride”, but I always end up feeling like both Anna and I are frustrated. She also will begin to shut down if you really push her on it—her response seems to be, “hey, I jumped your fence, lady, what more do you want?”

The major issue is that there are some fences which simply do not ride as well when jumped from this tighter spot, including upright verticals like planks and wider oxers. In addition, she will often quit when faced with this deep distance and a tough question. Yet when I push her to maintain the same canter to avoid this situation, she will obstinately ignore my aids and put herself into the not ideal take off point. It is just yet another manifestation of her tendency to not stay in front of the leg. Story of our lives!

So if I rode like Michael Jung or Ingrid Klimke or any of the other equestrian elite, my horse would never have gotten to this point. But as I am a mere mortal, and have made a ‘deal’ with my horse, I am now faced with trying to change the terms of our established contract.

My session with Denny started in the show jumping arena. After a brief warm up on the flat, I began popping over a few of the smaller fences in the ring. Anna was obedient but also performing her signature “I change my canter on the approach” maneuver. Denny decided that the focus of our session was going to be keeping her much more forward overall, but especially in those critical last few strides before the fence.

JumpingtheCows — In this lesson at Tamarack in summer of 2014, we were racing an impending storm– the energy in the air came through into the pony and we finally found some forward intention!

Still in the show jumping ring, Denny had me kick Anna up into a cross country style canter—as much of a gallop as Anna will do under saddle (have I mentioned that she is not a very forward thinking animal?). My job was to do whatever it took—growl, flail, kick like a D2 Pony Clubber—to keep her not just in a jumping canter but a forward, cross country canter, to each and every fence I aimed at. I really did feel just like a 10 year old whose legs don’t clear the saddle flaps, both in technique and overall effectiveness. For her part, Anna did stay much more forward, but it wasn’t coming from within her—it was the result of my motivation.

So in spite of seeing this glimmer of improvement, Denny decided that we needed to go out onto the cross country course to seek more energy. Most horses show an intrinsic improvement in their forward intention when they are out in the open, and the terrain of Vermont would also provide some assistance. Denny hoped that by adding in these variables, Anna would begin to better ‘self-motivate’ in her approach to the fences.

OneStrideBank — Working on a similar exercise at Tamarack in the summer of 2014, we had jumped up a bank and then were looking for a bounce to this vertical. I must be trying to pick her up off the ground here!

The exercise seemed simple—pick up a positive canter at the bottom of a slope, kick on up the hill, then ride a gradual turn over the crest of the hill and allow the momentum of the descent to carry us forward down to a tire jump at the bottom. The objective? To maintain the positive, forward energy up to and across the fence, with no change in step.

It was really, really hard to not “check” Anna on the descent down the hill. The tire fence we were tackling at the base was small, and so no matter where we came to, Anna would be more than able to cope with getting us up and over. In spite of that, it took everything in my power to not try to come to a specific take off point. For the first several attempts, I did pretty well at the roll down the hill but when Anna began her typical slow down at the base, I did little to prevent it. It was truly amazing how effortlessly she could check all of that forward energy and then insert her little microstrides in before the jump.

I ended up having to channel that inner ten year old girl again, and basically kick and flail and feel like we just galloped down the hill, before Anna FINALLY jumped the tire fence directly out of stride.

Left to my own devices, I don’t think I would ever have been brave enough to ride Anna so aggressively. I still have hunter equitation roots, where aids such as visible kicking or moving out of harmony with the horse are certainly frowned upon. I think I would also have worried too much about getting her out of balance and causing her to make a dangerous mistake. But Denny made two comments regarding these thoughts: 1) The fences MUST be kept low and straightforward, so that jumping them is a given almost regardless of the horse’s balance and 2) he almost never ever coaches riders to ride like this either. Anna is just that lazy!

THFAug5 — Finally getting it right! Photos by Denny Emerson.

My major take home from this session was that no matter what, I NEED to practice remaining assertive and positive with the forward driving aids up to and away from each and every fence. I don’t think that I have been passive with my aids at all; it is just clear that in some circumstances with some horses, it is possible to be even bigger and louder with your aids than you might think is appropriate!

I would really to thank the members of the Area I Scholarship for choosing me as one of the 2015 recipients. I feel that I definitely benefitted from the instruction I gained from the scholarship, and I hope that through these blogs, other riders with lazy horses might gain some additional ideas or insights into techniques which can help them, too!

Training Tips and Techniques

Winter Training Session: Mini Pro Style

January 11, 2014 christinakeim 1 Comment

I have just returned from Ocala, FL, where I participated in a Winter Training Session. No, not one of THOSE training sessions—a more personal one, targeted for someone whose ambitions are currently a bit less lofty than those on the High Performance List.

Over the past year and change, I have had the opportunity to reconnect with clinician Verne Batchelder of River House Hanoverians in Williston, FL (formerly of Piermont, NH). Along with wife Jeanie Hahn and daughter Nora, he runs a successful breeding and training business whose products are competing successfully through the Grand Prix level in dressage and elite levels in show jumping, eventing and hunters as well. We are lucky to have a lovely mare named Morocco in our program at UNH who is by their former stallion, Maronjo.

The trainers at River House regularly incorporate schooling on the longe, on long lines and in hand into their horses’ training programs, and in our lessons Verne has frequently made reference to how one technique or another would be of assistance to me. I feel quite proficient with single line longeing, and have used it somewhat regularly with the Dark Mare (Lee) to help better develop the strength in her topline, the swing in her back and self-carriage. However, my exposure to other techniques, such as double longeing or long lining, has been relatively limited. When my schedule caused me to be in the Ocala area anyway, I invited myself over to their farm in order to learn more about how these trainers use unmounted training techniques to improve under saddle performance.

I should preface this discussion by saying that any errors contained within are likely mine, and also that I believe this subject to be one of those on which horsemen tend to be divided, depending on your training philosophy. So please take these comments at their face value; not gospel but rather my observation and notes.

Verne explained that the development of a horse’s ground training is progressive, and begins as you might imagine at the most basic level when you teach a youngster how to lead. Young stock should be regularly handled from both the left and the right hand sides, though Verne admits that at a busy breeding operation this can be hard to monitor. He jokes that the easiest way to ensure that babies learn to lead from both sides is to lead two at a time, and to trade off on which horse is on which side! I think that to do that you need to be a bit braver than I am.

The next step is to teach the young horse to safely longe on the single line. There are many well established and effective techniques for doing this, but at a fairly early age (less than two full years old) the young horse should be able to wear a cavesson and surcingle and be able to maintain their rhythm on a longe circle. Side reins can be introduced but not until the youngster has some concept about what is being expected of them, and they are not used to force a frame in the neck. In many training programs, this will mark the end of a horse’s ground training, which closes the door on other opportunities to develop the horse.

An interesting note here—Verne insists that all of his youngsters are longed off of a cavesson or even a tightly fitted halter, either on their own or over a bridle. He feels it is of paramount importance that when they make a “young horse mistake”, such as slipping, scooting, shying, etc, that they are not then jerked hard in the mouth. Even once the bit has been introduced, a halter or cavesson is worn over it and the line attached here rather than the bit directly. River House’s young stallion, Spot, is currently just beginning his under saddle training, and while Verne rides him off of a snaffle bit, the horse wears a halter over the bridle, with a second rein attached to it where the crossties would go, which he uses to stop Spot if he gets scared. Of course, safety is paramount, and if the young horse is behaving in a dangerous manner, then a stronger means of control may be needed and the bit can be used.

I had the opportunity to watch Nora longe River House’s two and half year old colt; he had had several days off. I was impressed with his overall good behavior on the line, especially given the impending arrival of the ‘polar vortex’, which was bringing rapidly dropping temps and strong winds to the area. This horse was able to stay quite steady walk, trot, and canter and was confident with his side reins, which were attached to a halter worn over his bridle.

Sometime in the two year old year, most horses are ready to begin “double longeing”. Double longeing is similar to long lining, except that for the most part the demands and expectations are more basic, and the horse remains on the circle. Using two longe lines, you attach one to the inside ring of your cavesson or bit (depending on the horse’s experience) and one to the outside. Your horse must become accustomed to feeling of the outside line around their haunches, but once they do, this technique is quite effective in helping them to understand the concept of an inside and an outside rein. This technique can also be used to help review this concept with horses that resist the connection.

Double longeing is helpful for other purposes as well. I observed Verne work with a client’s mare on the double longe, and his goals for her were to use the ground work to improve the quality of her rhythm, increase the activity of the hindquarters and to increase the horse’s overall level of suppleness. Having used this as a warm up, when he began the day’s work under saddle, the horse was ready to work at a higher level of activity and engagement. In addition, work on the double longe can help to increase the horse’s submission.

Long lining is a logical extension from double longeing, and can begin to be introduced from a horse’s three year old year on. The River House trainers sometimes use side reins with their long lines, which helps to increase the horse’s degree of straightness, but for other horses only the lines are used. I was only to get a taste of long lining during my stay, but the ladies were kind enough to show me work on the lines with three quite different horses, all of whom are schooling Grand Prix. So basically in terms of long lining training, we went right to the college level!

Prior to beginning their work on the long lines, the horses were each longed on the single line in side reins to allow them to warm up their bodies. Long line work can be quite concentrated and focused, and as I learned, timing is everything—timing in giving the right aid at the right time, timing in terms of ensuring that the work is long enough but not too long. Knowing to quit when you are ahead is a mantra that all excellent trainers subscribe to, but unfortunately sometimes the ability to recognize that moment only comes from having missed the moment at other times.

Each horse was worked with Jeanie at the head, holding a lead line clipped to the bit, while Nora expertly managed the long lines and the driving whip. The long liner stands much closer to the horse than they would as a longer; most of the time she walked just off the horse’s flank, where the contact could be maintained quite steadily and the whip used as a tactful aid. This trainer team works all of the upper level horses on the long lines weekly, and it was clear that they have developed quite a partnership.

The first horse, in retrospect, seemed to be the least confirmed in his work, though this could just be my impression, as I did not see any of these horses go under saddle during my stay. On the lines, Nora explained that they were mainly focusing on trying to develop better rhythm in the passage work. On this day, they had left him in shorter side reins, a technique which had worked well on their previous school. Today, however, this horse still seemed confused and wanted to swing the haunches or get ‘hovery’ in his movement, rather than maintaining his rhythm. “Oh well,” shrugged Nora. “Back to the drawing board.”

The second horse they brought out was a lovely, refined, tending towards hot mare who is aiming to show in the developing Grand Prix this year. The difference in her level of confidence and focus from the first horse was remarkable, and her ability to truly sit to collect herself in this work was impressive. The ladies worked the mare in both directions, not more than ten or fifteen minutes total, and through the work there was a clear improvement in quality. I noticed here that the handler at the head tended to bounce in the rhythm she was looking for from the horse, whether consciously or not I don’t know!

The third horse they worked was a big, expressive mover. In his work, the trainers emphasized the development of increased rhythm, impulsion and straightness, as well as the quality of transitions in and out of each movement. Some work was done with transitions between the movements, as well as transitions from the walk. This horse at times showed his power by trying to push away from the women, who needed to quickly coordinate their efforts to steady him but also provide a release from the pressure. As he came to a better place in terms of clarity, impulsion and cadence, the trainers stopped work for the day, even though they had only gone in one direction. Mentally and physically, the work had taken him to the edge and he had found his way back, so it was the moment to “quit while you were ahead”.

Overall I was quite impressed by the quality of the team work and the accuracy of the timing demonstrated by Jeanie and Nora. As Jeanie later emphasized during a lesson, the most important aid a trainer can give is the release. How many times have we heard this, and how hard is it to always effectively do it?

The pinnacle of the ground work is the work ‘in hand’, which Nora demonstrated as a warm up with their stallion, Bretone (Tony to his friends). Using just a cluck, a dressage type wand and a light feel of the reins, Nora showed Tony’s piaffe and passage; he is clearly quite well schooled in this work and knows what is expected, and it was an excellent demonstration of the fact that these movements initiate with the hindquarters, not the reins.

I had the opportunity to work Tony in hand myself the next day, which was quite a thrill. Tony is a big fellow, but quite a gentleman and rather tolerant of my attempts to tell him what I wanted him to do. Working the horse in hand should not be begun prior to their 5 year old year. It requires a fair degree of coordination on the part of the handler. You carry the whip (which is a longer, driving style whip) in your dominant hand, and hold the lead line close to the bit, all while walking backwards. Using your lead, it is possible to half halt the horse as well as elevate the poll, while the whip cues the hindquarters. Ultimately, though, the majority of the cues should come from the handler’s body language and the length of your step. We began with the piaffe, which you initiate with a touch of the whip at the hock and a cluck. To transition to the passage, the whip is raised and can touch the horse at the point of hip, along with an increase in the handler’s length of step.

A few notes on side reins—the adjustment in terms of both length and height is quite important, and the trainer should not hesitate to adjust them as necessary. For younger horses, the side reins should be set higher on their sides, while more advanced horses can handle the lines being set lower. The horses at River House that I watched work all warmed up in their side reins on the longe, a technique that I myself prefer, though I can imagine many scenarios in which this would not be safe or sensible. Clearly, these horses are accustomed to their ground work and are conditioned both mentally and physically to the use of the side reins.

Another useful piece of equipment that the River House trainers use (we used it on Tony, in fact, during my in hand practice), is what Verne nicknamed the homemade Willi Schulteis bridle. This is a basic cavesson to which a bridoon sliphead (what the snaffle bit on a double hangs off of) is added. It is then possible to easily add a bit to your cavesson, which then allows much flexibility in the training along with a close fit.

I am most grateful to Verne, Jeanie and Nora for taking time out of their busy schedules to accommodate me and my questions and for sharing a glimpse of their training with me. If you want to learn more about them, visit their website at www.rhhanoverians.com.