Use Your Eye to Find a Good Distance to Fences
By Andrea Wells
There’s one more thing. When and how much you use a "sharp" versus a "soft" eye on course depends on your discipline. A hunter is like a figure skater performing compulsory elements with precision, accuracy, smoothness and manners. On a standard hunter course, where the jumps come up in a predictable, consistent way, you can use a "soft" eye a lot of the time, but you will still need to use a "sharp" eye to focus on the jumps. In equitation, the jumps come up faster and the courses are more technical. You have fewer opportunities for a soft eye and more times when you need a sharp eye. And in the jumpers, where you add speed and really tight turns, you have to keep your eye sharp for almost the entire course.
In this article, I’ll use a simple pattern of two jumps to teach you to find a distance with a sharp, focused eye. And by riding from one of the jumps to the other around one of three different cones, you’ll do hunter, equitation and jumper tracks, so you’ll start figuring out when and where to use soft and sharp eyes for each. I’ll also give you variations--some of track and some with more jumps. You still won’t have huge requirements of equipment or space, but you’ll be able to ride almost any question you’re likely to encounter on course.
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Here’s the promise I make to my students: Learn these skills and you will find or create a good jump almost every time. You’ll start to relax because the anxiety of not seeing a distance is gone. And while this will be a huge victory for you, it’ll be an enormous relief for your horse. Now he can start to jump better and be happier and more willing to do his job.
Get Set Up and Begin
Following the diagram, build a ramped oxer and a vertical at right angles to each other about two-thirds of the way from the corners on diagonal lines. Depending on your skill level and your horse’s jumping ability, the vertical can be a crossrail, and the oxer can be a vertical or as small and narrow an oxer as you feel comfortable jumping. Set ground lines at the base of the standards in front of both jumps--far enough out that your horse will have a better chance of jumping around the jumps, but not so far out that it’s dangerous. Along the centerline, set three cones, blocks, plants (as we’ve used in the photos), pylons or jump standards--the first, 15 feet from the jumps, then the next two approximately 15 feet from each other. For a nice, fluid hunter turn, you’ll jump the oxer and ride around the third cone to the vertical. For an equitation turn, you’ll ride between the second and third cones. And for a jumper turn, you’ll try to get as close to the first cone as possible.
Warm up on the flat and over a few trot fences. Then, tracking right on the long side opposite the oxer, pick up a working canter. Get up in a two-point position with your buns over the twist--the deepest part--of your saddle, weight in your heels and your leg at the back edge of the girth. I don’t want to see the girth, a space and then your leg because you’ll be out of balance with your horse. Close your leg--not to kick him, but to support yourself and to keep your leg from slipping back. Keep your elbow bent at all times, with a straight line from it to your horse’s mouth, even while you’re in the air. As a teacher and a judge, I don’t want to see you reach for your horse’s ears because you’ll follow your hands with your body and jump ahead.
As you come down the long side and turn across the short side toward the oxer, think about rhythm, pace and track and keeping your eyes "soft." Once you have "tracked" the oxer and made the decision to turn to it, you can look for a distance by sharpening your eye and focusing on the middle of the top of the front rail. Now keep your eye on the ball! Look at the rail...look at the rail...ook at the rail until you feel your horse’s front feet leave the ground. Only then, raise your eyes, but not, as I tell my students, in an exaggerated way, throwing your head back like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist."
Push your hips back behind the pommel--which automatically keeps you from standing up and getting ahead--and wait for your horse’s natural thrust to close your hip angle so you can land effective and ready for whatever comes next on course. If you let your leg slip back and your seat get in front of the pommel, and especially if you give a huge release, you’ll land slightly in front of your horse’s balance, allowing him to cut the corner or play, and keeping you from being ready for whatever comes next.
