Started with 2 sessions with Christoph Hess giving us ideas for the event horse's dressage. Started with a more ordinary moving horse ridden by Sam Griffiths. This horse tended to be tight over his back - warming up in rising trot and 2 point seat in canter to get the back warmed up then lots of shoulder-in and circles. SI down the long sides giving away the inside rein. Ride the bigger canter in the 2 point seat to get him moving forwards and soft in the neck then you start the trot rather than finishing the canter. Keeping the throatlatch area open enables the hindleg to come further underneath. Keep the same impulsion and rhythm round the short sides that you have down the long side. 15m circles in every corner then SI down the long side. Then SI into medium canter back to SI back to a circle.
Then a bigger moving horse who could have done well at pure dressage - this one was behind the leg and wanting to also be behind the vertical. LY, SI and travers were used in the warmup, all in rising trot. Medium canter to get him thinking forwards. Then medium trot without letting him run. He had the rider riding with one hand in canter to open the throatlatch and get him moving more forwards. SI to HP to SI was used in trot.
In the afternoon we got to listen to 2hrs of Andrew Nicholson working his way from a youngsters to Advanced horses.
He started with a green horse just broken in 3months ago already making a tricky exercise of cantering over 4 small rails on a circle look easy. 10m from centre of circle to centre of each rail. He said you could do it with poles on the ground forever but as soon as made into jumps it becomes much harder. Don't look for strides, just ride the rhythm and let the horse make mistakes and learn for itself. It encourages the small, slithery jump that they need for jumping into coffins and water where you don't want a huge jump. Small jumps are often followed by a drop so they should learn to just slide over the rails easily. With the next slightly more advanced horse he raised 2 of the poles to make it a bit more difficult. Often they jump big over the bigger jump which makes it hard to the little jump but they need to sort it out for themselves. If they go disunited just carry on and let them work it out. It is hard for them as they must keep the hindleg underneath them and keep going in a good rhythm.
He also showed an exercise with a plank parallel to the long side at each end of the school 5m from the wall and a vertical on the B-E line. Playing around with jumping the plank in all directions, changing direction frequently, just when they thought they were going one way he would go the other way then tying it together with plank, vertical, plank - no idea what the striding was between them, just let them work it out for themselves. They need to think for themselves and jump what appears in front of them.
He then showed a grid which he uses to shorten them up and encourage a more SJ style of jumping after they have been XC and got longer and flatter.
Keep the vertical bigger than the x-pole and gradually make the final vertical into an oxer that gets bigger.
v-poles on the oxers to encourage a better jump.
I really enjoyed this and took a lot away from it. Nicholson was a good speaker who showed us some really interesting stuff.
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