Gridwork is Genius

Since Toler and I are rehabbing hardcore (and I don't have a job, meaning I can go out to see/work him every day), I try to have a balanced schedule of activities. Toler's a smart horse (don't we all say that?), and he gets bored very easily. Also, since we're doing a total training and conditioning rehab, I'm leaving no cones unpassed.

Typically, in one week: Toler gets two days off, and I generally spend extra time fussing with him or I'll let him play in the arena. We play together, really. I'll run up towards him and stop a few feet away, spin and kick up my heels at him. Toler in turn squeals (he has the most adorable squeal he makes when he's feeling frisky or excited) and kicks his heels up, then one of us ends up chasing the other. He thinks it's pretty fun considering I'm a two-legger. Anyway. The other days I'll split between dressage work, basic rail work (or a trail, if it's nice out), lunging (either free lunging or on the line with side reins or the balance system--a post for later), or jumping.

Lately I've been doing quite a lot of free lunging over fences, particularly gridwork exercises. They may be simple lines if I were riding, but after our jumping accident, I realized how much Toler relies on me when we're jumping. He's never been particularly good about knowing when he should take-off or how to approach a line, which means we frequently have misunderstandings where he'll throw in an extra "hop" stride right before a fence and chip it, or he'll take off from a stride away and barely stretch over it--all despite any insistent guidance I try to give him.

Gridwork is essential. Be it for the learning rider or the learning horse, if you've never done gridwork ("jumping gymnastics") you're doing something wrong. Even for dressage riders, gymnastics are essential to a well-rounded and supple horse. I can't begin to describe the difference in Toler's jumping under saddle after rehashing gridwork. It makes things click for him. I think free lunging over gridwork is probably even more beneficial to riding over gridwork (with a possible exception to no-handed riding over gridwork). When you're riding, chances are very strong that the horse is following you and not fully thinking for himself. Free lunging makes them think about every step, and gives them the ability to jump every line successfully--a must for a horse needing a boost of confidence after a jumping mishap.Yay for crayons! (I may be a fair artist when it comes to drawing, but I'll warn you now that I'm not going to be spending long on making diagrams. Function over form here, guys.)

I started off pretty slow with him, because I knew Toler's issues were mostly with picking the right take-off point consistently. He gets excited, rushes the approach or goes too slowly or cuts the preceding corner, you name it, he does it. And for such a large horse, he's not very good with the "pick the feet up" part. At least not if it's under 2'3." He has a very fine line between a worthy jump and something he'd rather step over. He's literally stepped over a 2'6" jump on me before. It was a tad messy and he hasn't done it since, but, he did it. I set up a 2'3" vertical at B and measured out a landing stride on each side, where I placed a ground pole. That way he can jump it from either side and be okay. Toler doesn't like trotting over 2'3" (too close to a trotting pole to be truly worthy of a jump), so I had him canter over it both ways. He made a few mistakes, but because of the ground poles marking his strides, he quickly learned exactly what to do. I even raised the jump to 2'6" and again to 2'9."

The next day I decided to up the ante. I wanted something completely symmetrical still, so I opted for: ground pole, landing stride, vertical, landing stride, ground pole, canter stride (three steps rather than four), ground pole, landing stride, vertical, landing stride, ground pole. This made him think a bit. The inital approach was always fine--even if he cut the corner he figured out to adjust his stride for the pole to align his take-off accordingly. But the canter stride in the middle threw him off just a little bit. He kept wanting to rush the line, something he likes to do with me as well, and would try to extend through the middle rather than come back. He even had a few slip-ups where he rushed so much he had to break into a trot for the middle. One time he stepped on a pole and had to scramble over the following vertical. But he never knocked down a single jump. Even when I raised them through 2'3" to 2'6" and 2'9".

Next time we have a free-lunging day, I think I'm going to put two canter strides in the middle. If he does well that day I'll see about either putting in oxers or changing the stride. I'll also need to do a "test day" and leave out the ground poles to see how consistent and scopey he is.