by Dream_Merchant » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:39 am
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The distances sound about right - a horse's stride is around 3.6m on average, and this is what most course designers work off. So your normal one stride distance should be around 7.2m and your normal two stride distance should be around 10.8m -- that is including your 2 steps for landing and 2 steps for take-off (which is considered all up as a horse's stride of 3.6m added on to the strides).
Of course, this does vary with desginer to designer and course to course -- some will make the combinations long and some will make them short etc. So I would try not to teach your horse to jump a two strided combination in one stride -- what happens when you walk a course to find a 6.3m combination? (one step too short); your mare will seriously struggle. And bouncing one strided combinations isn't a good idea -- you will get away with it while the jumps are small, but no way will you get away with it when they start to get bigger! It's hard, but definately train her to do one stride in a one stride combination, and two in a two stride combination -- there is no other way around it.
I have a horse who is 16.2hh, but he is very long aswell, and has a super long stride on him -- a long one stride combination, is actually quite short for him, so a short combination is a real squeeze. But with training at home, he has learnt to fit them in. The best way is to do heaps of gridwork and trotting into small jumps set up in combinations; this way, they haven't got speed behind them, and so they will land in slightly shorter. Start by making it a longer stride, then start to shorten it up so she gets used to jumping in small over the first jump, and then taking a slow and easy stride, then jumping out.
Saying all this though, don't think of it as a burden -- you will find you'll come into compeition to find a 5.5 stride related line, and while most horses will have to gallop to get the five and really risk flattening the fence, or shortening like mad and risk punching out the front rail, your girl will glide down there in the five easy (I find that with my bloke all the time -- which of course makes him super fast against the clock because he can "cut out" strides in related lines).
So there is pros and cons about having a long striding horse, but you have to work with what you've got, if you had a short striding horse, you would have to work with that as well (I would rather have a long strider anyday, I've got a short striding TB that is proving a real axe to teach to lengthen out a bit!!).
But good luck, and let us know how you go with her -- I hope all that has helped you!!!</i></font>
<font color=royalblue><i><b>Horse; you are truly a creature without equal - for you fly without wings, and conquer without a sword
NCAS Level One Coach</i></b></font>