Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2015 / January 2016 | Page 81

EQUESTRIAN

Training horses
with Robert Booth BHSI
Equine trainer
Rodgebrook Horses

Tel: [phone]
www.rodgebrookhorses.co.uk

World Class Equine Pathway

F

or several years now we have been
involved with the World Class
Showjumping Equine Pathway.
It’s purpose is to identify horses that
have the potential to develop into medal
winning horses. The Pathway programme
works with and supports the riders and
owners of selected horses in order to
help them maximise the horses’ potential
and is for horses aged between 5 and 7
years old. It is Lottery funded and offers
coaching advice, support and training
from top international coaches such as
Ireland’s Commandant John Ledingham.
These training sessions usually take
place over the winter months at great
venues around the country. Horses are
selected for their type, level of training
and results. We have had two horses
selected for the Pathway. Rydam Regis,
now named Apex, is a lovely horse that
we competed up to a seven-year-old
through the young horse classes. He
was then sold to America and is now
jumping in the National FEI World Cup
Series. The second is our present horse
Upgraded Flight, a seven year old gelding

Rydam Regis

who is following in Greg’s footsteps and
meeting the criteria for his age which is
jumping 1.30m courses and above.
The training has been invaluable for us
and the horses in providing us a good
place to train with good advice and
facilities. It also gets the horses seen

in the right company, keeps us up to
date with what is expected of horses at
a certain stage of their training, shows
us new and proven training exercises
and for us replaces some of the need to
compete during the winter months.

Useful tips on training
your horse: Adjusting strides

R

iding courses smoothly
requires being able to
lengthen and shorten the
horses stride. A good exercise
for practicing this is to place two
poles apart at a normal five stride
distance and ride down them
on either four, five or six strides
keeping the same rhythm. This
will help keep the horse calm

and used to adjusting his stride
making related distances easier.
You can add or take away the
distance between the poles to
vary the exercise or make it more
difficult by adding another pole
and changing combinations of
strides i.e. a short six followed a
normal five.

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