They work on fine-tuning every skill in the fall before the equitation finals begin.

The leaves are turning, the weather is cooling, and stirrups are coming off saddles. That’s right, it’s fall equitation finals time, and riders across the country are putting in extra lesson hours and saddle time to prepare for their assault on the big classes.

But how does one prepare a junior rider for that time-honored cauldron of stress and excitement that is equitation finals season?

We asked four of the top equitation trainers—Karen Healey, Westlake Village, Calif., Andre Dignelli, Katonah, N.Y., Don Stewart, Ocala, Fla., and Missy Clark, Warren, Vt.,—for insight on how they get their students ready to ride their best.

They all agreed that October is not the time to be fixing any major position flaws.

“That’s homework that needs to be done throughout the year,” said Healey. “Form and position need to be pretty ingrained before you think about going to finals. When it gets to be this time of the year, it’s more about the execution. Preparing for finals is more about polishing the details and being able to execute.”

Junior riders spend a lot of time without stirrups in the fall, being sure they have a tight leg and balanced seat. They also practice riding as many different horses as they can.

“We make everything just a little more difficult and tighten up the screws,” Stewart said.

For Stewart, finals-prep lessons are more about building a rider’s positive outlook rather than picking apart their riding with criticism.

“We want everything on a positive note. You hear everyone telling them everything they’re doing is wrong, but I’ve found I get more success with a lot of positive input. I try to let them know that it’s not the end of the world or the cure for cancer,” said Stewart with his usual wry sense of humor.

Clark added, “You try to make sure that nothing they see in the finals is anything they haven’t seen prior to them.

It’s all about being well versed in solving distance questions, rideability and position.”

“Mental preparation is harder, because a lot of that has to do with mileage, and there’s no substitute for the time and experience of going to lots of horse shows and being under pressure,” she added. “There’s no fast way to get that done. You rarely see someone who no one’s heard of show up and win those things, and it’s not a factor of favoritism, it’s a factor of mileage and experience, like in any sport.”

The Talent Search Is Different

The traditional big three of equitation finals—the Pessoa/USEF Medal Finals, the ASPCA Maclay Finals, and the Platinum Performance/USEF Talent Search Finals—all have a distinct flavor. They’ve been joined by a myriad of other finals, such as the Washington International Equitation Classic (D.C.) and the North American Junior Equitation Championship (Md.), among others.

The Medal and Maclay finals are held in indoor rings on the East Coast, while the USEF Talent Search finals has East and West Coast editions. The Talent Search finals, which come first in the fall schedule (p.66), are unique in that they have a gymnastics phase, and their courses usually include an open water jump and other natural obstacles.

“For the USEF [Talent Search], we focus on a lot of gymnastics,” said Healey. “We do a lot of gymnastics all year long in lessons, but before USEF Finals, I make sure they’ve all seen jumps with no ground lines, very airy jumps and what they may see. We obviously rehearse the water and the natural obstacles—we take the horses over to El Campeon Farms (Calif.) and practice the banks and waters to make sure they’re prepared.”

Dignelli has a secret weapon in his arsenal—he uses the Wolffer Estate Equitation Championship at The Hampton Classic (N.Y.) in early September as a testing ground for the finals.

“When we design our show schedule, we leave the month of August pretty much empty,” Dignelli said. “For us, the first big class of the fall is the Wolffer class—it forces us to school over natural jumps—the water, the bank, the liverpools. We have all that here at the farm, but we’re so busy showing that we don’t jump them much. It gives us a great reason to stay home, not show, and get ready. That class is the first of the fall season for Heritage. Every year we try and be as competitive as we can. So for us, it heats up in the middle of August.”

Dignelli uses his large outdoor ring at Heritage Farm in Katonah, N.Y., to prepare his riders for the USEF Talent Search finals.

“They jump every gymnastic I can think of; they jump in and out of the ring, and they jump the water jump consistently. We do everything so that when we get to the event, it’s a walk in the park,” he said.

Location, Location, Location

The indoor finals, such as the Maclay and Medal, are also different because they’re in small indoor arenas. For riders who have been showing all summer in large outdoor rings, the tighter confines of an indoor mean tighter turns and more precise rides.

“In the fall, I tend to focus on riding in the setting of the indoor ring,” said Clark. “That doesn’t mean you have to have an indoor—it’s all about making sure the riders are comfortable in a smaller space, as opposed to a wide-open outdoor ring. If you don’t have an indoor, wall off part of a big outdoor ring to make a more confined area. You don’t want to be doing courses in a huge ring or big field—you want to get the riders used to tighter turns and things coming up quicker.”

Dignelli goes a step further in his dedication to getting the riders and horses used to an indoor setting. He decorates his indoor ring with banners and fills the jumps with potted flowers like chrysanthemums.

One of the toughest things about the equitation finals is the spooky jumps. There’s a skinny white gate that seems to make an appearance at the Pessoa/USEF Medal Finals each year and ruins the day for a few competitors when their horses are surprised.

“I think everyone in the country now owns a skinny, white, Harrisburg gate,” Healey said. “The first year, it was a problem for horses, so I have that at home.”

Trainers have been known to put all kinds of things under jumps to get the horses used to odd-looking filler.

“We like it to be review, not new, when you get in the ring,” said Stewart. “One year at the place where we lay over before the Pennsylvania National, they had a ceramic turkey that was probably 2’6″ tall. I stuck that in front of one of the jumps, but none of the horses spooked like you think they would have! I thought for sure they would have flipped out over that, but they all just went down and jumped it.”

Clark concentrates on skinny fences as well.

“If I have a greener rider who isn’t as comfortable with skinny fences with no wings, you’d start out with some wings, then take them off gradually,” she said.

One way to make the finals look easy is to make every lesson look harder. “I slightly overface my students at home—the jumps are usually a bit higher at home, and the jumps are always spooky, so that when we get to the show it looks easy to them,” Dignelli said.

Stride Control

All four trainers stressed the importance of stride control, and most of their favorite exercises help develop a rider’s ability to shorten and lengthen their horse’s stride effortlessly.

“We do a lot of bending lines and long to short variations, such as a long four-stride distance to a short three strides or something like that,” Clark said.

Stewart builds an exercise that tests stride control rigorously. He builds a crossrail to an oxer, set at 18′. Then, he sets another oxer 31⁄2 strides away. A left bending line or three or four strides from there leads to a bounce, while a right bending line of three or four strides leads to a one-stride in-and-out with a long distance.

Riders have to mix up the numbers of strides they do each time through the exercise. “And everything gets accentuated. If we’re working on a forward distance to a steady distance, it’ll be a very forward distance to a very steady distance,” Stewart said.

Another essential skill for the riders is the ability to get the job done when asked. “I try to get them prepared to walk in and nail a round,” Healey said. “Usually, during a lesson, we do parts of a course and talk about them, but before the finals I’ll have them do a whole course and make it right the first time so they’re used to the pressure.”

Dignelli simulates this pressure by teaching in simulated horse-show style. He sets a few warm-up jumps in his outdoor ring and a tough course in the indoor. Each student has to warm up as they would at a show in the outdoor ring, then walk into the indoor and lay down a trip.

Finally, keep in mind that these finals are supposed to be tests of horsemanship.

“I think one thing that’s very important to remember is that the fall is a busy time of year for equitation horses,” Clark said. “You have to measure how much you do with them and how you time it. You have to get ready incrementally, not all at once the week before a final. You don’t want to over-jump them in lessons. You have to make sure they’re fit enough, but you have to judge how much you take out of them.” 

Andre Dignelli’s Favorite Gymnastic

“Stride control is a big topic for us. I build an oxer, 4 strides to a pair of verticals that are set at a very short one stride, then 4 strides to another oxer. I’ve got them doing it every way possible—five-one-four, four-one-five, four-one-four. They have to work on really being able to change the stride forward and back,” Andre Dignelli said.

Karen Healey’s Favorite Exercise

“The one thing that I do use a lot is that I make a rider carry a whip with an end in each hand, parallel to the ground,” said Karen Healey. “They have to keep the whip at all times perpendicular to that horse’s centerline.

As they’re turning the horse, it has to stay perpendicular to the centerline at all times. They have to have equal pressure in both reins. “If they have more pressure on one side than the other, in an attempt to keep the stick straight, that tells you that they need to make the leg on that side more active,” she explained.

“I even have them jumping small jumps with it, because I think it really helps them to feel the concept of riding from the leg to the hand. We talk about ‘leg into hand’ all the time, and I think this really gives them the feel of the outside hand. It teaches them what ‘correct’ feels like, and it gives them muscle memory,” she noted.

Missy Clark’s Two Favorite Exercises

“One exercise I like a lot is very simple, but it’s a lot harder than you think. You jump a figure eight over a single square oxer, a little bit wide, with the jump at the middle of the figure eight. We jump the jump about four times in a row, and the riders have to think about pace, bend, striding, angles, everything,” said Missy Clark.

“We also use a circle exercise, with four jumps set on a circle [like a clock—at noon, three, six and nine]. That’s also harder than one would think. You can set it anywhere from four to five strides, and the jumps should be low—the exercise is about knowing where you are on a bending line.”

Don Stewart’s Favorite Practice Course

“Right off the bat, it’s a course that requires you to carry a lot of pace from the start,” said trainer Don Stewart. “There would be a very forward line to a very steady line. You’d have a rollback or two, and then a line with a tighter distance to a line with a forward distance later in the course.

“I build an in-and-out and tell them it’s an A-B, and they have to ride it in two strides. Then I tell them it’s 9 and 10, and they have to ride it in three strides. I use a lot of very collected and very forward lines, but I also make sure I have a blind turn and a couple of skinnies and Swedish oxers in there. I’d end the course back on a galloping note.”