Favorite lessons from the pros to improve your horse’s adjustability, connection, and performance over fences. This modern-day quick reference to more than 50 grids and jumping exercises brings the best of top international training and instruction into your home ring. Build your skillset and your horse’s confidence and conditioning with a fantastic selection of lessons you can use to: Diversify your training routine. Sharpen your horse prior to competition. Address specific problem areas. Within these pages you’ll have regular access to the tips and tricks that have brought some of the most accomplished riders and trainers professional success. Amateur eventer Margaret Rizzo McKelvy has compiled an unparalleled collection of exercises for any jumping discipline—eventing, show jumping, hunters, and equitation—by tapping the expertise of a remarkable group of top equestrians never before found together in one instructional book, including Olympians Anne Kursinski, Phillip Dutton, Kim Severson, Ingrid Klimke, and Boyd Martin. Plus, you’ll find: Easy-to-follow diagrams and clear explanations make it a snap to recreate the lessons at home. Workouts are easy to modify for smaller or larger arenas. Recommendations help you adjust exercises as needed relative to the experience level of riders and horses. This one-of-a-kind resource is not only a fabulous addition to any rider’s training toolbox, it is invaluable to coaches and instructors looking for ideas and inspiration to help keep their students engaged and growing as riders and educated horsepeople.

A one-of-a-kind resource that's a fabulous addition to any rider's training toolbox.

Get jumping! This collection presents a logical series of fun and rewarding exercises that are designed to develop your horse-jumping skills. With straightforward instructions and clear arena maps, this guide can be hung on a pole and easily referenced from the saddle. In addition to clearly articulated goals and progressively difficult variations, each exercise also includes encouraging advice on what the rider should keep in mind while jumping. Saddle up and get ready to fly through the air with grace and confidence.

Progressive School Exercises provides a collection of exercises, on the flat and over fences, specifically designed for use in training more experienced riders and horses, whether in groups or as individuals, or schooling at home. Specially chosen ridden exercises aim to improve: In the horse - rhythm, impulsion, balance, elasticity, straightness, athleticism, suppleness, obedience and self-carriage and in the rider - balance, effectiveness, accuracy, co-ordination, forward planning and the ability to see a stride when jumping.

The candid autobiography of one of the world's leading and most popular three-day eventers William Fox-Pitt has been one of the most successful three-day event riders for many years. He began eventing at the age of fifteen and decided to pursue this passion as a career after graduating from university. In 2004, he had a year of extremes, going from winning Badminton to having the agony of seeing his horse get injured during the Olympics, which destroyed his chances of an individual medal and prevented the team from winning gold. The following year, he won Burghley, Gatcombe and Bramham to confirm himself as Britain's top rider. In his eagerly awaited autobiography, he talks about the issues confronting the sport and reveals much about the vital partnerships with team-mates and, above all, the horses that help him to gain such success.

The only book dedicated to learning to find and ride the ideal jumping distance with fundamental skills and enlightening lessons from one of the best in the business. Understanding how to count strides helps to develop the rider’s eye and “feel.” Stride control means producing the correct number of strides and quality of stride to jump the jumps at hand—the emphasis is on the quality of strides, not just the number. It is one of the skills that enables the rider to achieve success, whatever the size of the jumps. Jen Marsden Hamilton has coached countless riders and horses around the world in the striding techniques that brought her success during her own impressive competitive career, and here Hamilton has compiled her knowledge in a concise book of exercises and insightful strategies. Inside you’ll find: Detailed setup for specific exercises. Connecting flatwork for between ground poles or jumps, such as transitions and serpentines. Strategies for completing the exercises and analyzing the outcome. Appropriate exercises for the rider’s desired discipline and level.

Every horse, no matter in what discipline it is ridden, will benefit from working with cavalletti. For Olympic champion Ingrid Klimke, riding over cavalletti is key to success. Cavalletti training improves the horse's basic gaits, develops rhythm, suppleness and cadence and increases fitness and agility. This handbook describes how to work with cavalletti on the lunge, provides valuable new schooling ideas and inspiration for dressage work, as well as numerous layouts for gymnastic jumping. Since its first publication in 1969, Cavalletti has become a standard reference book. This fourth edition has been further revised with new photographs.

Over thirty years after the first publication of Reiner Klimke's classic work comes this new fourth edition, with completely new photos and updated by his daughter, Ingrid. Based on sound practical and theoretical advice, this instructional handbook gives advice on establishing a specific training plan for recreational riders as well as competition riders to enable them to train their young horses successfully. Every aspect of the education of a young horse is covered, including: basic education and handling from foalhood; lungeing and free-schooling; backing and training under saddle; developing impulsion from suppleness; assessing and improving basic gaits; cavalletti work; jumping training; cross-country training and, finally, preparing for the first competition.

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

An entire profession is devoted to designing and building jump courses, but now it can be a little easier to create your own show-quality course at home! This highly illustrated instruction manual explains--with the aid of hundreds of color photos, diagrams, and tables--the jump components used in different horse show divisions, how course designers select the tracks to be followed, and what factors make a course more or less difficult to ride. This book is essential for anyone who wants to better understand the concepts of course design and is a valuable training aid for those looking for inspiration when schooling or teaching riders at home. Includes 52 full course designs, 15 short courses, 35 gymnastic exercise set-ups, and 15 grid lines.