Olympic eventer Laura Collett swears by gridwork – for its mind, body and technique boosting benefits. She shares with us a little more about those
Quickthinking and excellent head-to-hoof coordination are essential qualities for a horse you’re hoping to event, but they’re pretty important no matter what discipline you pursue. Gridwork, where you put your horse through a line of jumps on a set striding, is a great gymnastic method to really make him think about where he’s putting his feet and boost his technique to no end. This grid in particular is what I’d call a whole body workout – it’s quite intense, so it’s something you’ll need to build up to over time, but I promise you the benefits are well worth the investment. Ready to have a go? Let’s take a closer look.
As a whole, this is a really challenging line of gymnastic e orts. So, like last month’s polework exercise, you can chop and change the di erent elements if you need to.
a grid
As told to Rebecca Philpot.
Photos: Jon Stroud
Laura Collett has been a regular on the Team GB roster since her gold medal-winning pony days. Most recently, she became an Olympic team gold medallist at Tokyo 2020 and won the Badminton Horse Trials title in 2022.
Laola is a nine-year-old mare who competed lightly with Laura for three seasons. Their highlights as a combination include a win in Little Downham’s Novice and a handful of top-five placings at the same level.
For this exercise, you’ll need...
six pairs of wings
up to 15 poles
Introduce your grid as a line of poles on the floor. Ultimately, you’re aiming to build a grid that starts with a placing pole into a cross-pole, on a one-stride distance from an oxer. This is followed by two strides before meeting two cross-poles on a bounce distance. You’ll
nish the grid two strides after the bounce with an upright that has a placing pole before it.
If you don’t have enough poles, try taking away the side poles from the triangles. This will increase the di culty of keeping straight when you ride down the centre line, though.
As told to Kiera Boyle.
Photos: Lucy Merrell
Teach your horse the fundamentals for a perfect partnership with Tania Grantham’s final pole layout
Theability to make small, quick adjustments to your horse’s way of going will make everything you do together much more enjoyable. After all, responsiveness is a basic requirement for a happy schooling session as, without it, it’s no di erent to driving a car without an accelerator or brakes.
So, to improve your horse’s responses – whether that’s by upgrading his focus or boosting his activity so you get a fi rst-time reaction – this pole layout is just the ticket. Here are a few exercises you can try to help refi ne your aids and make sure you and your horse understand each other perfectly.
You’ll need Ten equal length poles, ideally 3m standard ones.
Build it
Construct a square around X in the middle of your arena. From here, create two equilateral triangles attached to either end, with the points of the triangles touching opposite sides of the square.
Surrey-based Tania Grantham is a Grand Prix dressage rider known for her inventive approach to polework. As well as hosting regular clinics, Tania shares her creations on social media for everyone to try.
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H E K M B F
nerves can a ect you in so many ways. Last issue we explored some of the psychological causes of anxiety around competitions, including why it’s important to focus on the process rather than the outcome, and the value in prioritising your planning, preparation and performance. This issue we’ll consider some ways to best manage yourself and your horse so that you can have the best experience on the day.
When you’re competing it’s worth having a monthly check-in of your horse’s level of fitness. You could also consider his preparation and readiness for the competitions you have planned – all of this will help you to feel more ready on the day.
Photos: Jon Stroud
Alison Buttery is a certified mindset and confidence coach, a BHS APC senior coach and an experienced rider, who specialises in helping riders overcome their nerves. She’s also the Founder of The Everyday Equestrian.
