Press Coverage - Localrider
HorsesNCourses by Antoinette Marley
This article first appeared in the September 2008 edition of Localrider and is reproduced here with their kind permission.
HorsesNCourses is a fairly new company, run by Simon Gaskin, with the aim of providing
training for all levels of horse and rider for jumping and flatwork.
The training is in the form of day courses with local trainers and will, in time,
be in the form of adult camps. Personally, I cannot wait for it! Having recently
experienced some issues in show-jumping with my event horse, I was very pleased
to have the opportunity to join in a recent show-jumping training course at Hickstead
Showground with trainer Chris Wellings.
The day consisted of three small groups, with the morning session covering grid
work in the huge polo arena, and an afternoon session in one of the grass arenas,
working on riding a course.
"I was due to ride in the third group so arrived in plenty of time to watch
the group prior to mine. This group consisted of novice and young horses and riders,
and I was very impressed with the training as it progressed, with positive and helpful
comments, care and attention being given to each horse and rider as they tackled
the grids. There were quite definite improvements in the way the horses performed
by the end of their training session."
"As I stood watching, I was joined by another girl, Katie, on her Belgian mare
which,I found out, had a tendency to rush its fences. I explained that my horse’s
problem is that his jumping technique is letting him down now that we are moving
to the bigger fences, and he has a tendency to knock the front rail out with his
feet as he comes up off the ground."
"The pair of us waited excitedly, if a little nervously, to start our morning
session. Chris Wellings, our trainer for the day, introduced himself and I instantly
liked his manner and knew that this would be a good session. We discussed our problems
and once we had warmed up, we started our grid work session."
"Chris straight away recognised the root of our problems and explained that
because I collapse onto my horse’s neck as he prepares to take off over his fence,
he is having to lift both himself and me off the floor – no wonder he keeps on knocking
out the top rails. He explained that I needed to sit tall over the fence and having
reminded me a couple of times, we started to progress nicely."
"Katie was told not to hang on quite so tightly to her mare and Chris also
loosened the curb chain on her Pelham to stop her horse running away from it. The
mare settled more and really started jumping well, and I know Katie was also pleased
with her morning’s progress."
"After a break to watch the other groups, we began our afternoon session in
one of the grass arenas, to put our morning’s work into practice over the course
of jumps. Under Chris Wellings’s expert eye and tutelage, both Katie and I were
very pleased with our obvious progress and our horses performed better than expected,
with our initial problem areas very definitely having being ironed out."
I am very much looking forward to joining another HorsesNCourses training session
and would highly recommend other riders, of all levels of ability and experience,
to join in. The organisation of the day, level of tuition and the experience in
general, were all outstanding. Thanks to you both, Simon Gaskin and Chris Wellings.
A copy of the review including pictures is available for download here.
