I like your style...
Unorthodox, flamboyant or quirky — however you look at it, some horses’ jumping style stops you in your tracks. But how does it impact their performance, asks Andrea Oakes
EVERY so often a horse captures the imagination, perhaps because of his striking colour, his diminutive stature or his againstthe-odds success story. Showjumping star Clenur became an internet sensation last month when Horse & Hound highlighted his unusual technique over a fence. Irish Olympian Cian O’Connor’s new ride displayed a unique foreleg action, reaching forward over the poles in a manner reminiscent of a rocking horse.
“Look at his front legs,” marvelled one Facebook fan, while other descriptions of his style included “poetry in motion”, “definitely different” and “very odd indeed”. There’s no doubting Clenur’s talent — since he teamed up with Cian just before Christmas, the 12-year-old gelding has been generating a buzz on the Florida circuit.
But what’s the story with his eye-catching jump? According to Cian, it’s all down to some fine-tuning.
“When you get a new horse, you study videos of how he was ridden previously to see what you might copy or change,” says Cian, acknowledging German rider Marco Kutscher’s role in bringing the Carinue son to top level. “Clenur is super-careful, but at nearly 18hh he’s a big, strong horse. He tends to want to go at the fence and get too close, which makes it hard for his body to be athletic.”
While learning not to get in so deep, Clenur had to adjust to arriving at each fence with a little more room to spare.
“He was not used to so much space and started to reach with his forelegs,” says
Cian, explaining why the horse appeared to be tackling every obstacle as if it was the Hickstead water jump, Superman-style.
“It looked a bit exaggerated, but now he’s listening and not going too deep, we can
get a bit closer to the fence.”
Does this mean we will see less of the famous Clenur reach in the future?
“It really showed up in the period when I was tweaking his rideability,” admits Cian. “Now you wouldn’t even comment on his front end.”
CLENUR has gathered a large following, but his fame has yet to eclipse that of Cian’s European team gold and individual bronze medallist Good Luck — a horse with simply staggering scope.
“Good Luck is super-athletic and jumps exuberantly,” agrees Cian of the compact Belgian stallion. “He’s my horse of a lifetime.”
Cian admits that Good Luck’s explosive jump has needed work, not least because giving each fence an extra foot of height can be costly against the clock.
“The ‘time allowed’s were a problem
‘Clenur, Good Luck and Fibonacci 17 are similar in that they’re all powerful and scopey — I’d call them flamboyant, not unorthodox’ CIAN O’CONNOR
when I got him, but he has learnt to be quicker,” explains Cian. “We’ve been teaching him to shorten with exercises at home — so he can do five strides easily, but can he do six?
“We use lots of poles on the ground, emulating a full course of fences with just poles. By cantering forwards on six strides and back on seven, for example, the horse learns to keep calm while his stride is adjusted. This makes him handy, quick and athletic.”
Adjustability is key to developing a more classic style, believes Cian.
“A variable stride is what you want,” he says. “A horse with a good stride who can learn to shorten is best.”
Cian has a third horse in his team whose technique has been the talk of showjumping. Good Luck’s high-flying stablemate is Fibonacci 17, who rose to fame with Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum before Cian secured the ride for his American client, Lillie
Keenan. It was Swedish showjumper
Lisen Bratt Fredricson who first spotted Fibonacci 17’s peculiarities.
“I watched him on video and didn’t like the way he was jumping,” admits Lisen, who thought the grey gelding was too “head up”, with his front legs too straight and a technique that made him seem a bit behind the fence.
“He was very stiff, so I didn’t go and view him, but when I later saw him at a young horse show, I thought he had a lot of power.”
Once purchased and back at Lisen’s yard, he started to impress.
“We still wondered whether he would be able to use his body in the way that we wanted when the fences got bigger,” explains Lisen. “So we introduced more dressage work to encourage him to collect himself and become looser in his body. The day we got him properly loose on the flat, he really started to jump.”
Fibonacci 17 was sold to Meredith and went on to win team silver for Germany at the
2015 European Championships and team bronze a year later at the Rio Olympics. So taken was Lisen with his aptitude that she bought his younger half-brother, Crusader Ice, a horse she feels has the same style, power and intelligence.
Cian is riding Fibonacci 17 part-time while Lillie continues her studies at Harvard University. “Meredith’s results with him were fantastic, but people train and ride in different ways,” he says. “He had a bit of a stiff jump but plenty of scope. Now he’s a lot softer, he’s not doing those big ‘deer’ jumps.
“Clenur, Good Luck and Fibonacci 17 are similar in that they’re all powerful and scopey, with a big stride,” adds Cian. “I’d call them flamboyant, not unorthodox.”
ANOTHER contender in the unusual style stakes is Cortes ‘C’, American showjumper Beezie Madden’s memorable double King George V Gold
Cup winner. His signature crossed-foreleg technique certainly made him stand out from the crowd.
“I didn’t really notice it on the videos before I tried him,” says Beezie, who rode the nowretired, 17.1hh gentle giant — ironically known as “Tiny” at home — to individual and team bronze at the World Equestrian Games in
2014 and at Rio in 2016, where unfortunately he had to be withdrawn due to injury.
“The feeling I had when riding him was that he had a good front end, quick and positive.
“The leg crossing was something he just seemed comfortable with,” she adds. “I certainly didn’t consider training it out of him — I wouldn’t even know how.”
Tucking one foreleg behind the other is sometimes seen in showjumping: US rider Lucy Davis’ Rio team silver medallist Barron does the same, to a lesser extent. Would such a quirk put Beezie off buying a horse?
“Not unless it seemed to tangle him,” she says. “It never tripped up Tiny, but then he had so much scope and a super temperament.”
According to Stephen Hadley, who showjumped in the 1970s, a quirky jumper needs scope. If he has that by the bucketful, he is sometimes best left to his own devices.
“Horses go in so many different ways,” he explains. “Some need to run and jump, while others prefer zero pace; some like to travel, or will lengthen or shorten. It’s the rider’s job to get the horse to the best spot, in the best shape, to make the jump.
“It’s a mistake to try to make them all go the same way. You have to ride each horse in the manner that suits him.”
Older showjumping fans will remember Deister with his trademark mid-air twist and Vibart with his whisking tail and kick-back. With today’s technical courses and sport horse breeding programmes, is there still room for individuality?
“The horses are totally different nowadays,” says Stephen. “They used to be bred in all sorts of obscure ways and we saw many different styles. In my day, a lot of the good ones were freaks.”