The USEA Eventing By The Levels Handbook

53 Rider Skills Required at this level: The coach should confirm the rider's understanding of and ability to perform all skills identified under Starter through Training Level Cross-Country Skills. The rider's responsibilities in preparation for every jump are to produce the qualities of a good jumping canter: Appropriate speed, an accurate line of direction, and the required rhythm, energy, and balance. It is the rider's responsibility to produce those qualities as needed for the jump or question at hand. Therefore, the rider should be able to: • Recognize and create several different canters for differ- ent types of cross-country obstacles, with appropriate pace, stride length, balance, and energy levels for the var- ious fences. • Consistently produce appropriate timing and change in rider position and horse's balance for gallop, rebalance, approach, and jump on cross-country, with the goal of using the position changes to effectively produce the re- quired canter for the obstacle or question. • Maintain a balanced gallop at level-appropriate speed and for prolonged intervals, in preparation for maintaining Modified level cross-country speed between fences and over the entirety of the course. • Gallop on, and then effectively create appropriate bal- anced canter for individual questions. • Communicate effectively with their horse in the approach to produce a jump that contributes to being able to land slower, the same, or faster without interfering with the horse's focus or the jumping effort. At this level riders should begin to develop a more sophis- ticated sense of timing: • Predict on approach whether the take-off distance at any given fence will be short, average, or long. • See and begin to adjust accordingly the strides to affect the take-off distance. • Use the tools detailed in the Show Jumping Exercises and Concepts for this level, as well as gymnastic and jumping exercises, to progressively develop a sense of timing. Dif- ferent riders learn timing in different ways; therefore, it is important to use as many tools and exercises as needed to develop and improve a rider's timing. Training for accuracy questions, including terrain variations and combinations of elements, is very important. Riders at this level should be familiar and comfortable with: • One-stride combinations. • A "true" coffin combination with the downhill landing after the "A" element. • Up and down bank combinations with single fences; relat- ed distances of 1 or more strides on up bank combinations and 3 or more strides on down bank combinations. • Jump or drop into water. • Jump water to water, in combination with jump or bank in or out of water. • Offset combinations on related distances of 3+ strides. • Corner and skinnies in combination with other fences on related distances of 2 or more strides. • Half a sunken road with a step in or out, 30'+ between the step and the ramp, and 30'+ between step/ramp in or out and an additional fence. Modified level riders should be responsible, with guidance from their coach and coach as necessary, for managing their participation in the cross-country phase of competition, including: • Walking, analyzing, and developing a plan to execute a cross-country course at the Modified Level. • Warming up for cross-country, cooling down, and appro- priately caring for the horse after cross-country. Exercises and Concepts The coach should confirm the rider's understanding of and ability to perform all exercises identified under Starter through Training Level Cross-country Exercises and Concepts. Exercises for cross-country riding at this level should involve: • Producing the appropriate canter and balance for all types of fences and combinations. • Increasing the difficulty of exercises to encourage accu- racy and agility. • Encouraging boldness and control by combining more imposing questions such as tables and oxers with accu- racy questions such as skinnies and corners on related distances of three or more strides. Specific questions may have multiple variations, such as: • Turning lines which may be ridden in a different num- ber of strides according to the line. • Offset parallel jumps on 45+ degrees and a 48 ft or more distance between, which permits different lines in varying numbers of strides. • Banks, ditches, water, corners, and skinnies, with ter- rain features, in varying combinations.

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