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‘Help! My horse is running out at skinnies’ Olympic eventer Ginny Elliot’s tips on how to stay between the flags

The key to accurate cross-country riding is flatwork, says Olympian Ginny Elliot. Here she explains the importance of the lower leg and outlines her own approach to jumping skinny fences, while accredited trainer Cameron Beer suggests an exercise to build up your skills until they are second nature
Emily Bevan Emily Bevan

    • Skinnies are a common bogey fence in eventing, but what makes them so difficult? We ask Olympic medallist and five-time Burghley winner Ginny Elliot and BE UKCC level 3 accredited coach Cameron Beer for their help, advice and top tips on how to stop your horse running out at skinny jumps on a cross-country course so that you stay straight as a die between the flags.

    “The ability to control the body of the horse with the lower leg is the most important part of being able to jump a skinny,” says Ginny, also a former world and European eventing champion.

    “Your leg aids need to be really good and responded to by the horse – that’s the only way you can control the horse’s body.

    “If I put my right leg on the horse should go left, if I put the left leg on the horse should go right, and it should happen instantly. If both your legs are together, the horse should stay straight.”

    Half pass or leg-yielding practice

    Making sure your horse moves instantly away from the leg on both sides, without accelerating, is imperative before embarking on skinnies training. Credit: Lucy Merrell

    Cameron Beer agrees, stressing the importance of perfecting those aids.

    “Before you attempt a skinny jump, it’s important you can leg-yield off both legs without the horse speeding up and you can do a calm but quick straight line, halt and – in a perfect world – a rein back,” says Cameron, who’s evented up to CCI4* level. “To be fair to the horse, you have to make sure those aids are concrete.

    “Most problems at skinnies occur where horses don’t understand the question, run through the bridle and don’t allow the rider help them in that moment. You have to break down those simple communications for the horse.

    “If you don’t have those communications, and then you come to a fence and your horse loses a bit of confidence and wobbles, the aids aren’t there to put it back, and that’s unfair on the horse.”

    Horse rider jumping skinny fence at Badminton

    A copybook example of accuracy between the flags at a skinny fence at five-star level, but the foundations start without even jumping a fence. Credit: Alamy

    How to stop horse running out at skinny jumps – an exercise

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