While you might assume gymnastics’ exercises are more useful to keep horses sharp for the jumper ring, top U.S. hunter rider and trainer Geoffrey Hesslink regularly utilizes this gymnastic and bounce exercise to improve his hunter horses’ straightness and fitness and to help them learn how to gauge their distances and improve their shape over fences.

In this new video on EQUESTRIAN+, Hesslink demonstrates how to ride his gymnastic and bounce exercise to improve your hunter rounds and position over fences and explains how it can benefit both young and more seasoned horses.

How to Set Up the Exercise:

Gymnastics: Set up a ground pole 9 feet out from a small vertical, with another 9 feet to a second vertical, and then 18 feet to a slightly higher vertical. You will trot into the ground pole and then canter through the bounce to the final vertical.

Bounces: Through the middle of your gymnastics, set four slightly raised cavalletti as a set of four bounces, all 9 feet apart. You will do this exercise at the canter. (See “Improvement at Every Level” below for a full aerial view from our drone footage on how to set up the exercise.)

Navigating the Trot-In Gymnastics

“When you first start incorporating gymnastics into your horse’s program, it’s important to not rush or make him nervous. In the beginning stages of learning gymnastics, most horses will try to anticipate or rush through it. So stay relaxed and just allow your horse to work through it until he figures it out.

“This exercise is designed to teach horses how to create their own shape, how to gauge the jumps themselves, and eventually they will learn their own pace needed for the exercise.

“Throughout this exercise, I strive to work on straightness while also encouraging my horse to push off his hind end, so it’s also good for strength conditioning. My job in this exercise is to keep my position correct and stay out of my horse’s way to allow him to make the best jumps possible. Especially be quiet with your hands to stay out his mouth and allow him have a little bit freeness in his neck and his back.

“Maintain enough leg so your horse understands to go forward through the exercise, but don’t apply too much pressure or spur him in any way because you don’t want him to increase his pace through the exercise.”

Combining the Gymnastics With the Bounces

“Once you’ve gone through the gymnastics several times and your horse has somewhat figured out how to gauge his distances while staying straight and maintaining an even pace, start to incorporate the bounces. It doesn’t matter which lead you start with. If your horse has a favorite lead and that’s easier for him the first time that’s fine. Or you can simply go the direction you land on or challenge your horse to land on his harder lead.

“Here, I’m traveling left, so I approach the four bounces off the left lead. Again, I focus on keeping my horse as straight as possible, my position correct and balanced, and I try to not interfere with my horse and just let him flow through the bounces.

“Gymnastics and bounces are really good for young horses. For example, green horses don’t yet know how to create shape over jumps. This exercise forces them to really use their hind ends, which helps them learn how to figure out that shape.

“Plus, some green horses aren’t focused or mature enough—or are too spooky—to jump full courses or lines yet. So, this is a perfect exercise to help them stay focused while using their bodies correctly, and eventually they’ll learn to just take a breath a cruise through it.”

Practice Landing Both Leads

“The way I’ve set this exercise up, you can ride it in a figure-eight type fashion so you can change directions frequently depending on which lead your horse tends to land on or needs more practice with. So the idea is you connect the two exercises, so you can condition your horse evenly on both sides.

“My horse Stewie prefers his left lead, so I practice making him land right to help him get used to using both sides of his body more evenly, which can also carry over to your course work when you need to land on your horse’s stickier lead.”

Improvement at Every Level

“This exercise is also excellent for older or more seasoned hunter horses. Because they have to push off each hind leg so evenly, it’s great for conditioning and maintaining that hindquarter muscling.

“The horses learn by making mistakes through the exercise. It teaches them to develop their own jumping style—what’s most efficient and what’s not—and then they start to retain what they’ve learned and do it on their own.

“Most importantly, this exercise can help riders at every level of the sport whether you’re an amateur, just starting to show or competing at the highest levels because it directly carries over to your course work. I often use it to prepare for courses or specific events because it serves as a tune-up to help horses sharpen up their shape over jumps and helps direct their focus.”

About Geoffrey Hesslink

Geoffrey Hesslink owns and operates Hesslink Williams farm in Wellington, Florida, with his partner Brendan Williams. He is one of the leading hunter riders in the country and is a top trainer for juniors and amateurs in hunters, jumpers and equitation. Some of his most recent accolades include being named 2023 Pennsylvania National Horse Show Leading Hunter Rider, winning the 2023 $100,000 WCHR Central Hunter Spectacular at Traverse City Spring and placing second at the 2023 USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship, both aboard Drumroll. And in 2022, he piloted Mon Tresor to the win in the prestigious $100,000 USHJA/WCHR Peter Wetherill Palm Beach Hunter Spectacular. 

For More:

• To watch Geoffrey Hesslink’s full lesson on how to ride gymnastics for better hunter rounds, click here.
• Watch his new video on adding strides and changing tracks for hunter success here.
• You can watch his other brand-new training lesson on how to execute proper hunter lines here.
• Learn how Hesslink fosters a positive training environment to instill confidence in both his students and horses here.

Coming soon: Be on the look out for more video training lessons with Hesslink, a barn tour of his stunning facility in Wellington, Florida, and for our exclusive interview with him and his longtime friend and business partner Bethany Lee, founder of My Equestrian Style.