Use Landing Rails to Improve Your Horse's Bascule

Use Landing Rails to Improve Your Horse’s Bascule

Five-star eventer Laine Ashker explains and demonstrates how she uses a simple grid exercise with a vertical and landing rail to improve her mare's shape over fences.

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At only 9, Laine Ashker’s promising up-and-coming eventing horse Lovedance has already completed two years of riding at the three-star level and is now stepping up to four-star competition. Here, Ashker works with the KWPN mare to encourage her to be quicker with her front end and improve her shape over fences for show jumping.

“In the jumping phase, ‘Lottie’ can sometimes be a little slow in the front,” the five-star eventer and Grand Prix dressage rider said. “To teach her to be quicker with her front feet and help her create a better shape over jumps, I’m all about using grids.”

One of the simplest grid exercises Ashker likes to incorporate is a single vertical with a landing rail. If it’s a smaller fence, she sets the landing rail at 9 feet; if it’s a larger jump, she puts it at 10 feet. Lottie is jumping 1.30 meters, so she’s set the landing pole at 10 feet.

To help improve her mare Lovedance’s shape over fences, five-star eventer Laine Ashker likes using a simple grid exercise involving a landing rail.

“The landing rail encourages horses to look a little sooner in the air,” she said. “This way, they land a little sooner and therefore create a better bascule over the jump.”

Here, Ashker explains and demonstrates how she approaches the exercise, first off the left. “Going into this, my riding and position must indicate to my horse that there is a landing rail after it. So, as I’m approaching the jump, I want to have a nice, round and energetic canter. I also focus on sitting up and holding my position off the front so I don’t throw her on the forehand,” she noted. “This will help give her that space off the ground to create that nice bascule.”

The first time through the exercise Ashker lands left to circle around and approach it off the left once more. This time, she focuses on bending and balancing Lottie through the turn a little more effectively while maintaining a quality canter and holding her position again. Now, she lands right to make a shorter turn, based on the diagonal line the fence is set on.

“It’s always good to work both sides of your horse,” Ashker said. “But in this exercise, I also like to ride the short turn going the opposite way to make sure my horse is straight and really on my aids.”

As she approaches the exercise off the right, she puts in a little half-halt to make sure Lottie is balanced and maintaining a quality canter, and then softens the reins. “As you can see in the video, the landing rail is very helpful for Lottie, because it gets her right where she needs to be, so she doesn’t land too far out from the jump—and it helps create better shape over the fence,” Ashker said. “The landing-rail grid is one of my favorite tools and jumping exercises to help horses improve their bascules and determine where they need to land after fences.”

Here, you can watch the full video of five-star eventer Laine Ashker explaining and demonstrating how to use this simple grid exercise to improve your horse’s bascule.

About Laine Ashker

Five-star eventer and dressage professional Lainey Ashker has competed in numerous FEI competitions at the five-star level, including the Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials CCI4* and the Defender Burghley Horse Trials CCI5*. The horsewoman, who trains out of her Keystone Acres farm in Chesterfield, Virginia, also won the National Eventing Championship (Advanced Level) in 2013 aboard her long-time mount, Anthony Patch. More recently, she won her first CDI in May 2023 aboard her upper-level dressage horse, Zeppelin.

For more with Laine Ashker, click here.

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