AHTA Cross Country Course Design Clinic With Dylan Barry A Success!
The warm sun shone down most of the weekend of April 23 and 24th for the Cross Country Course Design Clinic with Dylan Barry. 23 people from all over Alberta and Saskatchewan from a variety of backgrounds attended, there were riders of all levels, coaches, facility owners, event organizers, and prospective course designers and officials.
We were excited to have Cross Country Jump/Course Builder and EC Certified Cross Country Course Designer Dylan Barry joining us for the weekend. He is from Quebec but mainly works in the US at the larger upper level Eventing Competitions. A very small example of the competitions that he has been involved with include the 2019 Pan Am Games, The Eventing Grand Prix in Aiken, and The Fork at Tryon International Equestrian Centre.
Saturday started off with a short classroom portion before heading out onto the cross country course. We walked the preliminary cross country course and lots of great discussion was had and questions were asked about jump type, size, placement, colors, decorations, and more. Dylan talked about course intensity, which is the number of efforts within certain parts of the course, as well as the three things that are taken into consideration when deciding what to set on course and where, type of jump, terrain, and the difficulty of the question being asked of the horse and rider. The suitability of jumps and appropriate questions to ask during the beginning, middle and end sections of the course was discussed, as well as the shape of the path of the course and where to place turns. Part of the afternoon had the participants break off into groups and use survey flags to create different cross country questions, such as a combination or jumps through a water complex, and then they were presented and discussed. How to properly measure a cross country fence was also explained, as well as requirements for each level.
Sunday Dylan talked about building cross country jumps, how he plans the outside of the jump and then works inward. He also draws all parts of the jump to scale before starting to build, to ensure the finished product will meet all measurement specifications. Again the participants broke off into groups and practiced planning and drawing jumps to scale. More time was spent out on the cross country course walking and discussing lower levels courses, lines and combinations. Brian Vicars and Laurie Sutherland talked about the education and requirements in becoming a certified course designer and jump builder and the insurance required.
Types of frangible devices and how and where to use them was also discussed over the course of the weekend, Dylan also demonstrated how the frangible devices worked, and pointed out which fences could be outfitted with frangible devices throughout the time out on the course. Other smaller topics were covered through the weekend, such as having an emergency response plan, the course designer’s responsibility for the show jumping course, ways to extricate a horse from a jump, consideration of accessibility for EMS on course during the event, and lots more. Also discussed was the importance of having more proper, large, inviting gallop fences as well as fences that are properly at height, for each level. Horses and riders are not done any favors by having smaller jumps on course. It was suggested that event sites earlier in the year could make the courses shorter or less technical, but jumps should still be at height, and that more riders should consider downgrading for an event or two if needed at the beginning of the season.
The whole weekend was packed full of so much interesting and useful information. Dylan was extremely knowledgeable about all facets of course design, and was very engaged with the participants which made for lots of great questions and discussions and an immense amount of learning.
Huge thanks to Dylan for sharing his knowledge and for an amazing, informative and fun weekend. Ulrika at Alhambra Stables for hosting us and the hospitality! And to High Performance Chair Kathleen Ziegler for all her work organizing this great course.
One Comment
Taya
Everything stated in summary and more. Fantastic clinic. Very informative. Presented in logical and progressive way. Easy to follow and learn from. Dylan was very knowledgable and able to answer all questions, but also to use questions as an opportunity for group discussion and full involvement and learning of everyone. I felt confident in the knowledge I took away and thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of this clinic. Thank you Dylan and AHTA!