BY PIPER KLEMM
At the start of a busy week of the Gladstone Cup Equitation Classic-West and Junior Hunter Finals-West at HITS Del Mar, The Plaid Horse sat down with course designer Meghan Rawlins to discuss her approach to the 19th year of the Gladstone Cup, sponsored by Emory & Henry University.
TPH: This is a mid-year equitation finals, how do you view it in a rider’s training sequence?
MR: I want to have some fair tests in the Gladstone Cup, but I don’t think it needs to be as hard as the Fall Finals. I want to see that the riders can go forward and back adjustably, around the course. They have to react and plan as they progress around the course and show their skills.
TPH: How did you use materials to ask the course questions?
MR: I think of the Gladstone as more of a hunter medal, but it’s really a balance of hunter and jumper questions with unique designs. We have beautiful hunter jumps with flowers and groundlines, then a skinny jump, and a wall with rails and no groundline. There also is a hedge jump with sunflowers and a vertical-vertical combination with ferns at the base but no real groundlines so that horses can easily see the rails and the gates. I like to have a balance of airy and solid jumps in equitation classes.
TPH: Many California horses don’t go inside much, how did that play into your consideration for designing in the covered ring at HITS Del Mar?
MR: I always think about how horses see in every ring and I build jumps so that they can focus on doing their job correctly and safely. Inside, I look for lighter colored jumps and rails to that horses can easily focus on the jumps.
TPH: You mentioned reaction and adjustability, what does that look like to you on course?
MR: Horses should be able to shorten and lengthen their stride smoothly throughout the course as asked by distances, jumps, track, and pace. Riders should have a plan, have the rideability to execute their plan, and show off their ability to make both forward distances followed by quiet distances and then quiet distances followed by forward distances.
TPH: This is a medal final where riders switch horses in the final phase. How does that impact your considerations?
MR: I built the handy so that the riders who know their own horses get to show them the tests and obstacles. Then I remove a few particular challenges for the final phase where riders swap. For example, there is a bounce at 9AB in the handy and a trot fence we won’t see in the horse swap.
Listen to Meghan on the Plaidcast here.
