Best suited Discipline? ?

Question

This is video of my horse Nakota. I am training him to be a jumper but I also want to do stuff on the side with him so he will learn suppleness and he really listen to my aids. He's showing and won in hunters and dressage too. I just wanted to know what others thought. Fell free to critique my riding or him if you want to.

vid: jumping starts at 3:58 flatwork and older vids before that srry ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klODYCCC34I

More info: he's a 7 year old twh/qh cross. 1 year in training this week!

jump heights from 2'3-3'9

Answer 1

hes a beauty! I work with arabians mostly in western. At arabian shows they have something called Show hack it like dressage. But also ride him western on trails!!

Answer 2

He looks like an awesome jumper.All I can think of is Dressage unless he is also trained in western,maybe reining.

Answer 3

Let me first say that you are doing a beautiful job with him- the work that you've put into his suppleness and acceptance of your aids really shows. Great job!

Now, here are some things that I saw that you could improve:

1. You tend to get puppy paws/piano hands and broken wrists. Just be more conscious of this and it should get better.

2. When you jump, especially in the first line, you appeared to force yourself up out of the saddle. Work on letting him jump up to you; it will be more effective and it will create a much prettier picture.

3. Your straightness in lines could be better. I mostly saw it in the first line, though, so I don't know if that was a fluke or not.

4. I saw you spent a lot of time on bending/turning at the trot. That's a great foundation, but you should step it up to working on bending/turning at the canter. This also includes picking up the right leads and working on flying changes. There were multiple times I saw you were on the wrong lead and your turn at 5:05 was quite harsh (granted, though, that's a quick turn). When you are jumping 3'9, you really should be able to turn effectively at the canter and leads should hardly ever be a problem.

5. I just wanted to end on a positive note. Your walk to canter transition around 4:50 was beautiful- nice job!

Your hard work really shows- at this point, most of the improvements you need to be making are simply nit-pickings. Again, great job!

Answer 4

He'd make a nice english pleasure horse too, he carries himself nicely and is calmer then most 7 year olds I've seen. :) Gorgeous. He's a great jumper.