How do I get my horse to jump upright show jumping fences, without knocking through them, spreads are no prob?

Question

I have a 17hh TB, who I purchased a year ago from a a lady who rehabilitates, ex-eventers & racehorses. His past is shady and unknown before she had him. He has very straight shoulders, but clears 3'9" XC country without any fuss and his dressage is impeccable, we are hoping to go BE next year, but we really need to tackle the SJ side of things as he clears 3'9" spreads perfectly, but also adds an additional stride into upright straight bars and sometimes crashes through them.

Answer 1

It could very well be that he is not rocked back onto his hindquarters enough.  Horses will sometimes begin to get quick and therefore flatten out their jump and knock rails down if you don't rock them back onto their hindquarters to get the power from behind to clear the jump.  I would start practicing 2'9-3' jumps rocking him back - collecting him up and really getting that power from behind and slowly working your way back up to 3'9.  It can actually begin when you are flatting him practising collections and extensions and really work on getting a "rocking canter" (aka power from the hindquarters) instead of letting him do it from the forehand.  As for attacking skinnies, make sure your horse is packaged up even more - because those jumps are so narrow, it's easy for your horse to flatten out even more over them.  You don't need a good gallop or extended canter in order to clear a jump - this is when they get onto the forehand and knock down rails.  You need a nice even working canter with the power coming from behind instead of infront.

You can also practice with groundlines to help the horse see the distance to the fence.  Certain coloured poles make it difficult for horses to actually get a good "look" at the fence and/or make it very difficult for the horse to judge the jump itself.  When you take groundlines away, it becomes more difficult for the horse to judge exactly where the jump is and the distance to it.

Answer 2

Do alot of grid work (ie, bounces, lines, broken lines, etc.) Also, I have a feeling you might be leaning toward the jump.

Sit back, and raise your hand along the horses neck so he has room to see the jump.

Before the jump, add canter poles, as well. He might be misjudging his strides.

Answer 3

It seems like he is misjudging the height/distance he needs to jump at. This is very probable/expected since he probably hasn't had much experience jumping anything, as racing is flat out.

Some suggestions:

Try cavalleties. This will get him used to going UP instead of out. It will also help a lot for him paying attention to his feet and watching the jump and what is ahead of him. Cavalleties if you don't know, are poles set off the ground sometimes as high as a foot or so, in a row, usually in sets of four or more so that every time the horse takes a step he is stepping over a cavalleti. If he has never done this, you might start with the poles on the ground first.

Also, collection exercises seem to be in order. The cavalletis will help with this, too. Move in a slow, controlled lope,(circling helps to control the pace) and work on getting him to give to the bit, tuck his head down, and round his back. Probably as a race horse he does not have much experience in this.

Doing rollbacks is a great western way to get into collection, but it is probably a bad idea with a high strung race horse. Ask around your stable or ask your trainer for more collection exercises since there are many, many ways. Find one that works for you. :)

When you are ready to go from cavalleties to jumps, you probably already know there should be a distance pole or two before the jumps. Usually they are put a half stride away from the jump, and sometimes a full stride away. Sometimes there is another pole added right on the ground underneath the jump to help the horse judge the distance from the ground to the jump itself-- I learned that putting this extra pole helps a LOT. Especially if it is striped or brightly marked/painted.

Answer 4

I assume you are talking about a simple vertical. I would start very low and work up from there.  A ground line is fine, but I have seen eq. classes where the jump is a simple pole and two standards. Very tricky for any horse to jump.  If the problem persists, I would definitely have the horses eyes checked out.  They can't jump what they can't see well.  Good luck.

Answer 5

put a pole just a little bit beofre the jump, and do alot of gridwork

so its like this

______._I

see just b4 the jump theres a pole  to show the horse that it must jump beofre it

____._I___.___._I__________

see this grid theres a pole beofre the 1st jump then 1 canter strider in between. the pole in the middle of the 2 fences get the horse to organise his stepping and then there is another pole just beofre the 2nd fence.

gridwork fixes alot of prblems, and it can help the rider establish better balance and co-odination over combination fences