I have a question about my jumping horse

Question

ok, well i have a jumping horse that is pretty young. he is jumping 3'3'' courses and i love him except for one thing, well kinda. well, he iss the kind of horse that really takes you to the jumps. he will have a good steady canter, then a few strides before the jump he gets really fast to go to the jump. then after the jump he goes back to a steady pace. i know that this is good, but i was wondering if anybody knows and can tell me how to "check" a horse? i see people do it all the time in videos when jumping their horse like when they kinda pull the reins and the horses head lifts? i was wondering how to do that

Answer 1

You want to half halt.

OR

I have a horse that use to do this before SJ jumps.

And when I jump her at home I don't let her jump if she speeds.

So when she's going into a jump is she speeds I pull her up and don't let her jump and I keep doing that until she goes in at a steady pace, then I let her jump it and thats an award for her as she is a very keen jumper. This has helped me a lot. Now she is going in at a very easy steady pace (The same as the whole course)

Some people say that this ruins a horse but I started this on my mare when she was 4 and now she's 5 & 3/4 and jumping really well.H

Answer 2

two words for you " Hasf, Halt" .

Try cantering your horse in a  figure 8 in front of a jump, once you have a steady canter go towards the jump but ask your horse to stop right when you feel he is speeding up. make him stand there for about thirty seconds or so. start over every time your horse speeds up on his own make him stop. soon when your horse starts speeding up you will cue him to stop, this will make him throw his legs a little more under his body and just as soon as you ask him to stop ask him to canter again and then try the jump. So what you are doing is asking for a halt, which will prepare your horse to stop, but then you cue to canter so your horse will slow down expecting to stop in any given moment. try this it works for me with most horses that I train with this problem. half halt is basicaly halting half way hence the name. http://tonyonehorse.weebly.com

Answer 3

It is the same thing as a half halt...just to "wake them up" lol I can't really explain how to do it, but I am sure you have heard of half halt...if not ask your trainer :)

Answer 4

Basically, what you want to do is a half-halt. It's hard to explain, but basically what you want to do is to lift your horse off the forehand and move with impulsion from his hind end. It may also be that you are anticipating the jump as much as he is. Try to sit deep in the saddle and wait till you are at the fence for him to come up to you. What's also good, is when you're riding him everyday, teach him voice commands. It really works wonders. I've got a hot-blooded ottb mare who sometimes blasts over fences, and she has learned what "whoa" and "easy" means. It does make life a lot easier.

It might be good to set up some gymnastics for your horse to go over. Because he is still young, gymnastics will teach him to sit back on his haunches, as well as finding his own spot to take off. It's usually a series of 4 jumps, start off with them relatively low, like 2'-2'3"(especially if he hasn't done them before). What you want to do, is to let him jump the fences on his own, without you doing too much(you want to sit pretty, but still be there in case he is not sure of himself). It lets him figure out his striding himself. You may get a few stutters and jarring leaps the first few times, but he will learn to slow down.



1st fence is usually the lowest fence, then you can increase the height for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th jump. As for striding, it's usually 1 stride, in & out, 1 stride. Now, to teach him to slow down, you may want to shorten the striding just a little, so that he really has to bring himself underneath you in order to make it over the jumps smoothly.

I work on gymnastics every so often, and so do a lot of jumpers that I know. It teaches them to see their own spot(it's good to have a second set of eyes), and teaches them to respect the fence and to sit back on their haunches to get that perfect smooth striding.

So give that a try with your coach, I really recommend gymnastics, especially when you play around with the striding, make them tighter, longer, add in strides, mix up where the strides are. It really teaches the horse how to think for themselves.

Answer 5

I also rode a horse who would get excited before the jumps and would go faster than desired. I would just pull the reins and not canter her until 4 strides before the jump and if she broke I wouldn't let her jump. Eventually she "got" it. Good luck!

Answer 6

i know 3'3" is a little hard to do from a trot, but maybe on a smaller course practice breaking to a trot a few strides before the jump to make your horse get in the habit of paying attention to "whoa" cues when approaching jumps.  After you get the hang of your horses *exact* whoa cues and can make him trot while going at any jump, you can start using the same cue in the canter but don't make him break all the way to the trot (essentially an unpolished "half halt").