Teaching a horse to jump? people that have done it please?

Question

I want to train a horse that im going to rescue to jump. im going to be tacking jumping classes.

Theres no way im going to be jumping 5 feet fences. I will start with a ground poll.

Im going to be jumping this high, maybe alittle higher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OERyWhFgV64

What are some tips you have?

Answer 1

Start Slow. and before you move up to higher fences. i would recommend lunging him/her over them before you ride over them.. fee jumping also helps horses figure out their own distances.

Answer 2

start by moving the horse up to the jump. let the horse get use to the poll. it is very dangerous to make a horse to jump over something they might be afraid of. Put a lead halter on the horse, and have the horse jump over it w/o you on it. then put something heavy on the horses back and have the horse do it again. keep doing this until it is comfy with the jump. then go to the bathroom, if you fall off and you have a full bladder, you can burst it or wet your self, then ask someone to watch you in case you fall, then get into the saddle. ride up to the fence, don't jump. then go back and ride up to the fence. get ready to jump.lean forward, make sure the saddle fits really well, then jump!

Answer 3

first off, the horse already knows how to jump, you just need to get it to jump how and what you want it to.

i always start off with the horse walk/trot/cantering over poles, then turn them into cavaletties, repeat the process, and then finally loose jump them over some X's. help your horses timing by putting poles in front of the fence.

just take it slow and easy and use common sense.

good luck!

Answer 4

Start on the ground, of course.

Begin with ground poles, working your horse at the walk, trot and canter across them to allow him time to adjust to the proper stride and speed you'd like him to take when approaching smaller jumps. Once he's comfortable in both directions with the ground poles, keep them there, but add a small cross-rail jump at the end of them. Now work him at a trot and canter over the poles, leading him up to the jump. This will teach him to measure his strides and time his jump. When he seems comfortable with this, in both directions at both a trot and a canter, you can go ahead and remove the ground poles and lunge him with the jump alone. When he's good at this, go ahead and progress to riding him. Again, start with ground poles, go through the paces. Move up to ground poles and a jump, move through the paces. End with just the jump and go through the paces.

All of this should be spanned out over weeks. Take your horse out every day, to every other day and don't work for more than thirty minutes at a time. If your horse is experiencing problems with any of the steps, digress and take him back to the step before this one, where he felt comfortable, and work him back up to moving on.

I did this with my off-the-track TB and it worked beautifully. I'm not the best jumper on the horse, and neither is he with a rider because neither of us have had professional training in that area, however, before this training, he wouldn't approach a jump or ground poles if his life depended on it. Now I can turn him out without a lunge line and free lunge him over a two foot cross-rail jump without ground poles no problem, and he'll keep doing it without pressure.