A couple of jumping related questions

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Quartz

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Hi, I have had another jumping lesson today. This time we concentrated on directional, whereas we place 2 jumps in the arena, then slightly in front of and to the side of each jump two cones. Therefore we arrive through the cones at an angle to the jump we are jumping, so not coming straight on. Anyway, my problem was my usual when cantering my horse likes to go as fast as possible towards the jump, so I find myself fighting with him on the bit, which just makes him go faster, then by the time we arrive at the jump I am giving mixed messages as wanting him to jump but then still too tight with the reins. Soooooo, my instructor has suggested while I get used to him to use a neck strap so that I let my horse have enough neck to jump with. My questions are: is there a neck strap designed for jumping and where do I buy them? And any tips on controlling the speed he is going without pulling back on the reins therefore not constricting his neck when we actually jump? He is fine for the first two jumps but then when we come back on ourselves he speeds up to a ridiculous speed and I miss turnings and fly all over the place almost feels like he is going to jump right out of the ring!!!!
 
Well I'm a bit wobbly over jumps, bearing in mind until last summer I'd not ridden since a teenager (shhh, well over 25 years) and back then I'd hardly jumped at all. When I re-started riding last summer - just hacking with the odd mini jump, aim was to go hacking with daughter who is a fab little rider and her friend from the RS + friends mum and they all like to go faster than me - I always had a neck strap on the advice of the instructor, so rather than using the reins to re-balance me & potentially sock the horse in the mouth I used to hold the neck strap somewhere along the way should I need to gather myself up and rebalance. Sorry if that doesn't explain it properly, but I'm not too sure what I did with it - it's reassuring it's there and I guess should I need to cling on to something/readjust my position, just knowing it's there in one place makes it easier than grabbing randomly a bit of mane that may or may not be where I needed it (especially as they hogged the old boy I was riding!).
 
I tend to find when a horse rushes, trying to stop them makes it worse, maybe try letting him rush at the fence, if he feels he can run, he's less likely to want to if that makes sense!
 
Worth a try. I don't mind so much in a straight line, its trying to steer him at the same time, he just seems to get from A - B to quickly!!!!!!
 
You could try placing poles coming into the fence 4 or 5 so that he can't rush as this keeps his canter in the same rhythm, the poles need to be flat or hexagonal or square so that they don't role if he stands on them. The other option is to stop him dead then start again. I would also spend alot of time doing flat work getting him more responsive to your aids. In some cases a change of bit helps but might not in this case. Good luck.
 
Hiya, some tips :D

Try establishing a good rhythm and concontrating on schooling almost like 'preparing' him for your next lesson by trying out a number of exercises such as:

Once your horse is working in a nice outline try doing some trot halt trot halt on a 20m circle, then from halt ask for canter still on the circle, then just adjust him untill you feel comfy and happy in jumping him in this canter, keep a rhythm to it, '1,2,3' '1,2,3'.
Once you've done this a few times over different schooling sessions, you should feel more happy with him and more confident in the canter.
Then with this canter try a few different pole exercises, my fave is getting out 4x poles and making a 'box', its brilliant as you can go down the centre line and across x ect, and just be really inventive with it, also brill for changing leg ect. I hope this is somewhat understandable, not sure if it will work for you and your horse as we all are different, but its basic and i've found it worked with both my young tb's, which are both very highly strung when being ridden!

Hope everything goes well, as i know what its like having a horse that enjoys bombing at them haaha! Let me know how it goes :D gooodluck!
 
I had similar problems with my big lad when I first got him! He is an ex puissance horse, so very definitely knows what he's doing and is FAR better at it than me, and the whole thing was made worse because I was still a little nervous of jumping after a horrible accident which resulted in my beautiful Cadbury being killed.
He would refuse fences below 2'9, and when they got to a height he felt was acceptable, would fly at them like a loony! I ended up over correcting the refusing and flying at the fences by expecting it to go wrong every time and just chucking the reins at him and waiting for him to do something silly, which resulted in him either refusing more, or jumping so fast he flattened a fence one day and terrified himself.
My instructor suggested that I try canter poles, and I was so windy about jumping at that stage that we were just a complete disaster, SO, we put canter poles up between wings as an exercise. I'll try and show you what we did using the miracles of typing!

.................................................A............................................




x------x x------x x------x




x------x


.................................................C............................................



We put wings up as normal, but the poles between them were just single poles on the ground. As we cantered over the first fence (at C) Yogi called out which fence was next, to get me thinking forwards and concentrating on keeping a rhythm. The realy focus was to just canter over the poles, sitting deep, holding quite a firm contact, and looking up and where we were going. I found that in the beginning I was sort of "hupping" with my body, which was making him jump the poles and rush, but the feeling was fantastic when he didn't alter his rhythm, speed or stride one bit by the end of the exercise! We did this a LOT until I felt I was confident to put up small cross poles, and focused on just lightening the seat and the contact over the fence, then sitting up and riding all the way to the next fence still with a firm contact - the idea was that if I messed up they were small enough for him to step over!
5 years later and I'll jump anything in front of me on my big oaf, and my jumping has improved tenfold on other horses too! I still do these canter poles from time to time, and also sometimes make a course and warm up over canter poles rather than fences!
Sorry for the essay...good luck!
 
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When doing a course of jumps 95% of your time you are on the ground & only 5% of the time you are in the air. You need to nail your groundwork really & work on a steady rythmical canter & get your horse really listening to you. This may take weeks or even months but whilst doing this forget about jumping because things will not improve until this is established.

Once you have the canter you can move onto using placing poles to & from the fence to assist your horse....but that is for later on.

I cannot understand your instructor continuing sending you into jumps, out of contol & suggesting you have a neck strap to hold on. This in my eyes is not a responsible course of action, can be dangerous & does little to help either you or your horse.
 
It depends on why he is rushing and what effect it is having on his jumping. Does he reach the jump in a good take off spot and make a good jump, or does it spoil his jump and make him get it wrong? In the former case, you need to learn to sit still and employ placing poles, etc..

If he is'nt jumping well because of it, its probably unbalancing him and putting him onto his forehand too much. In which case you need to reschool him to become more obedient to the rider's aids and better balanced. I agree with ellieplatt on the exercises to do here, I have a horse which behaved exactly like yours (so bad I couldn't even use canter poles because he would have tripped over them) and I did a lot of schooling. Lots of transitions, introducing the concept of rein back (at first he was so shocked by the thought of submitting to the rider and going backwards and he reared), lots of canter circles, slowly, change of direction, cantering over poles, cantering between jump wings, rein back to trot to canter to halt to strike off on whichever leg I ask for, etc..

I'm not a fan of neck straps at all, unless the rider is at the horse's mouth all the time. The rider should ideally be in charge, not the horse. Unless the horse is a fantastic showjumper and needs no assistance from the rider.

Mine used to go so fast at the jumps, he was dangerous and I would shoot past jumps and crash into things at great speed. Now, a few months later, he was placed in his first ever BSJA show and is becoming quite nice to ride.
 
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