Clumsy jumper?

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Lill

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My friends horse is an exceptionally clumsy jumper. He is eager to jump and get excited but he's just SO clumsy!!! He'll knock probably 4 or 5 jumps down in a class and probably totally demolish 1 of those! We were loose schooling him and the others last night and he didn't look where he was going properly, took off too close to the wing and brought that down and the pole and then brought the second part of the double down too!! He did scrape his leg a bit so maybe that'll make him think ooh that hurt must be more careful?

What can we do to make him less clumsy?
 
What size fences is he being asked to jump?

How good a jockey is your friend?

Do you do grid work with him?

How old is he?
 
Gridworks will make them learn to pick their legs up, some horses are just lazt jumpers are they going forward in to the jump in a rounded outline?
 
Clumsy jumper = too ambitious for the height, and lack of experience.

Don't bother with the classes until he has learn't the game, but get him to do loads of clear rounds or schooling over fences if you have them available. It takes a while to get there.
 
How old is horse or friend ? Lol!

Horse is 16.1hh fairly cobby belgium WB 7yo. Bit out of proportion i.e. head is a lot bigger than it should be!

He's only being asked to jump 2ft 9 class so not exactly huge. He will loose school over 3ft6-3ft9 at home and seems to jump a bit better when they are bigger. Friend is a bit unbalanced when he lands - doesn't sit up quick enough.

Have practised doubles with him, one stride, and then done the two stride ones at shows, tried to do bounces but think i've said previously he doesn't really 'get' bounces and puts a tiny canter stride in the middle!

I mean he tries but he is trashes the fences a lot of the time. Really clumsy.
 
Well a combination of both really! Sometimes he gets close to it but generally its him just not picking his feet up! He will even knock down the tiniest off crosspoles!!
 
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Tell your friend to stop jumping him - it doens't sound like his thing.

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exactly my thought, jumping is not H's thing so we do not do it !!
 
But he loves it though! He gets really excited and does them silly squeally noises
smirk.gif
!! Maybe he tries too hard and therefore mucks it up?!
 
[ QUOTE ]
But he loves it though! He gets really excited and does them silly squeally noises
smirk.gif
!! Maybe he tries too hard and therefore mucks it up?!

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps then your friend needs to go back to basics with him, get some good training, and concentrate on lower heights. It's great that he loves it - but sometimes wanting to do something is just not enough - we need to be educated to do it properly, or at least to the best of our abilities.
 
sounds very much like my horse when he was learning to jump-i did lots and lots of trotting poles, raised trotting poles, trotting poles on a circle etc LOTS of flatwork before even attempting a jump and always did circles/serpentines/transitions after as well just to make him realise it was work and not play! now hes a fab little jumper (although still gets excited) but i dont expect him to jump anything huge because hes not that type of horse
 
He makes me laugh so much when he squeals!! He's done a LOT of flatwork and has improved 200% over the past 2 years, since we started working properly with him. When we first got him he could only canter on one rein and was very unbalanced and giraffe like he is now SOOOOOO much better can canter easily both reins has been competing unaff dressage this year and doing fairly well. He's always LOVED jumping despite not ever being very good at it! He does trotting poles fine, usually lay out 3 or 5 he's worked them out fine!
 
Id get someone else more experienced to jump him and see if it helps. If your friend is unbalanced then its not going to help him. Id get his gridwork sorted - he shouldnt be putting a tiny canter stride in a bounce! Maybe make the bounce distance shorter then and trot into it. I wouldnt bother loose jumping him over the height you've been doing because if he trashed it the other night then its not helping! Now he's scraped his leg which could shatter his confidence and make him even worse.

He's 7 so still sort of young. One of mine was VERY clumsy when I began jumping him - I mean dreadful. He would trip over everything and totally demolish at least one fence in a round. Taken 2 years but FINALLY (as a 6yo) he's getting the idea and is now jumping much better suddenly in the past few months. If I were your friend, I keep the courses low (lower than 2'9) until he gets the idea.
 
Doh i'm so thick am getting confused here this horse is about 9yo not 7 sorry bout that.

Well i will take my camera tonight and try and get some pics of them and try to get them on here sometime next week.
 
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