Crashing through jumps, advice pleaseeeee!

SophieLouBee

SophieLouBee

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Right, after having a few weeks off, my mare has just started doing some jumping again now the weather has improved.

She is lovely and alert, lovely straight approach, correct stride, but when we come to actually lift, well there just isnt any, she jumps, but through them rather than over them.

They are tiny little things, and I have lightweight plastic poles, meaning she doesn't hurt herself when she does this.

I keep my leg on, on the approach, and hold her back so she isn't rushing, then about 3 strides before I'm really pushing her on. She is worse in trot than in canter.

Any tips? I have one cross pole that she jumps fine (bizzare), and the solid natural jump she also jumps fine.

I am thinking that it might be a case of why should I bother. But she always looks so enthusiatic!!!

Helllppppp.
 
You don't mention how much jumping you have done before? She's not a complete beginner right?

It sounds like it may be quite a straight fore ward problem, if she jumps a solid fence fine, and a cross pole fine, I mean I don't know what the other types of fences are which you are jumping but it seems like she has cottoned on that these fences fall down.

I know you keep them small and use plastic poles so as not to hurt her, but its sounds like she fully knows that she doesn't have to jump them, cos she doesn't have too; they will fall down easier for her.

Try jumping your solid natural fence more, and maybe some other solid ones, and maybe make you fences so they don't fall down. You might have one or two hairy jumps, but then when she realises they won't fall down, she should start jumping them properly...
 
OK, first caveat is I don't know your mare, can't comment on any physical reasons BUT from reading your post, it would sound like she has worked out that these poles are flimsy/won't hurt. I am not suggesting you hurt your mare or rap her but would suggest that she stop jumping her over these and start to work her over solid fence poles. The cross gives her something to look at and obviously the natural looks solid. If that approach does not work then I would stop and get help. It can be very very hard to teach a horse to be careful over a SJ once they have learnt not to bother.
 
I would say (and shoot me :rolleyes:) scrap the plastic poles. If you have some wooden ones, use them or if not you can get them for about £3 each at saw mills :D Try and keep a rhythm, holding her back and pushing her on may well be upsetting her rhythm and throwing her jumping off :)

Other than that, grids, grids, grids. Provided she's not doing it for any physical reasons :)
 
I can't bear those plastic lightweight poles, and would never use them for schooling. My horses both know that they don't have to make any effort over them. They also don't make any effort if the fences are too low.

Could you do a farm ride, with solid fences that are not too big, but not tiny - make it fun?
 
Get her eyes checked and go from there, if this is a sudden change in performance I would be suspecting a physical reason.

I had a gelding that turned out to have cataracts and he must have been able to see the poles, to some degree, but invariably he'd stop dead, crash through them, go too high or too low, he never seemed to be able to judge a fence accurately.
 
SophieLouBee said:
Right, after having a few weeks off, my mare has just started doing some jumping again now the weather has improved.

She is lovely and alert, lovely straight approach, correct stride, but when we come to actually lift, well there just isnt any, she jumps, but through them rather than over them.

They are tiny little things, and I have lightweight plastic poles, meaning she doesn't hurt herself when she does this.

I keep my leg on, on the approach, and hold her back so she isn't rushing, then about 3 strides before I'm really pushing her on. She is worse in trot than in canter.

Any tips? I have one cross pole that she jumps fine (bizzare), and the solid natural jump she also jumps fine.

I am thinking that it might be a case of why should I bother. But she always looks so enthusiatic!!!

Helllppppp.
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I may get shot down for this but we had a cob that was the same, she had a great little pop in her and could jump like a stag and was anything but lazy but she just 'knew' she could plough through the plastic jumps and paid them no respect. We painted up some wooden ones and I now would never use a plastic pole for teaching youngsters, also we kind of wedged the 2 wings as close in to the edge of the poles as we could so that the poles (whether wood or plastic) didn't fall down as easily and the horse met with some resistance. She cottoned on to leaving them up pretty quickly.
 
queenbee said:
I may get shot down for this but we had a cob that was the same, she had a great little pop in her and could jump like a stag and was anything but lazy but she just 'knew' she could plough through the plastic jumps and paid them no respect. We painted up some wooden ones and I now would never use a plastic pole for teaching youngsters, also we kind of wedged the 2 wings as close in to the edge of the poles as we could so that the poles (whether wood or plastic) didn't fall down as easily and the horse met with some resistance. She cottoned on to leaving them up pretty quickly.
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I couldnt agree more with top comment , i have regular lessons with yogi breisner and he brings in racehorses that have never seen a jump in there life and first things first is wooden poles , horses are far more intelligent than people give them credit for , they learn quickly that hitting a wooden pole can hurt so they pick up and learn alot quicker .alternatively to that you could do some A frame exercises which encourages the horse to pick up and make a nice shape .

I Swear by both methods and i also may get shot down by saying this ,but just because people do it differently doesnt always mean its wrong

good luck x
 
Thanks for all your advice guys! It's good that people have different approaches, means more things for us to try :)
I didn't do any today and went out on a nice hack instead, which she really enjoyed.

Enfys- Pretty sure it's not her eyes, she could see a needle in a haystack!

Plastic poles are going!!! Going to do some gridwork tomorrow! Got a nice fat log to haul out too.

Jessandcharlie: I am holding her in as to gain some energy/momentum, else she can be a bit flat, which obviously doesn't help this lack of oomhp. I'll take what you said about the rythim into account though, and see what she is like tomorrow :)

I think after watching the vid (I would post but I CBA) She looks utterly lazy over every jump apart from the solid fence, where she has her ears pricked and jumps nicely!
 
very narrow small x poles will make her lift her shoulders and front legs. when i say narrow, make them as skinny as poss. try it. it solves all of my problems :)

oh and edited to add, IMO i wouldnt faf around with lightweight poles. keep them solid. and do a few grids.
 
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SophieLouBee said:
Thanks for all your advice guys! It's good that people have different approaches, means more things for us to try :)
I didn't do any today and went out on a nice hack instead, which she really enjoyed.

Enfys- Pretty sure it's not her eyes, she could see a needle in a haystack!

Plastic poles are going!!! Going to do some gridwork tomorrow! Got a nice fat log to haul out too.

Jessandcharlie: I am holding her in as to gain some energy/momentum, else she can be a bit flat, which obviously doesn't help this lack of oomhp. I'll take what you said about the rythim into account though, and see what she is like tomorrow :)

I think after watching the vid (I would post but I CBA) She looks utterly lazy over every jump apart from the solid fence, where she has her ears pricked and jumps nicely!
Click to expand...


Glad you have some things to work on.

Just a thought if she seems less interested over the show jumps how about trying lots of different exercises and stuff to keep her more interested, or is she the same no matter what you do? :)
 
Is she a youngster? I had a pony who I backed a few years back - got to be the most unnatural jumper ever to begin with. Literally he would crash through it or step over it in a very un-elegant fashion. I swopped from plastic to wooden poles and he improved but twice he tapped a front leg on it and he landed on 3 legs for about 4 strides after thinking he'd broken his leg! Poor little guy, what a drama queen he was. He got even better once he started cross country - so I would recommend that, just little logs.

Funny thing was that although he was a very slow learner jumping-wise, once he got the hang of it he was brilliant and could jump a big fence for a little pony!
 
She's the same pretty much, she has a nice varied routine, I think it's becuase i'm being too cautious to be fair. She's 7, and jumps nicely on the lunge.

I'm going up a bit later to practice with my mother as the pole putter-upper :p
 
A trick my instructor has used to get my young mare to respect jumps a bit more is to put something 'scary' underneath it, like an upturned bucket or coat or something. If she starts to get tap happy again I add something new. This keeps her from getting complacent about the fence as she has to keep looking to see what's what. Useful spook-busting too!
 
Flourescent cones, crates, plastic sheets? haha, unfortunately she isn't scared of things, I think I'd need a dragon under the jump! Bonus when we are out hacking though.

Thanks though Katie_A :D
 
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