Difficulty in Gridwork with Oxers??

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HorseyStar

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All SJ's?

Wats the difficulty level in this gridwork:-

FOUR square parellel oxers 2ft9 each set up to be a (land/stride/take off) cant seem to find any YT vids etc of 4 Sq oxers as gridwork, there usually cross poles or singles that then lead to an end fence being an oxer?

Can ppl explain the difficulty level of this exercise & what it would make the horse learn/achieve?

We reeeeallly struggled with this particular exercise recently after sailing thru all otha gridwork :/
 
Gridwork should be done with a purpose in mind, usually a mix of verticals and oxers, often with a different striding between fences, if you were put through something that was not explained at the time and you , your horse was struggling the trainer is not really doing their job properly.
4 oxers on a one stride distance sounds tough, many horses would find by the 2nd or 3rd one they are getting too high in the air and will struggle with the distance to keep going and get out, gridwork should be aiming to teach the horse and gain its confidence not cause problems.

I cannot think of a reason I would use this exercise as I feel it would do more harm than good potentially, even at 2ft 9in it would be tough .
 
Thanku soooo much for ur reply Be Positive, obvs experienced as you have explained perfectly wat cud happen & this did happen! :/ by the 2nd fence he either did a mega sharp run out or i got him over but he jumped it at about 6ft (no exaggeration) and then landing from that height then runs out on the 3rd.... ;(

Not meaning to sound biased but my boy is a phenomenal jumper, he has only eva hit 2 poles in his time out & clears everything an flies ova all gridwork, but omg this exercise in our last lesson was extreme on both me & my boy.

His problem is he has too much 'ping' he will jump 4ft iva 2ft etc etc an instructor says this exercise was to help his technique an get him to cover more ground and lengthen to stop the over jumping... Only i have never felt him jump so big in 3 tears iv had him, he was very worried, at 1 point tanked through the jump an run off with me ;(

Since then i have really lost my confidence (neva been an issue before) an not had a lesson since.

Its my own fault for not asking exactly why the exercise did not achieve wat was meant too, an since then i just wanted itha opinions as i feel im not experienced enough to know whether the exercise is actually difficult or whether me & my boy are just not quite there... But i know him inside out he gets those hoofs out of any tricky situation yet was very worried & frustrated with himself at not being able to do it? ;(

Sad thing is we kept trying, & he is SO sharp how i didny fall off il neva know must be the superglue! But we actually did do all 4!! It felt so so so tough tho!
 
It will do the opposite, the width and openness of the oxers will make him go higher not longer, he will then land steep and not make the distance to the next, especially if he is already careful and inclined to over jump.
To help stop him overjumping everything needs to be easy, the distances perfect so he is always in a "safe" place to take off, he will gradually learn to be less extravagant but still have confidence in his own ability.
Horses that are as careful as your boy sounds need nurturing as they can lose it so easily if people try to be too clever, I would consider a more experienced or compatible trainer.
 
Thankyou very much all makes perfect sense!

I really like the instructor she's lovely but cant get this out of my mind, my sixth sense told me wat we were doing was very wrong, but you just listen to your trainer and carry on, iv not jumped him since but just hope its not scarred him & going to take a while to get him back :/

Hes the same with xc jumps, iv found wat makes him less pingy is if i let him lengthen an be very quick in his approach to the fence, its hard not to be tempted to half halt him etc but like you say wen i leave it simple allow him to do his job he feels much better, i think maybe we can become too obsessed with interferring with striding, of course we need to at times but i herd once somwhere that a horse left to loose jump with no rider pretty much always clears a jump!... Its wen us riders interfer thats the problem! :/ and i feel this exercise definately set us up to fail, it felt neon impossible, bless my boy actually did do it in the end but he was very worked up :/ and i feel wicked for making him do it now x
 
That would be a difficult exercise .
I am surprised that seeing the horse was struggling the trainer did not tweak the exercise to get a better result .
If a normaly bold horse is running out and knocking through fences you should adjust not keep bashing on.
Clearly it exposes the weakness in his technique however Grid work should build confidence while increasing the horses skills it should never knock it back.
 
Would never do this with my SJers, can't see if achieving anything positive tbh. Gridwork is really about sharpening up the mind or a specific fault in technique not making it very hardwork and off putting. I often do bounces or a mixture of striding grids which change very frequently so they are really concentrating and working things out and getting much sharper with snapping their front legs up. If I use an oxer it is generally just the last fence for my arrogant SJ who's been at it a bit too long and thinks he knows it all. This is just so if he plays and messes down the beginning of the line he pays for it at the end to ensure he gives a bit of respect for the exercise.
 
I often do bounces or a mixture of striding grids which change very frequently so they are really concentrating and working things out and getting much sharper with snapping their front legs up. If I use an oxer it is generally just the last fence for my arrogant SJ who's been at it a bit too long and thinks he knows it all..[/QUOTE]

thats superb! thank you all! really insightful in your answers and just what i was after, usually when we'v done gridwork it has opened his mind, been fun and even thou he is a very sharp boy it has really helped him become even more on the ball.

he's a tough one because althou he always clears the fences, jumps from any stride and generally gets me out of a pickle if i mess up, he equally is a very sensitive lad and sometimes isnt as bold if i jump him on one of his days...he's the sensitive type where all your hardwork /experience could be took from him within a 2nd due to a bad experience, i took him xc a month after this and he was just puttin dirty run outs at loads of fences....

so its back to basics this summer me thinks! :/ ggrrr
 
He sounds like my most experienced SJ horse, bold, brave and will get you out of trouble, but also sensitive and remembers issues. Mine is a bit of a quirk and as far as I can find out though the SJ community he was rapped as a youngster so is made suspicious very easily. This is what I would do with him if we had encountered an issue with grids and he had lost confidence:

Stay away from grids for now and just jump some nice straightforward fences with a good clear groundline, nothing false, and well within his scope (avoiding water trays and open water). Once he is going OK and you have 100% no run outs, refusals, backing off, over jumping, or any kind of jelly legs/leaping and you are sure his confidence completely back then tackle some very simple grids.

Maybe the first time back on a grid type exercise jump a single fence at the end of canter poles and then gradually put the poles up on blocks to do a simple bounce exercise at very low height for his ability, show him the line each time as you make the adjustment so he can see what is going on. If all goes well then start some very basic grid work again gradually giving him a little more to work out and creep the height up as he goes.

He sounds like he just needs a bit of pressure taking off for a few weeks so he knows the job is still fun.

ETA: just looking at your location, I'd take him to Sommerford on the farm ride with a group of horses if you can and just build up as you go round. We do this a lot over summer to bring on our less confident jumpers. There is plenty of space for them to relax between doing some jumping, that way it does not get too much.
 
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Poor you, sounds like you need to go and do some fun low key stuff to rebuild your confidence. Do you have a local very small cross country course to help him jump off a moving stride, keep everything really small so you are less tempted to fiddle on the way in and make it fun for you both. Good luck!
 
You haven't said what level horse or rider are, or difficulties they were experiencing during it, nor the distance the exercise was set at or what the exercises before were so I would think the distances were probably wrong the horses were tired and also the grid work before was probably achieving something completely different so maybe the horse got confused at that particular exercise?? Although the fences are just small I would say for most horse and rider combinations it would be too much to ask and certainly wouldn't be on my training list for novice horse/rider combos although we have sent experienced grade A horses through similar fences when getting ready for bigger tracks but even then we didn't build much bigger than 110/115 square we just wanted to the horses to work on agility as apposed to scaring them when they start loosing confidence in combinations its so hard to regain it.
 
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