Free jumping a hunter = expensive!

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DBrasnett

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12 August 2007
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Gloucestershire
www.brasnett-pratt.co.uk
This morning I lunged my horse in his Equi-ami like I normally do twice a week. He was such a good boy, I rewarded him with some free jumping.

He was having so much fun and got rather excited. He cleared a jump beautifully and then proceeded to jump out of the arena!
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at the point of no return I saw the look of "oh [****]" and he hung his back legs and took the top part of the fence with him. He was totally fine, but the fence wasn't. Had to go an make a huge apology to the yard owner
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Don't think we will be free jumping again!
 
Oops!! B did that a couple of years ago - stupid thing is when I did it with the pony she managed to jump out and leave the fence intact despite it being the same height as her ears...
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Glad D is ok
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Just hope you dont tell him off in canter in the school then ! must admit it would always be in the back of my mind now that i could not stop him by running him into a fence lol (I always like to have an escape route planned when riding a youngster !)
 
I once saw a pony jump out of the school with a rider on him, unfortunately she panicked when she realised what was happening and tried to stop him. He then did a similar thing as yours and trashed the fence before losing his rider! I think if she had been able to just go with him he would have cleared it - mind you who knows where he would have carted her off to then!!
 
Ooooohhh - nasty accident potential! I worry that my lad might try that, hence never free jumped him in the outdoor.
We had one idiot girl at our yard (not that I'm saying you are an idiot!!) who was free schooling her youngster in all his tack (why would you??). He spooked at something, shot off towards the gate and we thought he was going to jump it (he would have cleared it with feet to spare). At the last minute, he changed his mind, hit the brakes and smacked into the gate chest first. The momentum propelled him head over heels over the gate and he landed on his back (and his expensive Wow saddle) on the other side. Lay there winded for a couple of minutes then blitzed it back along the concrete yard to his stable.
He was never quite the same since the accident either physically or psychologically and she sold him on to someone a bit more sensible about 6 months later.
 
This has crossed my mind as well, particularly as our school is built into a slope so immediately the other side of the fence is a steep bank - from the school side the fence is only about 3'6" so doable but the landing side is about 4ft lower! Luckily Monty's too lazy and Archie's probably
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too chicken but there are some horses on the yard who would probably give it a go!
 
Flicker - Ouch the accident at your yards sounds horrendous. (not to sure why anyone would lunge in full , unless they were going to ride straight after getting the fizz out of it)

I didn't think my boy had it in him. Def refraining from free schooling now!
 
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