Good exercises to stop rushing fences? Andy's first party :D

Kokopelli

Kokopelli

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So good news first:

Took Andy to his first party today it was just a little rally at the racecourse but it was my first time out on him and was very pleased with him. We were put in a good group, we all seemed to be well matched ability wise so was a good lesson but I'm not a huge fan of group lessons.

He worked probably the best yet and was just so behaved wasn't on his toes too much and we got some very nice work out of him. Once he is more consistent he will be really nice. We also clipped him yesterday and he looks very smart and was as good as gold to clip :)

But yesterday we did some grids with him and it started off okay but then he just started rushing the fences so badly and it came to the point where we would land and he would just shoot off around the school.

We took the grids down and just had two single fences in the school and I was schooling around them and when he felt calm I woudld just pop the fence. But afterwards he was still shooting off really quickly and I couldn't stop him well but once he came back to me he was fine.

So any exercises I can do to sort this out? What I don't really get is with his old owners he never rushed his fences like that so why is he doing it with me? I know I'm new to him, I'll get some videos when I next jump to show you all what I mean. Back, teeth and saddle all checked so he isn't doing it from pain.

Thank you in advance everyone :)
 
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Prob feeling glad to be rid of snow and ice for a while! My sugesstion is canter poles followed by grid work with canter poles after fences so he has to drop head and see where to put feet instead of head up and go! We all go through stages like this so looking forward to reading replies.
Glad it's all going well and you're enjoying him
 
When did he last jump?
When did he last compete?
What heights was he doing with his old owners and how big were the jumps with you?

Without seeing him, it's hard to tell, but could it just be enthusiasm? I seem to remember you saying that he was quite hot when you first told us about him?
 
Sportyspots said:
Prob feeling glad to be rid of snow and ice for a while! My sugesstion is canter poles followed by grid work with canter poles after fences so he has to drop head and see where to put feet instead of head up and go! We all go through stages like this so looking forward to reading replies.
Glad it's all going well and you're enjoying him
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Didn't think of poles after the fence, I will definatly try it next weekend if its not too frozen to jump :)

Really enjoying him thanks and can't wait for him to improve will definatly keep everyone updated though :D


spacefaer- He last jumped with us last weekend but before then prbably not or about 2 months. He hasn't competed for about 3 montsh maybe more, the jumps were no bigger then 2ft6 but we put them up after he started jumping better and I think he was jumping about 1.10m with his old owners but they never jumped at home due to no arena.

It think it is enthusiasm but there is no way he would jump a course the way he goes as he would just not be ready for the next jump
 
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Hels_Bells said:
Could maybe try some raised poles on pole pods to make him more careful and concentrate before the fence?
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We tried this aswell and he leapt them all! He's a difficult one :p I'm tempted to loose school over some fences to see how he goes weather its me pushing him to go faster but worried he'll jump out school so decided to give it a miss :p
 
hmmm have you tried just poles on their own then just the pole pods alone loads of times, then adding a v small fence in once he's calmly doing them? Then building up from there?
 
If I was helping you, I think I would make sure that he'd worked hard the day before, to get rid of some of his excess energy lol!

There are some very good exercises to help - grid work to make him think - lots of bounces and changing the questions frequently so he has to think about what he's doing. Also putting the jumps high enough that he respects them (not huge to terrify the pair of you, but I get the feeling that at 2'6, he's playing with you a bit!)

I have a very good exercise with related distance canter poles/jumps - lengthy to describe here, but quite effective! :)
 
Hels_Bells said:
hmmm have you tried just poles on their own then just the pole pods alone loads of times, then adding a v small fence in once he's calmly doing them? Then building up from there?
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Tried poles on own but may have moved from poles to raised poles to fast so next time might spend longer with just poles and building up more slowly, thanks for the advice :)


spacefaer- Our posts keep clashing :p I am tempted to go bigger but he hasn't got a huge amount of muscle built up due to being turned away for a couple of months so don't want him to pull anything but might just put them up. I'm not worried about height but I would rather he jumped small well then big badly if this makes much sense?
 
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What I did with my rusher was stopping immediately before the fence (a teeny on as they may jump from a standstill) or circling away until he approached in a balanced canter and actively looked for me to tell him he could jump.

We then moved onto stopping in a straight line after the jump

Then stopping as soon after the jump as possible

Then we put a second jump up 3-4 strides after the first and stopped before the jump - again teeny in case of a jump from a standstill.

Once he was jumping the first steadily and waiting for the second, I then asked him to jump the second - again stopping immediately after though.

If at any point he started rushing again, I went back a step.

I used to randomly do any of the above to keep him on his toes and make him look to me for direction.

Another exercise is to have a jump at x and ride it from the middle of the long side. There would then be a jump to the left and right on the long side. I would approach the short side jump on a circle to maintain a steady canter and then randomly turn left or right to the second jump. The horse has to look to you for direction. There was also still enough room to circle away at any point.

This will not teach a horse that rushes, to stop, but isn't probably advisable for a horse that will already stop...
 
Christmas_Crackers said:
What I did with my rusher was stopping immediately before the fence (a teeny on as they may jump from a standstill) or circling away until he approached in a balanced canter and actively looked for me to tell him he could jump.

We then moved onto stopping in a straight line after the jump

Then stopping as soon after the jump as possible

Then we put a second jump up 3-4 strides after the first and stopped before the jump - again teeny in case of a jump from a standstill.

Once he was jumping the first steadily and waiting for the second, I then asked him to jump the second - again stopping immediately after though.

If at any point he started rushing again, I went back a step.

I used to randomly do any of the above to keep him on his toes and make him look to me for direction.

Another exercise is to have a jump at x and ride it from the middle of the long side. There would then be a jump to the left and right on the long side. I would approach the short side jump on a circle to maintain a steady canter and then randomly turn left or right to the second jump. The horse has to look to you for direction. There was also still enough room to circle away at any point.

This will not teach a horse that rushes, to stop, but isn't probably advisable for a horse that will already stop...
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He's definatly not a stopper so won't have a problem with trying it. But after I land I would really have to give him a pull to get him to stop directly after fence, is this a good idea? I think it may upset him a bit though but may try it :) Thank you
 
Kokopelli said:
He's definatly not a stopper so won't have a problem with trying it. But after I land I would really have to give him a pull to get him to stop directly after fence, is this a good idea? I think it may upset him a bit though but may try it :) Thank you
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Yeah you kind of have to be tough with them - they may try to jump from a standstill. It only takes a few times before they cotton on. They don't like it at first but the way I saw it was I needed to be in charge to avoid ending up in hospital again ;) That was what made me take charge - a big fall and a night admitted with concussion...
 
My eventer was a SJer when I got him and was a bit of a nightmare similar to yours. The only way I got him to settle was to do slightly larger full courses at events or the odd lesson and actually not to jump school at home. He's cool as a cucumber at events/shows etc and does great, but gets really wound up schooling at home, he also had little respect for the smaller fences and took the mick a bit with me. Maybe yours is similar? I think some SJers are over jumped and can't handle it and get their knickers in a twist, so to just jump every week or two weeks calms them a bit, plus at a competition they "switch on".
 
Hels_Bells said:
My eventer was a SJer when I got him and was a bit of a nightmare similar to yours. The only way I got him to settle was to do slightly larger full courses at events or the odd lesson and actually not to jump school at home. He's cool as a cucumber at events/shows etc and does great, but gets really wound up schooling at home, he also had little respect for the smaller fences and took the mick a bit with me. Maybe yours is similar? I think some SJers are over jumped and can't handle it and get their knickers in a twist, so to just jump every week or two weeks calms them a bit, plus at a competition they "switch on".
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I see where your coming from, I have no idea what he jumps like at a competiton but we are only going to be taking him to flatwork and dressage comps to begin with then start jumping him out :)
We only jump once a week if that and when they are competing regulary they never jump at home. I'll take it year by year with him and see how it goes :)
 
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