help needed!!

[Louiser92]

i have recently bought a gorgeous Dutch wb mare (8yo) out of wellington. She has a lot of abiltiy sj (clears 1.30 with ease) but has some habits that stop her fullfilling her potential.

1. she takes you to the jump, she gets into a long stride and cleard the jump by miles. she will allow check her but she then gets too close and is likely to knock it down, which she HATES.

2. on landing she picks up the speed and it is difficult to get her to listen. working with grids she starts off ok but he strides get longer and longer as she works down them, and she gets stuck by the last jump or two.

3. doing any 'y' shaped grids, or anything where you need a responsive horse for turning etc she struggles with. you ask her but she is too preoccupied doing a couple of really long strides, and by the time you turn her the approach is wrong and it scares her.

i have done trotting into fences, halting after (tried to anyway), grids and courses. any ideas would be greatly appreciated as im not used to a horse of her calibre!!

thankyou for reading, please please comment on any experiance, ideas, anything!

 

[emmaln]

I would really concentrate on your flatwork and get her listening to the striding you give her then introuduce one small crosspole into a flatwork session and so on so that it just becomes the norm!

good luck hope that helps

 

[cyberhorse]

I have one who would do similar if allowed, he also would look at a 1.30 fence as a bit of fun. Yet the difference with mine is if he took off after a fence and I choose to let him run on to get too deep to teach him a lesson he is too quick and clever with the front end and does not touch it. Doing this does not bother him either he just kicks a leg out over the fence or bucks on landing in a "nice try mother" kind of way but then decides to listen. This I guess it not an option for you as she gets caught out and then upset.

The other aspect is that he is well schooled on the flat and we do a lot of canter work and dressage (tonnes more time than spent jumping). For this reason so long as he is bitted correctly I could, if I choose, go into a fence bouncing on a pony stride.

How is your canter work? can you really collect her on the flat? We practice seeing how many canter strides we can fit in down the long side and then come round again and see how few. Regulation must be there when you are not jumping to be able to have it when you are and this relies on the horse being between hand and leg.

Once you have good regulation introduce a pole on the ground and ride to this alternating between long strides and collected strides. The horse should be able to give you both and be listening to which you require and when, also to any adjustment you wish to make to slightly extend or shorten on the way in. As it is a pole she can't get too upset when she miscalculates and ends up in it. Also when you do shorten be positive and get her to shorten sufficiently to what you want if you do it half hearted you just end up with a misser.

Are you doing any loose jumping? what is her style then? Is it actually that she is not quick enough with the front end?