How do you make your horse more careful when jumping?

[BYR]

Can anyone suggest some exercises / grids, to make my horse more careful ?

He generally knocks the fence with his back legs but very occasionally with the front. The height isn't a problem for him, he just gets careless with his legs and doesn't always tuck up as much as he should. Fed up of just getting 4 faults in an otherwise perfect round!

I have a variety of jumps and a helper etc but just a bit worried about setting up a grid and getting it wrong, I don't want to break his confidence with my ignorance.

Thanks

 

[CrazyMare]

Theres some fab books around - one is called something like 101 jumping exercises - Look on Amazon.

We put all sorts under fences, build A frames and V poles to help get them to pick up and keep their back feet up.

Some SJers also use weighted boots as a schooling aid.

 

[Lolo]

Can you set up a line of poles, then a line of poles and a jump and build up a grid very slowly with him on the lunge? We thought Reg was very careless, but on the lunge he wasn't. Meant it was what Al was doing, and that turned out to be rushing him too much!

 

[Sparkles]

Agree on the V jumps, plus just general gridwork with bounces etc also.

I also find 'explosion' grids useful too, which is basically a 1 stride double with a very small cross pole jump for the first one, one short stride, then a much larger upright fence.

My lad is the most uncareful horse on the planet when it comes to SJing. I find making the jump as 'scary' as possible helps - Put plastic bags tied to the poles, pop your jacket just draped over the centre of the fence, extra scary fillers, etc. Make you sure you keep riding forward and confident, as the whole idea is to 'back them off' from the fence a bit, but generally makes for a much more respectful jump clearance over it.

And the odd XC schooling session makes him re-learn where to not put his feet over a jump too!

 

[BYR]

Have ordered the book so will try some exercises out of that. Will also get the grids set up and have a play around to see what works for him. We cant lunge as we dont really have the arena space for it, but he has slowed down a lot since we have had him , he used to rush really badly!
Thanks all