How often do you jump?

[Jingleballs]

I've always been of the mindset that you jump once a week but that most of the preparation for jumping is done on the flat.

But, in my instance, I have a horse who is superb on the flat but jumping is **** - approach is fine until the last stride and then we have issues.

I've done some work shortening and lengthening canter strides which hasn't helped our jumping at all and the only thing I can think of is that he needs more jumping experience to find his stride.

So, would you consider it an issue to jump twice a week - bearing in mind this horse is juming 2'3 max at the moment and will only jump say 10 times in a schooling session - I tend to have the attitude that if he jumps a particular jump/combination correctly 2 - 3 times he doesn't jump it again because well, what's the point?

Obviously if I was doing more strenous grid work twice a week it might be a bit much but doing a 20 minute grid work session and then a 40 minute jumping session in one week isn't excessive is it?

I know you'll probably all laugh at me and say of course it's not excessive but I've always had it drilled into me that once a week is enough for Thankies!

 

[Malibu_Stacy]

That doen't sound excessive to me; I was also of the 'only jump once a week' mindset, but have had to change that with current mare now we've started jumping as she seems to go best doing 2/3 days in a row every 2/3 weeks. Try it and see, some horses will happily jump 3/4 times a week every week without getting bored, others go better when its an occasional thing. If you're doing a couple of sessions close together maybe in the second one start with whatever successful combination you ended with the previous time (take this with a pinch of salt, I'm no expert by any means, but my girl seems to get on with this approach)