Jumping - he just doesn't look! advice please!

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laurenpalmer

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I have a thoroughbred which i have been training for a year and a half now and we are starting to look at low level eventing. The discipline we have most trouble with is show jumping. He can canter round the arena fine, controlled, collected ect, but when i point him at a jump he generally rushes and does not look at the jump and takes off on a stride too late and won't snap his legs up, also he doesn't learn form bashing his legs. He is perfect cross country and is very bold, but showjumping (which we generally keep small (2'6, 2'9 at the biggest) because i am still training him) he wont look at all. A lot of my instructors say he will look when the fence is bigger, but because he is inexperienced i feel i cant go and jump him 3ft because he is more likely to injure himself if he doesn't look. What can i do? are there any exercises to help him look? i was watching a lucinda green clinic and she said that when the rider leans right back the front end of the horse has to come up. would that work if i did that when he is supposed to take off? any advice appreciated! thanks! and sorry its very long!
 
Yep I know all about that, I agree with you about not jumping any bigger until he is jumping correctly. I have found an excellent trainer who makes things really easy for my boy, which helps his confidence and he is enjoying himself which means he pays attention and so on. Basically we work with 2 or 3 fences on a line (one stride then two) and concentrate on the approach in trot and canter until it is balanced and in control. This has helped enormously and yes we still have hiccups but we are better able to cope with them. I would stick with 2ft9 max until he is consistent.
Hope this helps
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Hi I had this problem with my TB when i got her 6yrs ago. She would fight me all the way to fence when i was trying to help and set her up, end up taking off all over the place, crashing and didnt care. This was over 2'6" i was gutted as we bought her to sj bsja.
My instructor had me come down the track where i could set her up turn off to a fence and not fiddle or help her one bit, also the fence went up to 3'3" so there was more of a fence, after 5 attempts she learnt i wasnt gonna help her out when she got there wrong and put in a little stride. This was the start of her learning! Its a bit scary to do it and i hated my instructor at the time for doing it however once she learnt for herself and there was a bit more fence she slowed down and learnt for herself.
She went grade B in the end so it does work just perserverance and patience!
 
try doing a five or six fence grid wih just a bounce in between (but start with two fences)

this helped my Tb because, like yours, he rushed.

when you build up the fences they dont have the choice to go too fast
 
Thanks! so my horse won't be a complete failure then!!
So i should try just sitting there? While he goes into all his normal habits and then eventually he will sort himself out? hmm i could try that, i can see why that would help, because then he has no reason to rebel against me if im not half halting ect! What about length of rein? and height of jump?
thanks for your suggestion, will try that!
 
I've done that in a lesson before, we went up to 5 fillers without knocking them down i couldnt believe it! took a long time but was worth it, except we only did it in trot, so yer good idea i'll do that exercise in canter thanks!
 
I have to say i agree with Dianchi!!

I was having this exact problem with my mare (if you look back you will probably find hundreds of posts LOL). She was rushing, crashing through the jumps or just blatently refusing to go over them. I tried and tried for months to get her to steady into them but had no joy, she was going so fast she just could pick her legs up in time. I tried grids, a-frames, different bits, i had lessons and nothing made a blind bit of difference.

Lately i have been given the use of a decent set of show jumps and i have been putting the jumps up higher and higher. I have noticed that the bigger the jumps go the more she steadies and actually listens to me!! We have now been jumping 1.05 courses clear whereas a few months ago 2'3 would of been a struggle!!

I had her out in the paddock the other day and there was a little 2'3 jump up so thught i would pop her over it. She galloped flat out into it and god knows how she managed to pick her feet up enough to clear it. I put it back up to about 1mtr and she jumped it like a pro.

I would definatly put the jumps up bigger coz he will respect them more and look to you for help instead of thinking he knows best.

ETS i was also on the verge of selling as i also brought her to do BSJA and though we had no hope of ever jumping clear round BN and now we're even getting placed
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wow well done! I generally get told he jumps better bigger, but never really knew what he could handle. is jumping on the lunge a good idea or loose jumping? hes jumped 3 foot xc fences because he can go fine, i suppose its not the jump itself its only the approach. if the approach is perfect then the jump should be.. thanks for the advice!
 
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