Learning to sit there

One trick that I found worked well was counting down THROUGH the fence, not TO the fence (i.e. "19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12 (jump), 11, 10, 9..."). It helps place the emphasis on the rhythm and the canter and takes it away from the actual jump
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I'm having to work at this at the moment too. Like you my previous horse used to have a bit of a stop in her. She would canter nicely into the fence and then slam the anchors on at the last minute. My current horse never stops but I always seem to subconsciously have this in the back of my mind. My current horse rushes and I always used to be told I fire her up a few strides from the jump but I could never work out exactly what I was doing to fire her up.
Anyway I have a great new instructor. we've worked a lot on the things people have been talking about on here already. Like doing a balanced corner on the approach. Not looking at the fence but something in the distance helps me too. We've done a lot of canter poles and think about the rhythm of the canter - the up shot is since my horse has stopped rushing I can think about what I'm doing a lot more. I've realised that because of the rushing I've stopped using my legs but because of my previous horse's stop I use my seat to much to press forwards and I also lift my hands on the approach. So now I sit and consciously think not to move my seat, to keep my hands low and a small squeeze if necessary. Its incredibly hard to do nothing isnt it? Even now when I'm riding in, trying not to do anything - I still feel I should be doing something - it just feels wrong! But since I've realised what I'm doing my horse hardly rushes at all and jumps perfectly each time. I then feel more confident and each time it gets easier. I'm not jumping any great heights at the moment but am now at the stage where I feel I could put them up without starting to fire again. I'm glad I'm not the only one that does it though.
Good Luck I hope you get it sorted too.
AJ
 
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