loose jumping a 3 year old

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competitiondiva

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would you say it's a big no no or not? not talking big fences, and would be all booted up, and not done very regularly just trying to think of more 'active' things to do with my big lad to occupy his brain!! He leads out off his mum, which he loves, but don't want to do too much of this with him yet, he'll be broken in later this year....
 
We breed our eventers and depending on their level of maturity will happily free jump aged 3. If he's conformationally sound and not bum high or in a cut and shunt phases go for it.
As you've said, boot up, keep it quite small (but enough to get him thinking) and the sessions not too long or hand work.
 
I loose jumped my last one just as I finished backing I did it twice about 90 cms she jumped like a sack of spuds I was devastated she was the offspring of two advanced eventers I turned her away ( she was big )and brought her back up as a 4yo and stared work proper and she had an amazing jump she must have been too immature to jump well I wished I had not done it and saved my self a winter dwelling on it.
 
3 year olds entering the BEF Futurity classes are expected to jump a row of jumps loose with competency, so a degree of prior training must be expected of them. I assume this is considered okay by those entering these classes with their quality 3 year olds.

I've loose jumped my youngsters in the past without problem. In fact, the only youngster I've never done it with is my current one, who at age 5 can't walk over a pole on the ground without tripping over it, so I'm starting to think an earlyish introduction to a few low jumps is no bad thing :rolleyes:
 
It doesn't bother me if he can't jump!! I certainly won't be dwelling on it if he can't!! He's my future dressage horse!! I just want to keep his brain engaged right now as is getting a bit testy!!!

Thank you everyone for your input.
 
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