Loose Schooling......

[TicTac]

and jumping. Do you do it? We loose jump the horses at work and to be honest I can't see any benefit in it at all. A row of small jumps are set up along one side of the school and usually two of us stand in the middle with lunge whips which are only used to turn a horse in another direction. All but a very few of the horses go absolutely mad and gallop flat out around the school taking the jumps at breakneck speed and some will fly over a bounce jump as one. I don't believe it is teaching them skill, balance or rythm and in my opinion is an accident waiting to happen. I share the same opinion re loose schooling as well. It's just an excuse for horses to hoon around.

I have seen loose jumping whereby a horse will jump a succession of jumps that are enclosed in a ' lane' and this appears to be more beneficial. What are you opinions on this method of ' schooling'?

 

[Kenzo]

Depends on the horse and the enviroment (your school) I'd do it with some horses but not others.

 

[Paint it Lucky]

I quite like it. Have loose jumped all my horses and it's always been usefull. Mine are sensible though and don't just pelt at the jumps sending them flying! Though you should be able to teach horses not to do this is loose jumped properly. Do your work's horses get to go out much? I work at a full livery yard where there is very restricted turnout and the horses don't get much chance to be 'free' and do their own thing at all, so I am sure that if we tried to loose jump them they'd probably go a bit crazy too!

 

[Katie__Connie]

I've always wondered how you make them jump when loose-schooling (never done it personally)... my horse would just stand there?!

 

[LadyRascasse]

it work brilliantly with my mare who wasn't physically fit enough to it taught her things like flying changes and tempo of paces. when i lunge her i can just say change and she will change he legs in canter, and hopefully it will make it easier to teach the ridden version later on. i suppose as long as you aren't chasing the round with lunging whip and have a purpose then it can work well.

 

[only_me]

Nope, to me, loose schooling is a waste of time

Lunging would be much better!

Loose jumping can be useful for a youngster or an older horse learning to jump, but apart from that its not much use either imo.

 

[LauraWheeler]

I have loose schooled Lucy and loose jumped her. She doesn't need a run out tunnel when jumping and she even changes the rein on command.

I don't loose school or jump her where i am now because we only have an out door area for riding and last time i tried to loose school her in an out door school she jumped the fence

. But i enjoy loose schooling and it can be a good training aid to get the horses off the voice the same as lunging realy but with out the line. I found it good for Lucy as when i first had her she used to go mad on the lunge and throw herself on the floor but loose schooling she was fine. We also used to loose school the riding school ponies alot when i worked at the riding school so the ponies lurnt to go off the instructors voice and stay on the out side.

 

[somethingorother]

We loose school more than lunging, it's a more natural way of going for a horse, whereas many who lunge trot around with their noses poking out towards the fence. Ours all respond to voice aids as well as they would on the lunge and rarely go mad hooning about. They start off at a trot, have a (mostly) calm canter and then a walk off. Just to give their legs a stretch if they are in and not being ridden, or to get some energy out of the lad if he's fresh. Which at the moment is before i ride, every time- he's a bit full of himself. Then i can get some sensible work out of him and he can benefit from the schooling more than if he is too busy being giddy.

Have loose jumped too, but only for a bit of a change and something different for him to do.

Edited for typo's

 

[spookypony]

I'm using it with my pony, who has a history of dumping me on my head when jumping. He appears to be really panicky about this whole jumping thing (one theory is that he had an accident at some point in his past?), and is a very careful pony who likes to figure things out for himself.

I find loose-jumping very useful with him, because it allows him to sort himself out without worrying about what the rider is doing. I've noticed a big change in his way of going over the jumps: at the beginning, he charged madly about at a ridiculous trot, nearly ground to a halt, hurled himself over the jump as though it was 10 feet high, and then pelted off again at a crazed canter. Now, he calmly canters around the arena, and jumps in a much more balanced and reasonable way. He seems much more confident, and I think that for him, it's the way to go before trying to jump while sitting on him.

I also notice that he's become a whole lot more responsive to voice commands, which I'm sure will come in useful!

I agree with the OP though, that what they do at her work sounds a little less useful.

 

[Kelpie]

I can't imagine not loose schooling my youngsters, in particular .... I'd much rather they learned to jump and organise their legs by themselves before I'm on there as an added complication! LOL!

it's like anything tho, isn't it - if you put the time and effort in to do it well then it will work for you but if you don't feel it's a priority and don't put the hours in to teach your horse to do it then fair enough, not everyone rates it, but IMHO then better not to do it at all than to do it only occassionally and confuse your horse/ cause an accident.