Schooling and slowing the canter for jumping... Exercises

[Queenbee]

As one or two of you may have seen Ben is still loving his jumping just as much as ever! Perhaps a little too much as he likes to rush the jump, and will even try to take me off my line towards a jump he sees... It caused us 12 faults the other day because he was going so fast I had to battle to check him and he got in deep on a few...

So, this week is schooling week to iron out that issue. I have the following exercises milling around in my brain but would welcome any that have worked for others...

1. Canter poles, get him cantering over them nicely without a jump, then add a jump, get him cantering over them and the jump nicely, then take the poles away...

Grid work to get him thinking more

Another exercise that has been suggested is a jump on the centre line and doing figure of eight over it allowing him to settle and find a rhythm and learn there's no need to rush...

Does anyone else have any super exercises to calm the beast?

 

[be positive]

Canter poles and more canter poles, 4 poles on a 20 metre circle this is surprisingly difficult to do correctly and will make you ride the canter correctly, keep the rhythm but not allow them to drop behind the leg, hold the outside rein to control the shoulders and once you are in control you can pop them up to be small fences, probably the most useful exercise for an onward bound horse but you do need to build it up slowly otherwise you end up missing them as you canter past.

 

[Queenbee]

Brilliant BP, thank you! Will add this in

 

[brighteyes]

Obedience on the flat, lengthening, shortening and then onto canter poles. You have to get the canter underneath you and even backwards. The horse is rushing for a reason and it is unlikely to be a positive one.

It took me a good year to sort out a horse with rushing issues. You won't fix them unless you are prepared to take no shortcuts and repeat exercises until you are fully in charge.

 

[Flicker]

Try popping some 10m circles in canter to shorten your horse up. Also, up and down transitions will stop him becoming too 'flat and forward'.

I know how it feels when they 'lock on' and tow you into the fence, it's no fun is it.

 

[ChesnutsRoasting]

Obedience on the flat, lengthening, shortening and then onto canter poles. You have to get the canter underneath you and even backwards. The horse is rushing for a reason and it is unlikely to be a positive one.

It took me a good year to sort out a horse with rushing issues. You won't fix them unless you are prepared to take no shortcuts and repeat exercises until you are fully in charge.

This. Choose the long side to lengthen & short side to shorten. Make it harder and say (on left rein for example) lengthen between H&K or between H & K shorten strides instead. Count the strides & then between M & J shorten again & see if you can increase the strides.

 

[Nicky44]

I had a great lesson the other day, the instructor had me halt a couple strides after a combination and then go on alternate rein, a lot of upward and down ward transitions, walk to canter, canter to walk to make sure you have control.

 

[bakewell]

If you only have a "proper" school this won't work but I've had some luck using small jumps and a sloping field. The slope appears to unsettle my horse enough that he starts to listen. It seems to have carried over onto the true flat! Also encouraged him to power up a collected canter rather than just jiggle around evasively. However my chap is built uphill so might not work for all shapes.

 

[Queenbee]

Cheers guys, some brilliant tips... I will try them! We went into the school today, canter poles were fine, which kind of ticked me off, as I hoped he would rush them and learn not to, but no he was so fluid over them, we schooled around the jump next and he was great, he jumped a cross no problem and was chilled... Cantering on the last few strides only! Granted we only did the one jump and I feel that it's a course where he is worst, he gets more and more het up throughout the duration, I think I'm going to have to bring him back to trot between jumps on a course for a while to relax him in between. We ended on a real high though as he seemed to start getting bored with the smaller height and less careful even though he was pretty relaxed so for the first time ever he jumped a 2ft 9 jump, he was very respectful of it and seemed to like having something a bit more challenging to end the day. I had a great friend helping out who has competed at bsja and produced jumpers, and we tried a few different methods with him to see what works best, he seemed to settle with a decent contact and containment until the last three strides when he needs to b given the liberty to sort himself out, then gathered up post jump, even jumping towards the gate he seemed to steady and relax with that approach. I'm going to keep doing exercises with his canter and approach to jumps etc throughout the week (obviously time off and hacks out too) and hopefully will see some difference on the 2nd when we next go out.

 

[Queenbee]

A little update on this thread... I've been playing a bit with exercises and found a really good one for Ben. Today I had to change his bit to plain happy mouth and to start with he was even more of a handful but his current Dutch gag is not going back in his mouth! We warmed up and I'd put two small x poles in a bounce grid formation with a pole on the ground where the third jump of a bounce would be down one length of the school and three canter poles down the other length, we warmed up in walk trot and canter over the ground poles, and once that was done, worked on circuits of the school in canter up over poles then straight round over grid... He started to rush then realised the futility and how counter productive it was, very fast we had a nice elevated canter with a very steady rhythm all the way around... It works very very well if anyone needs an exercise I reccomend it, on Friday I'm adding a jump on the diagonal to incorporate occasionally to keep him listing...