Teaching older (11yo) horse to jump??

CosmicKid

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Hi there looking for some different thoughts and tips!! I've got this 11yo (roughly estimate of age) mare who I've been bringing back into work, she is a beautiful cob and has a great build for potential jumping! (I think she will love jumping once she learns)

She is a fantastic wee rocket, big trot, ground gobbling canter, and fastest gallop I've ever had on a cob!!
She is 11years old and too this day to anyone's knowledge has never jumped anything even when playing around in the field!
Trotting poles she's ace at, trots over them like a champ! But as soon as they are raised she just runs straight through them! She isn't a fan of lunging but I've tried leading her over/lunging over jumps but again she just goes straight through them!:( she's a fantastic little pony and I can tell she would love jumping if she could (she loves to have a go of things but she's a bit bored of flat work now haha) so I'm curious if anyone else has any ideas or tips? Just genuinely curious to see what people would try? :)
Thank you

Cosmic :)
 
Trotting poles will not help her understand how to jump, they need to jump out of a canter stride so place the poles at the correct distance for her to use in a good working canter, once she gets that then put a small x pole at the end of the line and canter over the lot, she should be able to take the x out of her stride, gradually build the fences up as and when she is ready, either put the last one higher or put another x in the line of poles so she is jumping a small combination.
It helps to have an experienced person on the ground so you don't have to get off and break the momentum, they can be guided by how she is using the poles and coping with the jump as to when to alter things around, some require longer than others to get going and be able to move on, if she does well you can start to leave the ground poles and just work over small grids and combinations until she is ready to jump unrelated fences confidently.
 
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