tips on making horsey pick legs up

[vickers22]

any tips on how to pick my horses legs up when SJ?He just seems to tip them, dont know if its me. I lunged him over some jumps today, about 4'3 and he didnt touch them once, actually lifted his legs right up. But when ridden he gets very excited which leads to SJ's down

any advice very much appreciated

 

[Peanot]

Hi, do you go round at a fast pace so that he jumps flat when going round a course? Or could it be that the jumps are small in the ring, and so he doesn`t try? I ask this because sometimes horses give the bigger fences more respect.

 

[vickers22]

well at the beginning he picks up his legs, its about the 3rd jump round that he gets excited and gets faster and jumps flat. But i dont know what to do to stop it!I do lots of schooling with him, but he seems to be the same every time we enter the ring. I know he can do the big jumps as he used to do intermediate eventing.

 

[Safina]

My boy is like this - a combination of an unbalanced approach, flattening over fences, "supermanning" over fences instead of tucking his legs under or generally not concentrating I think.

We are doing heaps of raised canter poles and trying really hard to establish a good round bouncy canter before we do any jumping.

Make sure you are not getting too far ahead of the movement or flinging yourself down his neck too far.

 

[Sarah_Jane]

Try and do lots of grids and related distatnces at home. Bounces and raised poles all help them sit back on their hocks a bit.

Another good exercise is 4 jumps evenly spaced on a 20 minute circle. Keep going until you establish a rythem and the horse learns to look for the next fence. If you have room it may be easier to make the circle bigger.