tips to get a horse moving forward when jumping

mavandkaz

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am having a few issues with my horse jumping, and am looking for some tips and exercises that might help.

on the flat he is very balanced and we can change the pace within canter fairly easily - working canter, medium canter and have begun to play with/introduce collected canter.
however our problem comes when jumping. I'm only jumping 70cm-80cm as I lost my confidence a few years ago, and have had current horse for nearly a year. at home, we can now happily jump a course in a good rhythm and have been working on jumping out of a bigger canter, as his 'default' is to go a bit slower/smaller in his canter, but this has come on really well. the problem is that when he lands after the jump he loses all forward momentum and the next couple of strides are quite small. I didn't really notice it until we went out to some comps and training clinics and noticed that he was struggling with the distances in combinations and related distances. this has become a real issue in one and two stride doubles and he just cannot make the distance and we end up having to launch over the second part.
I was worried I was holding him back, as I know I do not always release with my hands over the jump (am working on this), but my instructor (who I have fortnightly lessons with) jumped him and she described it as him 'stalling' on landing.
I also loose jumped him, building up to him going over a double that was a standard BS one stride distance. from the very beginning of poles on the ground to finishing with 85cm uprights, he struggled to make the distance. my friend who was helping presumed I had purposely set up a long stride in between, until I told her to pace it out. she was shocked that he had made it look so long

has anybody ever had similar?
what exercises could I do try and get him to move forward on landing and just generally get him to keep cantering forward when jumping?

oh, and he is a 16hh, 8yr old TB, but very short coupled - Only takes a 6ft rug and just squeezes into a 17" saddle.
 
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