Trotting into fences..

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K9Wendy

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My daughter's 6ry old horse finds this difficult!! She has a super bouncy canter for jumping and can jump from a canter perfectly, and enjoys it, strong but not too hard to hold. However it all falls to pieces when asked to do it from a trot! She will approach the fence in a steady trot then sprockle over it, sometimes she does fine but she is reluctant to do it and to see the difference in her when canters you really would wonder why bother doing it from a trot!

Problem is, Pony Club ralles, when doing jumping always start from a trot.. This makes the horse look like she can't jump well, so instructor continues to try and work on trot before letting them do it in canter, wasting time, when if done from canter it will be perfect and lesson can continue.

Horse has a big extravagant trot and I wonder if this is the problem..

Any advice, should we continue to only jump from canter, with great results, or go back to basics and work on the trot, which my daughter can't see the point in as she's never trotted round a course of jumps!

Help!!
 
Agree, when are you going to need to jump from trot?! Other than at PC...tell PC instructor that Sjers dont know what trot is!
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Some horses really cannot jump from trot no matter what...the instructor should know and accept this. Just tell instructor 'sorry but I will not doing this next time !' apart from anything else it will be ruining the horses confidence!
And as kat b said, the pro showjumpers never ever jump from trot even the babies jumping for the first time will be doing it out of canter !
 
The horse is obviously confident jumping from a canter and if she jumps well and isn't silly approaching them then I don't see why she should have to jump from a trot. I would tell the instructor to just by pass it and let her jump in the way she finds it comfortable to do so.
Not every horse can jump well from a trot, in the same way not ever horse can jump well from a canter.
 
Sorry was that being sarcastic?! If the horse has a good technique and is athletic in its jump in canter, then why struggle with something which is obviously never going to come easily to the horse, when it sounds like it enjoys and does well jumping from canter?!!
 
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Sorry was that being sarcastic?!

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Yep! Far too often i see horses being forced to jump in a certain way just because that is the way the instructors thinks it should be and is incapable of looking at the horse and its jumping in any other way.
 
as long as the canter is balanced and controllable, i can't see a problem with it, and i would try explaining to the instructor that the mare is very happy cantering to jumps from the start, so please can she skip that part.
personally, i always teach mine to jump from a walk as well as a trot, so that if they slip xc, or something else goes awry on the approach and we don't get to the jump in canter, they know how to really use themselves from a slower pace. this has saved 20 penalties/our necks, a few times.
 
My best horse does not jump from a trot at all...he hates it and very quickly loses confidence. In fact he's been known to stop at a 1'6" x-pole when asked to jump it from a trot. Unless you are planning on jumping the Hickstead Derby then it is highly unlikely you will ever need to jump a showjump from a trot...so I really wouldn't worry too much about it.

The problem with a lot of PC instructors though is that they are not specialist sj'ing instrucors and won't adapt to their ways to suit your horse. There is the PC way, and the wrong way
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Unless you are planning on jumping the Hickstead Derby then it is highly unlikely you will ever need to jump a showjump from a trot...so I really wouldn't worry too much about it.


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You'd jump round the Derby from trot ...
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My daughter will be delighted! She just hates to hear the words 'we're all going to trot over fences first' and she knows it can be a disaster. Once the horse starts to canter she is great and it annoys me to watch them struggle with trotting first.

Rambo, that is exactly the same with this horse, losses her confidence when asked to trot to a 50cm fence but can happily jump 1.10m from canter - strange!! In fact from a canter, the highter the better for her..

So perhaps saying to PC instructor that she isn't happy with trotting, but to be honest, I know it will make little difference to some instructors, it's their way or no way! As you know, rallies must be attended in order to compete.
 
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And as kat b said, the pro showjumpers never ever jump from trot even the babies jumping for the first time will be doing it out of canter !

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I've had lessons from quite a few SJing trainers including one who was on the European teams last summer and every one of them has started off the lesson jumping from trot with a placing pole.

I can see that it might not suit some horses and so in this instance maybe it would be worthwhile to ask why the instructor is so keen on jumping from trot when the horse is capable and confident in canter, but I certainly wouldn't say that no showjumpers jump in trot as that hasn't been my experience.
 
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Unless you are planning on jumping the Hickstead Derby then it is highly unlikely you will ever need to jump a showjump from a trot...so I really wouldn't worry too much about it.


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You'd jump round the Derby from trot ...
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Only the rail on top of the bank...but then in fairness that's probably the only fence i'd jump at all on that course
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Yes but a placing pole in front encourages a "round" stride before the fence, and isnt the same as trotting in "blind" to a fence from my experience. I jump my horse from trot as he is green and needs to learn he goes from any pace, and he enjoys it and finds it easy. However, if the horse is balanced and capable to come in from canter, and is being made to change an already capable established jump for the worse, i dont see the point
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I have exactly the same problem. I took my new fizzy connemara to a pony club rally last week. We bought him as a show jumping schoolmaster with instuctions to 'let him get on with it' on the approach to jumps. The instuctor at the pony club rally decided that i had to jump all my jumps from trot because I evidently was not in control of my pony. So the poor pony had me hanging off his mouth for an hour, when if we'd been allowed to canter, every one would have been much happier. We also were not allowed to jump any higher that two feet because 'I wasn't in control'.

The result of this was a buckaroo pony on Monday when I tried to school, who wouldn't let me touch his mouth.
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