Your thoughts please (SJing related)

madhector

madhector

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My 4yr old is exceptionally bold, and when she arrived went as fast as possible in her approach to fences. After actually teaching her to canter (rather than run disunited round the school till she fell over) we started to address the jumping.

So far we have had 2 different methods suggested, and both have very different effects on her canter.

First was to insist that she waits and goes at a collected canter (which she is now perfectly capable of doing) This resulted in her going very 'up' in the canter and almost bouncing on her back legs into the fence, even with the slightest hold/or even just using my seat to slow her. She then clears the fence beautifully. It just feels slightly like jumping a JA jumping pony
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Second was to leave her completely alone and let her pick the pace, eventually aiming to just slop along to the fence, pop it and amble off afterwards. To start with she just rushed and had them down, but soon got the idea and started to slow herself, but never to the extent that I would say was right, but she was relaxed and didnt bounce and cleared the fence as before.



I think because she naturally has the most uphill canter, unless she is working in an outline, when you take a slight hold she comes right up in front and bounces.


So having played around with both methods, wondered what people on here thought? She jumped 3 rounds the other weekend, the first 2 using the second approach, but the 3rd ended up using the first as the fences were not big enough at this point to demand her respect and she was going too quick.

Thanks
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Unhelpfully I think you need a happy medium between the two! It sounds to me like she is still a bit green and unsure and would benefit from a lot more pole and gridwork before jumping courses again, so you can establish a rhythmic, energetic canter which neither bounces nor is fast and flat.
 
Completely agree with Spottedcat. If she gets into the habit of "bouncing" and not accepting the aids to shorten or lengthen reasonably, you may find you struggle with related distances as she gets to jump bigger courses.... a "regular" canter is the order of the day!!
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mmmm....doing lots of grids and poles etc, infact spend most of the time just jumping front trot still anyway as think it benifits her more.

2 different instructors (very highly respected ones!) have seen her jump now and one recommended first method, the other the second. She is very balanced in the canter and finds it easy to shorten, but just find holding her creates far too much bounce for my liking, but first trainer said to ignore the bouncing, that it felt worse than it looked and she was just collecting herself...

Personally when it works the second method feels much nicer to sit on, she slows herself to a lovely collected canter and really jumps, but after 2 rounds she then found it too exciting (I knew I should stop after 2nd round, but nevermind)
 
Going from trot will help technique, but not the canter
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Lots of canter poles, grids from canter and working over poles to collect and lengthen the canter are best. Lucky used to hoon at everything at 800mph, but by doing lots of canter poles, grids etc she is now 85% of the time more rideable, but we have alot to work on!!
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BUT they are only 4, so to be expected really
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The thing is, she is only 4 - does she really need to be out jumping courses now, or could you spend 6 months sorting this then take her out? This stage is crucial to get right, otherwise it will come back to bite you - believe me, I know, this stage was never done with my horse and I have had to do it anyway. He favoured your second method, the trouble was that as soon as something went wrong he a) wasn't on the aids enough to let me sort it out and b) was too cocky to accept the input anyway, and that's assuming I was quick enough to realise what was wrong and sort it. We got away with it right up until Novice BE, and we'd be getting away with it now if something fairly major hadn't gone wrong - and it did and was pretty catastrophic for his jumping. So I have had to spend months and months putting in the work which should have been done as a 4yo and which I should then have done when I bought him as a 5yo, but I didn't coz he jumped and at that point that was good enough for me. I won't make that mistake again, I came very close to ruining a very good horse because of it.
 
She isnt really hooning anymore, just going flatter than would like some of the time, just really asking which method is better, either I hold into the fence and get a bouncy canter that is sometimes too bouncy or I leave her to it and get a flatter canter than is sometimes too flat. I have to do one of these when I do all these canter poles etc...
 
Hmm, tricky one. There will be loads of the school of thought that you should let her find her own pace and learn to think for herself, BUT if you don't feel she is 100% right then it may not be the way forward.

Very difficult without seeing her jump but fwiw my WB had exactly the same approach when he first started jumping, i.e flat out with no respect for the fences. For the first couple of BN I did I let him do his own thing, however this resulted in bouncing doubles and taking at least one or two strides out of any related distances (not good for either me or spectators alike!!)

I then adopted your approach no 2. Like yours, mine has a very uphill canter and bags of scope so I knew a slower approach would suit him. Yes he springs pretty much on the spot but always waits and listens until I tell him to take off and wont flatten, thus leaving the fences up. He is also very forward thinking so making him wait gives his brain time to actually take in what I am asking. He is now jumping bsja nc/fox and nov/Int BE pretty much clear every time so approach no 2 works for us.

Certainly doesnt work for every horse but if yours is happier for the time being then stick with it (or at least until she can learn to respect the fences and slow her thinking down a bit)
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ETS; a short, bouncy canter does not nec mean you can't shorten or lengthen the stride but quite agree with playing around with different types of grids as opposed to too many full courses. (spent alot of time doing that too!)

ETS (again!!) Sorry I am talking about approach no 1 here not 2 - doh, must learn to read things properly!!
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You shouldn't have to do either really over poles and grids set up with lots of poles
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All you need to do is bring her to the first pole in an appropriate place, then her legs are her responsibility and she'll soon work out that keeping a regular rhythm through them makes life easy.
 
I guess your OP did not make it sound like you were talking about poles and grids, it sounds like single fences and courses. I think if I were in your shoes I wouldn't be jumping much without hundreds of poles in play to make her really stay in a rhythm.
 
Difficult, because you do want them to learn to help you out if you miss at a fence and if you always control the canter then you essentially are always telling the horse what to do. Also if you collect too much, then what happens when the fences get bigger and, more importantly, wider and she needs more oomph and drive than she does at 90cm.

I would think about some canter poles in front and after the fence so they do the work for you - that way you don't interfere much but she'll have to stay at one pace and collect herself, without coming up in front.
 
Im not, but either need to hold or not, however light the hold may be.

Sorry, never very good at explaining myself on here, always sound like an idiot. Basically I either set the pace and keep a light hold into a pole/fence/grid or I set the pace and then leave her to it into pole/fence/grid

Thats what I meant LOL
 
Again I am about to be unhelpful - I think you haven't found the happy medium between holding her and letting her figure it out! You need to ride the canter enough that you are riding not being a passenger, but equally you don't want to hold so much she bounces. She needs to learn that a half halt doesn't mean bounce, so I guess I'd be inclined to let her sort it out in the grid, and on the approach set the rhythm and ride the rhythm but half halt her everytime she rushes outside the grid - so you soften instantly which should help her learn not to bounce.
 
The hold can be so slight though, so not a real hold.

On the flat she is fine, you get a lovely collected canter in an outline and she will slow and extend when asked without bouncing, it is only when you approach a pole or fence that she comes up at you
 
I certainly don't 'hold' mine coming into a fence (can be holding the reins on my fingertips) but he does respond to the slightest of touches and sits right back on his hocks. But that's how he is happy approaching a fence and he always meets them right so I am not about to try and change it.

I think sometimes you just have to ride the horse under you as opposed to trying to stick to protocol of how they 'should' approach a fence (if that makes any sense) Every horse is different and will have a prefered way of going to a certain extent.
 
A great exercise that will help you is that of jumping a single fence on a circle as it will help you both keep the canter and you can just keep coming round till you are both happy. The other one I think you would do well with is having fences at 12 o clock, 3 o clock, 6 & 9 o clock. You can move round the fences miss some out and it will again help you find that balance and a happy medium in the canter.
Personally I would rather have the bouncy canter as it is easier to teach them to lengthen than to have them left alone and not take on board any direction. I was riding a horse this summer who had that kind of canter and it was amazing BUT he hated you getting it wrong and would not stand off a fence.
 
agree that it needs to be a bit of both, and sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending very much on the type of fence you're approaching too... e.g. i'd be holding and organising to, say, an upright gate, allowing horse to take me to a steeplechase fence or a triple bar.
this variation is what keeps the horse thinking for itself while accepting your input (not always an easy balance to get obv!) and makes it safer for xc.
i'd also get video footage of you doing both, as i suspect that you'll get a much better shape doing the former approach...
 
I think neither method is right- the canter needs to improve further so that she has the engagement to jump rounded out of a engaged canter stride, and she needs to learn not to think 'go!' when she sees a fence/pole.
I would try scattering lots of poles all over the arena and ride her forwards into a nice light contact over the poles, do it in trot first- lots of serpentines and changes of rein so that she learns to establish a rhythm over the poles, and to settle and relax, and swing her back while working over them. Every time she puts her head up and tries to rush, close your leg and lower and widen the hands to get her to listen. Come back to walk/halt just before the pole. Lots of pats/strokes etc to get her to relax.Then go up to canter, and canter over them with lots of smooth changes of rein through trot, lots of circles over them.etc with regular transitions back to walk/halt just before the pole- keep going until she settles into a nice rhythm and stays soft and does not rush. If she really takes over , bring her back to walk/halt/rein back immediately. Eventually she should be cantering over them in that nice forward rhythm ( that happy medium that SC was talking about)- if she's not meeting the poles in the right place, then the canter is not engaged enough. Anyhow, with that kind of training, that should make the canter more powerfull and engaged without the rushing, flatness, or bounciness so that she just jumps & bascules out of a nice relaxed stride.
Should only take two sessions then you will have cracked it!
 
I had a similar problem a few years ago when my mare was young, I opted for the second option on the advicev of my instructor.
It came with it's troubles, she would bound up to the fences and not really look which was ok with plain fences but when she met something new like fillers or the water tray, she would bound, see the new thing last minute and then clear the fence but not jump properly.
 
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