rushing fences

[donnamm]

I have been lunging my boy over fences recently to improve his balance and confidence over fences. He is great on the lunge, I never need a lunging whip and he will do transitions by voice command alone. He approached fences with a rhythmn in his stride and jumps everything i have put infront of him with ease. :D

When Im on his back and jump him, I warm him up slowly and start with pole work, but when he sees the fence he wants to go steaming into it at 90 miles per hour, I steady him, but he is so excited he often misses his striding or knocks the jump down. I try to keep as lighter contact on his mouth as possible whie still maintaining control and I do use placing poles to help him with his strides. I talk to him to try and keep him calm, but he still gets really excited when he has been over the course once and knows he going to go round again.:eek:

My question is, why does he like rushing fences when Im on his back but not while lunging? I asked my OH tonight and he said it was because we communicate differently when Im on the ground compared to when Im on his back. Secondly, how do you correct it? I thought maybe getting on him while someone else lunges him over fences. :confused: He cant be a fizzy little bean and sometimes grinds his teeth with nervous excitement (you may have seen my other threads).

Id love some advise about this. Im going to my first riding club jumping training night soon and worried Im going to make a fool of myself...:rolleyes:

[Lyndz & Siners]

ok so it might also be something your doing... like if your feeling excited he may start feeling excited and will start to speed up and get a little crazy, or if your a little nervous then he will feel nervous and start to lose his head a little. or it could just be was your OH said. but you could try getting someone to lunge him while you jump him..but abnother way is getting on him.. lunge him first probably. and just start doing like trotting poles or something at a trot.. then at a canter, then slowly raise to to an x then a small vertical and slowly raise is... and while your doing this really concentrate on your seat. the deeper it is in the saddle the slower he will go.. so in other words really concentrate on staying in your saddle until the last possible moment.,.. dont go into two-point early
and dont really worry about his striding while doing this as long as he's calming down a little,,, and he'll probably slowly start to clam down more and more each time you do that exercise and as he calms down the striding should come together

[SJ wanabe]

Alot of horses react differantly when you ride them to when you are lunging them. We used to have a tb ex racer and every time he saw a jump she hyped up. So every time we schooled him we put up jumps and just schooled around them and did not jump any. When we did jump her we did a circl firt then on the approach we sat deep into the saddle and where you would normally kick a horse we half halted, but made sure we kept our leg on. I have riden another for a friend that just needs talking to calmly as you are approaching and that really works for him! Hope this helps!:)

[donnamm]

Thanks, thats all good advice. Hes is a lot better since Iv started popping him over a fence or two every other day. I think the novelty of jumping has worn off a bit, where as before, he would be so hyped up going into a fence, jumping became a nightmare, so Id bottle out of it and not jump for a week or two. Im being brave and jumping alot more regularly and he seems to be taking it in his stride. You can get supplements for horses for a million and one problems, I wish they would invent a supplement to boost bravery for riders!:rolleyes:

[k8_doran]

ok i only hav one tip, when i was jumping the boy, after the jump he would be really excited to the ri taught me as soon as hes jumped bring him to halt. we did that a couple of times then he learnt and slowed down after the jump. Not sure if it helps you though

[Painting Horses]

I had the same problem with my mare, she would bolt at every jump and sometimes ground poles. Turns out I was nervous, so I calmed down, then after than I was thinking about her bolting and that made her bolt. SO now I just think about myself and the jump and she's slowd a lot but still were about 60mph now lol. She a fantastic jumper lol. Hope everyone helps, just wanted to tell you that you are not alone.