loose jumping?

[jo.b]

Just out of interest, how would you start teaching a horse to loose jump and what would be the benefits of it?

[maverick927]

I would start a horse loose jumping between 2 and 3, but loose schooling is okay younger, as long as the work is not to hard. Just start teaching from a walk. Make the horse aware that you have youown space which he must not come near. Just keep pushing your horse away and he should soon get the hang of it. My pony learned to loose school though a game in the field. I flicked the whip and he galloped of from the noise. Now he knows exactly what to do when I use a school.

Make sure that the schooling seesions are short (15-20mins) as it takes alot of effort from the horse as their attention has to be on you the whole time, and for jumping they have to pace themselves.

[tasha]

Personally I wouldn't start until they were at least 3 as it could be too much stress on their growing bodies.

You need to know a bit about horse body language to loose school..ie staring in the eye with shoulders square on is an agressive stance to a horse and is used to send them away. Shoulders huncehed and looking away means submissive. When a horse submits he'll lick and chew and lower his head, and be listening to you at all times.

Use poles to guide horses into jump (make a funnel and trot them down it to the jump at the end). As always when first teaching jumping, start with 1 trot pole and build up poles before attempting a small crosspole jump.