RE-Teaching a "baby" to Jump!! :D

[0dd]

Basically my gelding used to have ridiculously underrun heels and when lame when jumping with his previous owner. Obviously since then that's worried him when it comes to jumping.

Well here we are 4 years down the line since we got him and his feet are brilliant now ^^

We had done odds and ends of jumping starting with poles on the floor and building it up into a small cross pole, etc, and working up to about a 2ft 6 course which we did a year or so ago. He has a habit of tanking at jumps but my, does he fly!!

Our problem now though is, we seem to have gone backwards.
We hadn't jumped properly for about 2/3 months as I was busy with uni, then I thought it'd be great to book us in a showjumping lesson at another yard, however, we actually ended up moving to that yard 2 days before it!! I shouldn't of done it really. He did a few good jumps but got stressed when trot poles were placed before the jump and after a while wouldn't go towards the jump anymore and just kept reversing across the school.

I took him again yesterday in our own time and did some very very small poles/jumps which was ok for a short time but then he started reversing again :S

I think we just need to practice and relax and also he needs to settle in a bit more. Originally walking over single poles and then building them into very small jumps seemed to work, so I'm hoping this will too.

I'm thinking of borrowing someone to teach/help me lunge him over some trot poles and maybe a jump seeing how we go.

Can anyone suggest any more ideas on what we can start with?

It's almost like teaching a baby to jump. He's very sharp, but does enjoy jumping once we get our confidence back.

below.. some piccies of how we have been last year!

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b120/barefoottransition/Ben_Jump3.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b120/barefoottransition/Ben_Jump2.jpg

[Gemmahorselover]

Ooh. Lovely "baby"!!!! He has a really nice jump on him doesnt he??? Such a shame about him going backwards instead of forwards. How about once you have walked and trotted over some poles, raise all of them so they are something like 2-3 inches off the ground. This makes him use his lower leg a lot more as he kind of has to gracefully elevate himself over them. Then do some cantering over a pole or two. Like you iad, once he is really confident about tackling the poles on the floor make a tiny cross rail but place 2 or 3 trotting poles before so he ends up he elevating himself over the poles and then has a little jump at the cross rail. Build it up (again) from there. Dont rush into it as this will only cause him to feel pressurised and then you will have even more of a job to push his confidence back up again. Hope this helps you x x x

[0dd]

Thanks :) what you suggested is pretty much what we did a couple of years ago which helped brilliantly, so lets hope it starts us off again!

By the way, the "baby" is 15 years old lol :D

[Jenni]

ive learnt from my RI that horses who tend to rush fences as their canter is not balanced enough. So when they approach in canter, they cant really sort out their feet so they tend to go flat out and leap them.

I would only jump from trot and then work on the trot on the flat and then work on the canter on the flat and do canter poles. Then do your jumping from trot and the odd one from canter when its more balanced.