Oxer to Oxer broken line

[Jess]

We're now learning to jump an oxer to oxer in a broken line. It's standard distance and angles, but somehow, I always seem to skip a half a stride in that I should be getting. It's supposed to be a 3 and no matter how much I shorten him up, he just won't get a 3. I've tried to lengthen him out and he's gotten a 2, but the goal is to get an easy 3. It's a 3' step oxer, nothing difficult, but somehow, we don't stride it right. Other horses seem to get it fine... any advice or suggestions?

[Sarah]

hello!

Do you work on lengthening and shortening your horse's stride on the flat or only when jumping? It may be worth spending a week or so practicing flatwork so that you can set the stride length for your horse. As someone famous once said 'jumping is merely dressage with an elevated canter stride'.

hope that helps!

bye!

[DavidH]

Hi Jess,
If you are jumping 2 fences on a related distance at an angle to each other you have a wide choice of the distance between the fences depending on the line you take to the first and second jumps ie if the jumps require a left turn to jump in the centre then by jumpinp both fences to the right of centre will give a longer distance than jumping to the left of centre. If the fences are uprights or small spreads then you add even more variation by jumping the fences themselves at different angles and positions off centre. It really boils down to knowing the stride your horse is most comfortable with and then picking the line that will best accommodate it. Another option is to shorten your stride significantly on the approach and get the horse deep in to the first fence, he will then land closer to the far side of the fence giving you more distance between the fences. This is however NOT recommended for large oxers as the horse is likely to take out the front rail!
Hope I have explained what I meen. If not, let me know.
Good Luck
David Hodgson

[tillyfilly]

Jess
I would agree with David that on a related distance on a curve you can change the number of strides taken, by changing where you jump the fence or by making a bigger/smaller loop between the fences.

To lenghten or shorten the stride jumping I would invest in gridwork lessons, a good teacher can give you the feel of how many stride you can fit into a space, for this I would suggest practising on a straight line first and try to get eg 4 or 5 strides in between two uprights. With enough practise the horse can do it on her own!! (mine does}

The bottom line is practise and feel.

Good Luck

[Jess]

Yeah, we work on shortening and lengthening on flat too. We spent a good month just perfecting that. I think the latter two responses make A LOT of sense. Maybe I'm cutting the angle too tightly. I'll try on my next jumping day.

[showjumper13]

It might be just a one time thing. I used to ride this Warmblood and he was perfect almost all the time, but some days he'd just be off. We did a one-stride oxer to vertical combination before, and he <b>could not</b> get the one stride. It would always be a 1 1/2 strides in between. My instructor even shortened the length in between from a normal 12 ft. to a 10 ft. and he still couldn't it! We're talking about a 17.2hh horse here, he's normally got huge strides. But the next day, we tried it again and he was perfect thru-out the entire course. Just keep practicing with your horse, good luck!