Canter......Jumping???

[ponylover88]

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[ponytude]

Well that jumping seems alittle strange to me and I am sure some one else will have proper ideas for it. For the cantering I just think work on getting her to do many transitions. Perhaps when you are about to ask for thje canter drop your leg back alittle first as a hint and then give the full cue. My Instructor always tells us to do this, some may not agree with the hint thing though, but first collect from whatever gait your at (let's say trot) half halt and hint and then sit in and ask. I have ridden a green Half-linger that was very poky at the canter and these really seemed to let him know what we were about to do.



Hope this help! :)

[trainer_girl]

latly i have been retraining a dude horse, for those of you that doesn't know what that is, it is a horse that does paided train rides, and all she does is walk on them. she was VERY lazy but the one thing that helped was that i brought my energy level up then asked her to canter, if she did not get it right way, i just asked her harder and harder till she did then gave her a complete release of my legs and let her go where she wanted for a bit. as long as she was in the canter at first that was all i wanted then latter i worked on direction and cantering. the only good advice that i can say is DONT quit till you get what you want!!! if you ask for the canter dont stop till she gets it even if it is only for a few staps.

[ponytude]

Sorry- I am just adding a tid bit more :) , The only problem with asking a horse to do something (Like cueing them until they get it) is that with younger horses it can teach them to rush into things. With your green mare, sinceit sounds like she is still building up her muscles from her foaling break and probably getting back into everything though she is still young, perhaps work her with the basics. Just remember, End all training sessions on a good note

[jUmPingIsLifE]

i am still trying to imagion HOW a horse would take off from its front feet to get over a jump!

i would actually lay off jumping for a while, i would wait until the horse can walk/trot/canter resonably well before starting over fences. go back to the basics, a lot of work at the walk and trot working on a lot of transitions. make them quick and neat transitions too, dont let her run into them or fall into them (when going into trot dont let her race off and when going back to a walk dont let her just slump into it lazily!) maybe do some trotting poles and low caviletti at the trot. then when you begin cantering dont chase into it, if she starts racing at the trot just forget the transition and get the horse sorted out, and BALANCED beore asking again.

[ponylover88]

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[elmo]

Ive been riding this fjord for a few weeks now and she is very green. shes 6 years old and has had a foal in the last 2 years. she will quite happily poddle along in walk and trot but getting her to canter and to jump a small cross pole seems like rocket science!
she jumps most things, only, she takes off back feet 1st!! dont ask me how it works because i really dont know!
and when it comes to cantering, its almost imossible to canter her. anyone have any ideas to help our transitions?

ponlover, it's funny that you mention this right now. I just entered a message below your one about the audio lessons on the Show Jumping Clinic website.

You're in luck because the one that is advertised right now as FREE actually talks about how to improve your canter.

Also, you can go on the forum there and get expert advice from Ernest Dillon (International Showjumper and Coach).
Although his specialty is showjumping he has trained ddressage and event riders and competed in these discplines himself.

Some very straight forward advice on there! Go to http://www.showjumpingclinic.com

[elmo]

ponylover, it's funny that you mention this right now. I just entered a message below your one about the audio lessons on the Show Jumping Clinic website.

You're in luck because the one that is advertised right now as FREE actually talks about how to improve your canter.

Also, you can go on the forum there and get expert advice from Ernest Dillon (International Showjumper and Coach).
Although his specialty is showjumping he has trained ddressage and event riders and competed in these discplines himself.

Some very straight forward advice on there! Go to http://www.showjumpingclinic.com

[equirider]

hmmm that's interesting!

I used to ride a Fjord that was broken to drive so he didn't get the concept of canter never mind doing jumps! He would canter for a few strides and then fall back into trot and he was very unbalanced.

The first thing you need to work on is getting her to canter first before attempting to jump! What I did with my fjord was to lunge and use a round pen (or small school if you have one) and encouraged him to canter around and around and around on both reins. That's half of the work done for you already! If the horse can canter without a rider on it's back it can get it's self balanced and forward thinking. Then when I had established a steady canter on the lunge I introduced some trotting poles and small jumps. I encouraged the horse to keep a steady canter rhythm and got him to jump the fence....canter....fence....canter....fence etc. The transformation was amazing in his ridden work. When I stopped riding him he could canter laps around the school and jump a small course of cross poles changing legs through trot and keeping the canter.

My advice would be to do a lot of loose schooling and lungeing in the canter until she gets the idea and then try slowly introducing a few fences and let her figure it out herself. Once this is going well try riding instead.