Jumping Adjustments?

[Talou]

Ok, you guys are going think i'm a complete idiot but there is a question that i've been wondering about for a while...

When jumping do you just point your horse to the jump and your horse will do everything else? Because i used to do that when i was jumping..all i had to do was go into the 2 point position when the time was right.

But when my instructor teaches his daughter, she doesnt exactly do this.

For example she goes to a jump and jumps it normally.. but then my instructor tells her " No, your take off was a little late (is that how you say it?), do it again"

So then she jumps again and adjusts herself. How does she do that?? All i do is point the horse to the jump and go. I am still a beginner to jumping but i want to know how to adjust myself like her.

Advice?

xoxo
Talia

[mister jones]

its to do with striding...if you can adjust the horses striding perfectly then the horse will take off in the right place i havnt really done much off this as ive always been taught to ust let the horse learn to do it on its own therfore less for you to think about i dont know if this is right andif ive helped you but theres my little in put! :)

[eventerbabe]

some horses you can just point and let them get on with it, but many don't work that way. like my lad, you HAVE to ride him into a fence and you cannot drop a contact before the fence or else he will stop. as mister jones said, its about striding, seeing a stride and trying to place the horse at the correct take off point.

i guess this girl will adjust the speed of approach, if she feels he's too far off then she'd push him on, if he's going too fast she'd ask to slow down and get him to back off a bit. all this will come with practise :)

[Talou]

Thank you!

I finally understand what's happening! :D :p ;)

[Rips]

Talou if you look at the post I've just put up "Jumping Photos" you can see where the take-off points are in front of the jumps. The grass has been worn away in the average place where the horse should take off.

This is where you should subconciously be aiming for coming into a jump, now I don't mean look at the ground! You can lengthen, shorten your horses stride so as to position them for take off at this point. You have to get a "feel" for this distance which you only get from LOTS of practice.

If you look at the first photo, Mocha's hindlegs are right at the edge of this worn away point. Any closer to the jump and she physically couldn't have cleared it. As she is, she's still too close, she should be more in the middle of that bald spot. Because she got too close she had to put in more effort and you can see she had to really stretch for that height.
Mocha's a nice jumper, no matter how far off that point she is, she'll still give it her best shot. Some horses won't. Some horses can't. A smaller horse would have found it difficult to make that height from that point. It all depends on the lenght of the stride, the height and width of the jump. For a fence roughly 90cm high (like that one!) her forelegs should take off from a point roughly 90cm away from the jump.

Hope that helps.