Excitable show jumping

[ClaireBear_nz]

Hi,
I've got a 14hh pony who I event and show jump. The cross country she rockets around and gets the perfect striding into every fence, but in the show jumping she becomes excitable and tense and tends to take off either far too early or half a stride too late, which means she takes rails. I've had her nearly 4 years and she's an older pony. I've retrained her myself as when I got her she hadn't been ridden in 2 years and her previous owner just galloped her about (which may be contributing to the problem, she's got the memory of an elephant!) I used to ride her in a dutch gag as I found her very difficult to stop, but eventually swapped to a snaffle as she settled down and became more sensible.
Any ideas on how to help my girl?

[nutkin]

it sounds like she may be getting a bit flat into her fences while showjumping.This is common in horses that tend to do cross country.In crosscountry you tend to go faster whereas in the showjumping ring you need less speed and more impulsion.I would say lots of practise on the flat to get the canter nice and active and in a nice even rhythm and gridwork to help with the striding. One exercise that is good for working on rhythm and impulsion is to use canter poles and work on getting different strides between them..ie start with 4 strides and then shorten to 5 strides next time round between the poles.

[ClaireBear_nz]

it sounds like she may be getting a bit flat into her fences while showjumping.This is common in horses that tend to do cross country.In crosscountry you tend to go faster whereas in the showjumping ring you need less speed and more impulsion.I would say lots of practise on the flat to get the canter nice and active and in a nice even rhythm and gridwork to help with the striding. One exercise that is good for working on rhythm and impulsion is to use canter poles and work on getting different strides between them..ie start with 4 strides and then shorten to 5 strides next time round between the poles.

I did try canter poles with her a few times but she got just as excited with them as she did with any real jumps, especially the shortening and lengthening. I will have another go when the ground dries out though, thank you very much!

[Floob]

Yay Im not the only one!

Tarquin is super controllable XC, we go round in a snaffle without martingale and I can ask him to slow down, speed up, go bouncy, even trot in places.

But SJ i can't hold him into the fences. He is fine at home doing grids and poles.
AT the moment I 'need' a pelham and martingale for dressage, a pelham for sj and a snaffle XC (we still do them all in his snaffle at the moment)

Umm build courses, not just grids at home with canter poles in front of them spaced at a comfortable distance for her to start with, if that goes well you could shorten the distance between the poles until you have a good bouncy sj canter

[joey_olop]

Mine sometimes goes into uncontrolable mode when jumping.

Do lots of trot pole work with him. Also my instructor puts a cross pole up and gets me trot over it and halt. Then turn around and trot over it and halt again. Stops him thinking he can run towards it and keep going.

Good Luck!

[cvb]

Claire

do *you* ride differently in the SJ ? I know I used to try and manage the stride too much, and interfere when I shouldn't :rolleyes:

And of course the more you tip poles, the more you feel you need to do something about it, so it doesn't get better !

Over in the Uk we now have something called "jump cross" which is basically XC jump course but it all knocks down !! We didn't have this in my day..but I'd love to have a go if I had an appropriate horse. (rather than the inappropriate one I have !)

One thing I did with my previous pony was to actually just sit and let him work it out. It was pretty hairy at first but he did start to slow and balance himself....

[charlotte+jill!]

Mine sounds very much like yours ......... hes 13 set in his ways all his education was from the hunting field. So he tackles xc like something else, its a joy to ride.

But showjumping we are a tad hair raising. Was hard a CVB said i use to interfer too much, now i just let him get on with it, but im lucky in that my stands off like nothing else, hes taken out whole strides and still flys um! :rolleyes: good for 15hh lol!

What about alot of work with placing poles, poles on the ground where they are made for say 4 strides and you have to put in 5 or lenghten for 3. In my experiance gridwork dont work so well for my man he's just too bold and will just power down the whole thing lol! :rolleyes: ponies!

[ClaireBear_nz]

The only problem with canter/placing poles infront of jumps is she takes them to be groundlines and jumps them AND the jump! I'll try the trot and halt excerice, for some reason I doubt she'll be halting too readily.
CVB: I know I interfere, but the less I seem to interfere, the faster she goes, so the more I interfere....
We have jump cross here in New Zealand, I took sparks around once and she crashed half the show jumping fences. Her cross country style is good, but when she's asked to collect for show jumping while going cross country she tells me to b***** off, so that was embarrasingly unsuccessful

This was at the start of last summer, show jumping at a local gymkhana. I do realise I'm far too far forward, but had been doing games all day and was stuffed.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v665/ClaireBear_nz/levin04-1.jpg

[cvb]

for some reason I doubt she'll be halting too readily.


aha - but thats the point. Start asking for the halt straight after and either count yourself, or get an observer to count, how many strides you take to stop. And then repeat, each time stopping is less strides. She will start to anticipate the halt and thats when you have her listening. :)

I also did tonnes and tonnes of figure 8s with a jump at the middle of the 8. Just around and around until he started to slow himself down. He was ODE fit so it wasn't about tiring him out, but about him realising he didn't need to go crazy ! It worked - in the end !

[ClaireBear_nz]

I will definatly try it, her problem is shes far far too smart for her own good, and anything I teach her she'll remember and use against me later. She's worked out how she can get out of lunging by just standing there while the human gets sooo annoyed and starts waving whips and trying to send her forward and she just ignores anything you do, begins to graze then just turns around and walks off
I may try the figure 8 trick too....hmmm!

[cvb]

the figure 8 is nice because they have to concentrate on balancing through the turn. AND its really good practice for jump offs as well :D

The more agile and talented the horse, the smaller and tighter you can make the "8"...

My chap was also far too smart for his own good - still is even at 34 and retired ! But he loved lunging and my problem was *stopping* him. Even now he will start to trot circles and change rein across the diagonal and so on - by himself, in the field ! :rolleyes:

[ponytude]

Build a grid with jumps and poles (Flat and raised). Walk her through it many times, both directions. Then raise a few components of the line and trot it. Ask her to come back to a walk or halt as soon as you can after the last jump. If she doesn't listen, do this over one jump (Asking for a halt right away). Eventually ask her to canter the full line, but if she rushes or jumps the poles (as my guy will do at times too as he just LOVESSSS to jump!;):D ) bring her back to a slower gait and approach it again. If the problem keep occuring, go back to the flat poles and canter then. Let her see they are just poles and not 3ft jumps.

Hope this helps!
Cheers!:) (Btw, Shes beautiful in that picture!)

[ClaireBear_nz]

Just popping over a couple of fences before a day out show jumping tomorrow....she doesnt look 30!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v665/ClaireBear_nz/cap002.jpg

Sorry about the poor quality