My horse cant get to grips with a strided double!

[charleykips]

No matter how wide i set the jump my horse attempts, usually succeeds to take it as a bounce,im guessing that as he is an ex hurdler he doesnt get the jist of taking a stride!

[FirenLady]

Could you try puting them as a two or three strided double, get him used to putting strides in then reducing it? Or you could try putting poles on the floor one stride away from eachother, he may be less inclined to jump these, then gradually increase the height.

[fleabitten]

Maybe you should go back to pole work and do plenty of exercises over them at walk trot and canter. Vary the pace each time you turn for the poles and get him concentrating on where he is putting his feet. You could also try putting out random poles and trotting and cantering over them, setting him up for them by slowing down round corners and then letting him figure out how to adjust his stride to ride cleanly over the pole.

Theres a horse on livery at my RS who does this sometimes - there was a tiny bounce set out for us and she jumped the whole thing clean over it!

She would go very fast into her jumps and just leaping over them - perhaps go back to basics with the flatwork. Practice changing the speed from a slow canter to a more forward one. You could try circling in front of a jump until he is calm and then pretend you are going round the circle and then go over the jump instead. You could also try walking into it and then trotting a short distance away or trotting and then cantering a stride before it. Or approaching the jumps from a shorter distance so less time to get speed up.

You could also try doing a bounce jump so he would maybe slow down and actually take it as a bounce - still there is always the trouble that he could just jump both jumps together!