Brakes

[fimacg]

I have just started to teach Brave to jump, and have just changed his bit to a loose ring french link sanffle which he is going brilliantly in on the flat.

However, he seems to be enjoying his new found jumping skill (just 50cm jumps) and gets himslef all excited so that the brakes fail between fences. I am currently doing 1/2 - 1 lap of the arena before he truely comes back to me.

Any schooling ideas for this problem. it doesn't happen on the flat or over poles so I think it is just the new found ye-ha nature of jumping.

[duckles]

The joys of schooling a youngster!!! I have no qualifications here but from from my own experience and from watching other people, horses seems to get strong for various different reasons like excitment, nerves, being unbalanced, inexperience, speeding up because they haven't got their tecnique sorted etc. I remember when I was training JB to jump, he would do the same thing as Brave. My instructor told me to ignore it and it was just excitment etc and also it was a good thing as she liked to see plenty of energy being generated by a jumping horse even if it was not being channelled in the right way at first. I have to say he did grow out of that habit and of a lot of other habits like racing to the jumps (worse in my opinion as they flaten and it makes jumping scarey, bucking after the jump, jumping the wings, ducking out at speed at last minute, etc etc)
I don't know of any specific exercises, I just used to let him canter on and when he came back, bring him calmly (!!!) to the jump again.
I know some people advise bringing them to a stop but I think that could be difficult to do.
No doubt you will get a better reply than this but good luck- it sounds fun!!!

[fleabitten]

Have you just started with single jumps?

Maybe you could try a wee grid and see if that helps. Dont make it too technical - just the same no of strides in between the fences. Start of with two and try and get a good jump through it.

You could also try making him trot into it and trot away in a line afterwards - use your voice and sit up straight away. You could also put trotting poles in front of the jump.

If he is pulling you could just try sitting there and maybe he will relax and slow up himself?

Only other thing would be to go over the jump when he is trotting calmly.

Good Luck ;D

[fimacg]

he is OK in trot to the fences and away, but I have just started to ask for canter into the fences and because his flwt work is so good I get a lovely controlled bouncy canter into the jump but it it just ont the other side.


I think I will try the grid though as I haven't yet done any grid work with him, all jumps so far have been little uprights or cross poles on their own.

I also practiced canter circles today with a pole at 3 and 6 o clock, he did start to balance himself a bit more over these after a couple of times

[fleabitten]

Yes, maybe doing stuff on a circle would be good. You could put a jump up and circle round and jump over it and then maybe jump it and circle the other way or do figure of 8s over it.

[flyingfox]

try doing some more flat work and work on transitions, i had to do this with fox, when i started jumping him as he was getting stronger and stronger. grids and circles and trotting poles will also help. try to make sure he's constanly got to think about what's he's doing, and then he'll have to rely on you more and want have time to think about flying off. hopefully it's just a stage and if you sort it now will just go away. also try not to grip tightly on your riens as this causes tention and your horse will fight it, try using your upper arm and shoulder muscels when asking for him to slow down.
sounds like he's really enjoying it though.