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Beethoven
Aug. 10, 2009, 10:34 PM
I have a greenie that when she gets a gappy distance she jumps well, but if she gets closer the the jump instead of rocking back and jumping up, she kinda hurls herself over the fence and jumps over her shoulder.

I was wondering what some good exercises are for this? I am thinking she has a decent jumping form in there and do not want her to get in the habit of jumping over her shoulder, so I need to work on some good exercises so she jumps the best she can at every jump.

My thoughts were bounces, placement poles on each side of a jump and work on trotting in and using her hindend, gymnastics, and some wider oxers maybe with a placement pole in front. Any other suggestions? Any of my ideas terrible?

Thanks in Advanced!

Some pictures of her jumping..excuse my form I watched the video and am working on it...
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/IMG_2392.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/IMG_2397.jpg

Here at a closer distance, she is jumping over her shoulder, and twisting.
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/nalajump.jpg

Here is the next jump, we got a better distance and she jumped a bit better, but still not like she can
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/nalajump2.jpg

A pretty trot picture just because:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/nalatechy.jpg

Doing her strechy trot:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/morestrechy2.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/morestechytrot.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/JLM179/nalastrechy4.jpg


She needs to learn to use her hindend better which I think will help her front end and she needs to also use her neck better. I need to stay out of her way more and not be so closed on her neck. I tried an auto release with her today and she definatly seemed to jump more up and use her neck more.

So any good jumping exercises for a greenie would be great!

DraftHorsePower
Aug. 10, 2009, 10:46 PM
Lots of gymnastics! :)

make x it x so
Aug. 10, 2009, 11:03 PM
My horse was similar when I first got him (and when I get REALLY deep now he's still prone to the awkward hanging jump) but what has helped him is gymnastics (set a little short to make him rock back...bounces really help a lot!), steep crossrails, and me riding to the base as much as I can to give him more opportunities to figure out where those legs go. At shows I try to aim for the gappier distances because I know he prefers them and will jump better from them (and we show hunters so that matters), but at home I try to work on getting a range of distances to keep him sharp.

Make sure you're not jumping ahead (one of my many vices) as that definitely does not encourage proper jumping form.

IME, most horses that struggle with the deep ones will never have perfect form (when deep) no matter what you do to work on it, but you can usually get them to be acceptable with consistent training. We don't break out the gymnastics too often any more, but if we feel he's losing sharpness we just go right back to them.

I wish I had pictures to show you, but they're all on my old computer!