Question about a green warmblood jumping

[pwrpfflynn]

Ok, here's my question:

I bought a 3 yr old warmblood mare in December. Her sire is Landkoing. She will be 4 in July and this is my first warmblood, I usually ride Arabs. I do have a riding teacher and she is wonderful but I just wanted to ask you guys if most warmbloods this age don't really make much effort in jumping. When I try to do a crossbar it has to be pretty high before I really get a "jump" rather than just a trot or run thru it. My trainer said that until she develops the muscles and balance in herself she is doing what most young green horses do at first. We have been taking dressage lessons for the most part and just doing a couple of crossbars at the end of my lesson. The other night she actually jump a little and cantered off (YES!) She is very green broke and had only had 30 days training a year ago then she was turned out in pasture until I got her in December. This is my second horse I have ever jumped. The first one was 9 years old before he started jumping and is an Arab and jumps like a deer. There isn't much he won't jump. I just wanted to make sure my riding teacher isn't just being nice to me by not telling me the whole truth.

[mzm farm]

My horse is like yours. He has endless scope (4'9" was not too hard for him at your mare's age). So when faced with a 2'6" jump, he is not particularly impressed. It is kind of a big canter step vs a true "crack your back" jump.

Take it slow, even if your horse can go higher. She needs to learn a LOT before taking YOU with her safely through a course. She is not done growing, and you can ruin a young WB quicker then many think.

[Ibex]

We started my mare over fences when she was rising 5. I honestly thought she was not going to be much of a jumper...we would knock out the whole jump, standards included, tripping over an X. Once the lightbulb went on it hasn't been a problem... the show photographer at our first horse trials jokingly offered to edit in some more rails to make the fence bigger since we were clearing everything with room to spare :rolleyes:

Your mare is super young... take it slow, and give it time!

[SidesaddleRider]

Agree with the others. I have a mare that would literally treat x-rails like objects to destroy when she started o/f. She would PLOW through them.

My husband got fed up with it, made the jump a 3' vertical with a flower box, and had me canter to it. She jumped that just fine. We did that 2-3 times, then made it a x-rail again, trotted to it, and she finally figured out that she should jump that too. She has been fine since, and has progressed to showing at 3' and schooling 3'9", although if it isn't a big enough x-rail she will still just trot over it.

[pwrpfflynn]

Thanks guys. That makes me feel much better. My riding teacher has trained a lot of dressage/jumping horses and she can't believe I got this horse for the price I did and everyone that see's her thinks she is extremely cute and talented. I don't usually get good deals. I'm usually the one on the "getting screwed" end of the purchase. My teacher did tell me my mare has a long back so we need to work on collection on the flat so it will be easier for her to jump.

[chestnutwithchrome]

I feel your pain. I have a 4yr old Selle francais filly. She is very quiet and chill, and as I was taking her through some baby x-rails and an tiny grid, she was practically falling over herself and wouldn't really pick up her feet at all. I was scared she wasn't going to be able to jump much at all, till I took her out hacking and tried popping her over some xcountry logs... ;-) She definitely has the jump in there, it was just hiding!!!!! She about jumped me out of the tack with a 4 ft leap over a 2ft log... needless to say, she's popping over the x rails with a little more impulsion now. I'm sure your girl just needs to realize what she's supposed to be doing!

[holaamigoalter]

Horses can trot surprisingly high. Just because she is not impressed with a little crossrail does not mean you have to jack it up and canter at it. Her stride sounds nowhere near developed enough to be cantering jumps yet. Just keep trotting jumps bigger and bigger until you get something.

Remember, ADD LOTS OF LEG, lean back and sit trot going to the jump and GIVE ALOT in the air. Stay out of her way, she's just figuring this stuff out and legs are bound to fly. Make it a vertical as it gets bigger as you don't want a giant x-rail as this could get some legs stuck.

And if she or you make a mistake pat her and make sure you say good girl and give her a pat. There is nothing harder to fix than a horse that is afraid of making mistakes.

I jumped a particularly unimpressed 3 year old 4'6" one time. It wouldn't have been safe to canter him to a 2' jump but trotting jumps is easy, safe, and AWESOME for some butt development!!!