My Trakehnerr/Appy cross doesn’t do well with trot fences at all. He’s LAZY over them. He knocks them and doesn’t respect them. Top that off with me as a rider not being able to ride a trot fence well at all, and well, it’s just plain hard. Give me a 3’ course, and then we get some pretty jumping (from horse, I’m probably still not very pretty!). 
Oh, and my horse is 20.
I have a 6y/o DWB/APP, since being stuck inside for the next year… (winter months but I feel like we have a year of winter up here), we have gone back to trotting fences.
Over the summer we schooled 3’- 3’3 courses and gyms upto 3’6. But I have noticed the forward from outside, just isn’t translating inside. I understand that compared to the 12’ stride lines outside I am going to get 10’ inside but I am talking the drive from the haunches has dropped significantly.
Thus… we are getting a much flatter and lack luster jump.
So, I have gone back to trotting larger singles, trot in gym’s and tons of halt-canter, walk-canter, canter-walk etc transitions. I have dropped most of the lateral work for a bit because I think we lose too much forward inside for these to be effective.
I was told about trotting larger fences from someone on here who gave me great advice. It works amazingly and because she doesn’t have the canter to allow her to jump with little effort, my mare really has to jump properly.
Now, that being said the fences I have been working on range 2’6-2’9, I am not brave enough to walk them or go higher.
The first time through it was a mess! My mare didn’t think I was serious but I let her make the mistake. I developed the trot I need and squeezed at the base then let her figure it out. She more or less flopped over, knocking the rail but the next time through wow… huge, beautiful jump. Actually too much jump, but hey, she is learning!
Long story ending… Work on the transitions in quick succession, wake the brain up. Develop your trot, put the jump to a height where you are comfortable but high enough that some effort is required from the trot, and let the horse make a mistake. As long as they are trying something different every time (in a productive way), that is fine. Eventually you are going to get a great jump with lovely thrust off the ground and your problems with trot fences will disapeer.
The thrust should be enough to PUT YOU in your correct jumping position, you shouldn’t have to work for it. Good luck, a lot of lazy horses are just bored.
[QUOTE=McVillesMom;7840562]
Is this a huge, important part of his training that if I skip it, I’ll be very sorry later? [/QUOTE]
It is not so much the “trotting over fences” that is essential, but the related skills. Messing up the trotting over fences just DEMONSTRATES what is missing.
The things that are essential are
- In front of your leg (sounds as if he isn’t)
- Impulsion without speed (so he jumps properly instead of tripping over it)
- Rocking back on the haunches to jump (with small fences, at the canter they do not need to “push off” at all, they just pick up their knees and the speed gets them over. But when the fences get bigger they will need to rock back and push. Much easier to teach that at the trot now, than at the canter when the fences are bigger.)
- Moving forward on landing, without hesitation. This is ESSENTIAL especially on cross country. Given what you described, I’d be inclined to give him a (dramatic but not painful) “whack” over the top of the fence so he canters off smartly.
[QUOTE=McVillesMom;7840902]
I have…today I set up an exercise from the Wofford gymnastics book, which consisted of one “regular” distance (trot poles to crossrail to 18’ to an oxer), a short distance (2 small verticals at 16’) and a long distance (2 low wide oxers at 32’). They are designed to be trotted, but after trotting into the “regular” distance and feeling like I was barely getting out over the oxer[/QUOTE]
FWIW, I tried that particualr exercise with Belle (who is very forward and has NO trouble trotting even big fences). I COULD NOT make the distances work. Either there is a typo in his description, or there is some thing else missing.
[QUOTE=Janet;7842133]
FWIW, I tried that particualr exercise with Belle (who is very forward and has NO trouble trotting even big fences). I COULD NOT make the distances work. Either there is a typo in his description, or there is some thing else missing.[/QUOTE]
Funny you should say that, I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around those numbers and couldn’t for the life of me imagine how I’d do “the long one”.
OP, BFNE and Janet make excellent points. My post is based off the trot gymnastic you showed and, to me, it looks like you have a horse who is certainly willing and giving it a good try. Success with youngsters is definitely not measured by the ride, it’s measured by the week and the month. Sounds like you are making progress so good job.
Btw, I would be careful about “galloping his feet off” to get him in front of your leg. He needs to learn to go from a simple aid, galloping isn’t necessarily in front of the leg (though that might sound counterintuitive). Anyone that’s been run off with can attest to the fact that, in that moment, a running horse isn’t exactly on an aid :lol:.
And another btw, your horse is crazy adorable.
Update: today he met Dressage Whip #2. 
I decided to try one in each hand, to see if I could wake him up a little more (I normally carry one). Well, between that and focusing more on transitions, HELLO forward! I think I used both of them together a total of 3 times before he decided that I was serious when I closed my leg. Much, MUCH better ride today - possibly the hottest he’s ever been off my leg. Woohoo!
It sounds like you are on the right track and everyones advice has been great.
My only addition would be to not give up on teaching him to trot fences, but don’t obsess about it. Work towards it a little bit every ride and then also keep doing the other things he is good at, or other things you are working on. Maybe do some trot poles every single ride. Then eventually move the trot poles out to 9 ft apart, or whatever your horses stride fits. Then have trot poles to a small cavaletti, or a small X or whatever and build up slowly from there - the trot poles will make you keep his trot forward to match the poles and set you up at the right spot to trot the jump at the end. But I would just do it a handful times and then move on to something else. This way he will eventually develop the skill but you aren’t stalling out at it, and frustrating both of you. I do think it’s important for horses to know how to trot fences, even up to 3 ft. Then they know where their feet are and how to use themselves.
ETA: It is easy to mistake a mellow horse for him being all set with learning something. Even if he is “totally fine” with trot poles, I would keep doing them for many days longer than I thought was necessary before moving on. Just because he is so mellow he isn’t concerned doesn’t mean he really understands the exercise. I made that mistake with one of my horses and eventually I realized that he wasn’t truly comfortable with some of the things I had thought we had in the bag. He was just so mellow it seemed like he was ‘good with it’.
Another update: had a fantastic dressage lesson today. I brought both whips, but did not need them as forward was not an issue There were a couple of times that he tried to ignore my leg as an aid to bend or move laterally, however, and he was swiftly reminded that we move AWAY from the leg, NOW. I think the most important part of all of this is a change in my attitude…I will no longer beg him to go forward.
VCT, that’s the approach I’ve been planning on taking…we will keep working on it, but not obsessing about it, as we continue to work on forward and in front of the leg. I feel like in the past 2 days I’ve made huge progress, simply by deciding I won’t tolerate it anymore.
Just wanted to give another update. Since I started this thread and had the CTJ with the double dressage whips, things have been going very well. I rode in a clinic back in September with Cathy Jones Forsberg, and while she really liked my horse, agreed that I really needed to GET HIM GOING. I rode with her again last weekend and she was very impressed with the change in him. Trot gymnastics were not an issue!
I took him out today to the big field next door just to do some trot and canter laps. The last time I did this was several months ago, while it was still fairly hot out, and I thought I was going to fall off in exhaustion just from trying to keep him going. Today, he actually offered trot before I asked, and he actually GALLOPED without me having to constantly chase him. I think he’s on the road to becoming a real event horse!
