What are some good exercises for teaching a horse to jump across without being flat? I have a gelding who tends to land too close to the jump, making the lines difficult to get down. TIA!
Landing pole on the backside. I do 10 feet away for the one of mine I do it with, but he is quite short strided. Have a ground person help you with how far away to set it.
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Make sure you have a quality canter that’s off the forehand.
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This is what helped my mare the most as well.
I’ve been working on this with a horse that’s new to jumping. So far he’s responded well a low, wide oxer with place rails before and after the fence. I put the oxer in the center of the arena, parallel to the long sides, and jump it in a figure 8 pattern.
It’s also helped him to jump over small rolltop-y xc fences, but we only do that because we’re spoiled by a fabulous selection of xc jumps where we board!
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Landing pole on the backside when you’re really jumping, but if you want to work on it when you’re mostly flatting, I like a pole, bounce to a tiny vertical (or even cavaletti—like, less than 18"), bounce to another pole. You can canter it however many times without really drilling on them and can experiment with how close or far away you set the poles. Ideally, you want the horse to be locked into that back pole over the teeny vertical and gradually make that distance a little longer until he starts taking a little “getaway stride” and really reaches across.
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Thank you! I love the idea of working on this without pounding him over jumps.
It seems like the advice I’ve gotten here is related to that first stride after landing. However, my horse’s problem (IMO anyway) is that he’s actually landing too close to the jump. How does a landing pole help with that? I’m not being critical or flippant; I’m really trying to learn.
Oh! Also…how far apart do you set bounce poles? I know bounce jumps are 12’ apart. Is it the same for poles?
Your horse is very quickly going to learn to look for the pole behind the jump and adjust their trajectory accordingly in order to meet the pole properly. If you keep doing the exercise as part of your jumping program, that proper jump trajectory becomes a habit that continues once you start taking the landing pole away.
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A great book is 101 Jumping Exercises for Horse and Rider. It walks through all sorts of distances for what purposes (including bounces, adjusting for the height of whatever you’re jumping or “jumping” (ie poles), including rushing, jumping up but not across, and more.
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Make sure you aren’t riding your horse too close to the base. It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes practicing taking off from a slightly longer spot helps them get a better arc on the backside too. Placing a pole about a foot out from the jump (less if it’s a little baby jump, more on anything higher than about 2’9”) will make you choose a farther distance.
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I did a LOT of bounces with one like this. Occasionally a landing rail can make them suck back a bit because they may see the rail on the ground before takeoff. But having a bounce of jumps makes them think more about where they need to be to get comfortably through the second part.
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gymnastic line you can send them thru loose to let them figure out the striding on their own first. Gradually spread it out to lengthen.
