I am working with a 10 year old ottb with a bit of a checkered past. Somewhere along the line he had some great dressage training and somewhere he had some not so great treatment. It’s one of those “may never know” kind of situations. He’s a very athletic, nice mover but tends to carry a lot of tension, his natural reaction to being asked new things is to put his head up, tense his back and go around inverted. This is something that we’ve been working on and he’s improved drastically over the last few months on the flat. He’s learned to use himself more correctly and push from behind into the contact. But now that we’ve started small fences, he is back to the inverted position. It’s not a huge dramatic reaction and he’s willing to go to the jumps, but he doesn’t really use himself over the fences, he basically just does them like a bigger stride. Although my plan for him is eventing, I figured this would be a good place to ask about “shape” exercises. I’ve found suggestions on gymnastics and free jumping (any specific exercises within these) and equipment tools (I won’t jump him in bandaids, ex no draw reins suggestions please). Would love to hear others experiences with horses like this and get some potential suggestions.
Low wide oxers.
And other gymnastics
I would do lots of trot jumps with a step rail (set about 7’ out from the jump). The trotting will teach him to push from behind and the step rail will get him used to taking off from the correct distance. Once he is bored (and relaxed) doing this, only then would I start cantering jumps.
Trot poles to a crossrail, making it into a steeper crossrail once he is comfortable. But you won’t get him really using himself over little jumps. In fact, most tb’s are athletic enough that they won’t really use them self until the jumps get much higher.
But it sounds like you need to teach relaxation. Time will help. Trot poles will help. Canter poles randomly scattered around ring. Think “flateork”, woeking on forward, down and out rather than a dressage type frame. Get the relaxation first while staying forward, then you can work on more of a dressage type frame.
I was looking for similar exercises earlier this week and found this article from Peter Pletcher. I really liked that it focused on how to warm up properly on the flat and then introduced the jumping exercises.
https://practicalhorsemanmag.com/training/build-bascule-peter-pletcher-25497
Something that helps my horse a lot is circles and serpentines and then adding little jumps to these patterns. For me, serpentines and circles helped so much when I was trying to keep my horse on the bit and get him stronger to keep his back up. Once we had accomplished that, I set a crossrail, starting with it small then gradually making it slightly bigger, and just trotted on a circle over the crossrail both trotting and cantering. The key is to not fight them when they invert at the jump, but softly correct and continue the pattern until they relax and realize it’s no big deal and he goes with his head down and back up. Might take a few sessions, and I recommend ending on a positive note the first time (even if it’s a short ride) and picking it back up your next ride so you don’t overwhelm him. Once he’s good with the circle, set up a serpentine pattern and do the same exercise and rinse and repeat until that is also no big deal. Add in grids, gymnastics, poles, etc. and work up to little courses building on the idea of soft and round to little jumps, then building those up too.
Edited to add: Also, for the crossrails add in a pole before and after the jump. It helps with placing his feet and coming in correctly. Might stumble a few times but let him figure it out, so fun when you finally feel them come in correctly, using themselves through the little pattern!
Set a low wide crossrail like an oxer with ground poles before and after.
Gymnastics are great for teaching form and helping them get to the right spot on their own. Those in Jimmy Wofford’s book are great. When trotting in, definitely use placing poles before and after the jump. However, they really aren’t going to use themselves over really small jumps (and what is really small kinda depends on the horse).
However, it sounds like you need relaxation first (as others have mentioned), then you can work on his form. I had a similar problem with my horse so I tried to work trot and canter poles into my dressage schooling (do my dressage work as usual, just occasionally trot or canter over some poles). I also jumped her on the lunge line - two small jumps at opposites of as big a circle as possible so they can develop a rhythm and just canter over the jumps until they realize rushing isn’t necessary.
Dressage!
Get the best quality canter you can before the jump- you can shape him with the inside leg and outside rein.
Shoulder fore as you come to the jump, it gets the horse up and out. This is also good for overflexed horses, or those who have a ruined/hard mouth of various sorts.
Good exercises for stiff horses are LY transitions, walk/halt, SI walk/halt, and spiral in and out. This work will defintely help your jumping form.
Before I jump I expect the horse to be a band that can be adjusted both in stride length and lateral (side to side). If I feel any resistance I will have a crap jump. JMHO
My horse does something similar and a trainer suggested we set a big X and put a pole about 6 feet on each side of the big X and trot in canter out. Add this to your flat work to work to create a relaxed horse.
Also you can put poles on the ground and as you are doing you flat work trot over or canter over them every day so it becomes like part of your daily flat work.
