Would love some feedback! What needs work? & any good exercises we should be working on? I can chime in with some context later if needed but would love some unbiased opinions first. Thanks!
https://youtube.com/shorts/-Xh83ZOSGlU?
The biggest issue is not getting your horse straight and back before your turns. This is a small arena, so you have to be quick and effective. This is partly why you are missing your changes. Missing the change then disrupts your pace to the next jump. You can also see that your decision making and responses are slow when you jump into the 5 quiet but don’t kick until stride 3. You want to move up early then settle to the out. Same issue just in the line versus after the jump into the corner.
So, I’d work on some exercises where you halt on a straight line after a jump, work on using different seats on course as well—in a small arena you just can’t always be in your half seat if your horse needs work getting balanced on his hind end. And flatwork to work on getting him in the outside rein more and more supple through change of bend. Leg yields, serpentines, shallow canter loops.
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Not enough impulsion in the canter. I know it’s easy to get stuck in the idea of going slow because the arena is small, but you still need impulsion to be jumping well.
Late change behind, I’d also say that because your horse is behind the aids and doesn’t have enough impulsion.
One bad distance; that’s just practice. Sometimes bad distances happen. If it’s a common occurrence put a pole about 9-10 feet in front of the jump to help yourself out.
You are leaning around your turns. Try to sit up a bit more through your turns instead of half-two pointing. It actually encourages the horse to get more on the forehand.
And if you were my student I’d ask you to release a bit further up the neck over the larger fences. Give your horse it’s head so it can give you the best jump possible.
Overall not a bad round. You are controlled and overall your position is good. Just some minor things to nitpick. My biggest suggestion is more impulsion, when you get that a lot of these things will fall into place.
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I’m also going to add a few more things I saw on the second watch;
You are posting the canter at the beginning. Now it’s possible someone told you to do this to establish rhythm but on course a judge will mark you down for that.
Sit up sit up sit up. You have a lovely tall upper body but with that comes the curse that any leaning forward is going to really throw your horse off.
Get out of your horses mouth. When you had the bad distance you pulled all the way to the jump. Let him do his thing. As a rider this is terrifying, but once you can do it your ride will look so much smoother. Your horse probably saw that distance but your correction of him messed it up.
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I am so guilty of this. I always have to remind myself that the horse has spent far more time managing their legs than I have 
The other thing I noticed (that I think often goes hand-in-hand with the above) is on both the line, and the fence following that you knocked, you had a steady rhythm (if a bit slow) going around the turn, and then put your leg on and changed pace just 2-3 strides out from the fence. On the line, if you’d kept your pace around the turn it would have been an easy, relaxed 5, but you put your leg on right before the first fence and your horse thought “oh! I’m supposed to do it in 4!”, which still would have been fine, but then you pulled back for the 5 and ended up with 4 1/2 
. Alternatively, after you jumped the bending line, you could have put your leg on and kept a bit more pace through the turn and you’d be set up for the 4, miles before you ever got there 
There’s a great Richard Spooner clinic I saw awhile back where he really focuses on this with one of the riders and not “procrastinating” to get your stride - I’ll have to see if I can find it again. But the gist is, if you need to change your stride, then do it EARLY (like before the turn). Not only does it help smooth things out, but it helps your horse relax and trust you. Just think how stressful it would be if your car GPS always waited to tell you that you needed to turn until you were practically on top of the turn!
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Ah I had no idea, thanks for mentioning it. I knew that some people really hate when riders post the canter but didn’t know it could be marked down for. I do find it helps me find a bit of rhythm when I first pick up the canter.
Also, as far as full vs half seat, I feel like somewhere along the line someone told me it was easier to get the changes if you are up off their back… is there any merit to that? I 100% suck at putting a change on a horse, actually surprised we have gotten this close to having one. More straightness, more pace… anything else I need to be doing to get that clean change?
Thank you so much for taking the time to help!
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@ClassyJumper - can I ask if you used a video system or a friend? If a system- which one? (I hear the dog panting and I am guessing it wasn’t him )
Haha it was my husband. It would be very convenient if the dog could do it… now there’s an idea 
Tell him he is a good videographer. Mine is not good (but I’m thankful). Yours is very steady. He gets an A.
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In hunters it would be considered into your score. Ideally we want to make hunters look as fluid and effortless as we can.
If you just do jumpers though, it doesn’t matter. You could sit backwards for all it matters.
If you were my student I’d tell you to sit your changes for now, at least until your horse has excellent changes. Being in the 2 point is going to put your horse more on the forehand and that’s not what we want for a clean change. Eventually you may find the round looks cleaner if you ride in a half seat, but It can really depend.
I’d suggest watching some of the top eq riders on their different horses. There’s someone I was watching not to long ago, I can’t remember if it was Colvin or St. Jacques, and they rode two very different horses in the same class. One was short, under 16h, and the other was probably approaching 18h. On the 16h horse, she sat very upright, almost a little too far back in the corners, and gave a good size release be kept her body quite far back and low in the release. If made that horse look bigger than it was. The second horse she had a half seat the whole time, and gave big releases and threw her body up the neck a bit more. That made that horse look a little smaller, and also made it jump nicer.
As riders we have to try to change our ride style to fit our horse. So my point of this long winded tale is to keep videoing yourself, keep trying new things to make that perfect eq ride. Even if you only plan on doing jumpers.
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Definitely ride forward; a lot of people slow down for the changes trying to manhandle the horse through it, but impulsion will help the horse move their legs into place, especially early in the process.
Be very aware of your upper body, too. It’s easy to lean in while trying to get the change since it can feel like directing the horse onto the new lead, but leaning in just makes it harder for the horse.
Straightness for both of you and thinking forward can go a long way towards producing clean changes.
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I think it can help to lighten your seat while they are changing leads so you don’t inadvertently block them. But if you are leaning forward in your half seat to set up the change, that can put them more on the forehand. I would sit down to get him off the forehand and straight first. He doesn’t seem to have a very expressive way of going but if you find he throws you a bit while changing, you can lighten your seat as you are executing the change. But this will not be leaning forward. There’s sitting down, there’s a deep seat, there’s a light but still in the saddle seat, and then there’s your galloping position and then 2 point. You want to be on the more seated side of things. That will help you get that engagement behind you need, especially in a smaller space.
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I think we all are. Micromanaging is one of the hardest things for riders to stop doing. Especially if you have spent a lot of time working with baby horses.
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I have never sat with a judge that would use posting the canter in a HUNTER class as a reduction in your score. I’ve been an R Hunter judge for 8 years and while it is annoying and I don’t teach it, it’s not going to affect your score. I suppose there may be a judge out there that will specifically reduce your score for that, but I haven’t met him or her.
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Hmm [quote=“mroades, post:14, topic:761850, full:true”]
I have never sat with a judge that would use posting the canter in a HUNTER class as a reduction in your score. I’ve been an R Hunter judge for 8 years and while it is annoying and I don’t teach it, it’s not going to affect your score. I suppose there may be a judge out there that will specifically reduce your score for that, but I haven’t met him or her.
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Hmm interesting. I think we might be talking semantics here; I’m saying hunters but I’m talking more on eq. Obviously for a under saddle class this should have no effect on score.
But if you mean for eq too, then that’s interesting. My old trainer who was also a judge told me most certainly posting the canter would factor into placings.
This is not true at all. Many top level hunter riders post the canter in hunter classes. It’s not semantics at all or you’ll confuse someone new to hunters. EQ and HUNTERs are judged on different things.
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OP didn’t ask for a break down of the h/j sport. I was giving information on her ride and what I felt she could improve. Sorry I didn’t specify more.
