I have a pretty narrow indoor. Great for jumping right down the center but not so much courses. Are there any good gymnastics for hunters, specifically hunters that have a less than forward stride? I certainly don’t want to be teaching my horse to collect himself and jump up, which seems to be the point of most gymnastics. Or is there some benefit to that as far as translation to coursework?
Gymnastics are meant to teach the horse to read a line and adjust himself. You can gradually tweak some of the distances to make them a bit longer to encourage the horse to lengthen its stride. Both Jimmy Wofford and Linda Allen have written pretty good books-- I would buy one of them. https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Gymnastics-Systematic-Training-Jumping/dp/B00DIL1UJS/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542572001&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=jimmy+wofford+gymnastics https://www.amazon.com/Jumping-Exercises-Horse-Dianna-Dennis/dp/B004IIM5U8/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1542572072&sr=8-1
Horses can actually benefit from jumping obstacles repeatedly from the same spot, so as horses jump more obstacles correctly, their confidence will be improved. This confidence leads to relaxation, which will improve their technique in both the rider and the horse. (This is what one of my books says!)
As for not wanting to teach your horse to collect himself, I would go with what Highflyer said, and maybe read some books about it?!
Set the ground lines out and the horse will theoretically jump flatter. Closer, tighter striding will teach him to jump up, over and more roundly.
It’s up to the rider to get hoss into any gymnastic properly and set him up for success. Which is why so many of them are trot in…
Striding will be adjusted according to horse’s ability. What is his natural striding? How adept is he at lengthening or shortening strides without jumps in the way? Is there a reason you’re focused on jumping before you’re able to adjust his striding on ‘simple’ flat work first?
You should be able to make most any average 16hh horse’s stride compress to 14’ (at least, if not smaller) and lengthen to 18, for at least a few strides… Start with being able to do that. (Then work on adding height obstacles). And of course the way you judge you success of stride adjustment is by adding ground poles.
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You probably don’t mean to come across as condescending but you are. I’m not “focused on jumping before I’m able to adjust his striding on ‘simple’ flat work” I never said that I was. That being said I’m pretty sure I’ve never ridden a horse with an 18’ canter stride but can defintely give me an <8’ stride so I think your numbers may be skewed.
Our trouble with courses comes from him landing close to the base and not having enough impulsion to make up for it. SO a good gymanstic to encourage the land and go would be something I could use. Thank you.
jeez… I’m so sorry! Seriously. I had posted and confused you with another thread. My apologies for the condescending tone! Not at all my intent.
18’ hand gallop should be pretty obtainable over poles, but yes again, not canter, gallop. Like they did back in the old days.
What type of horse is this? What fitness level? Sounds like he’s just not got enough impulsion to canter away, but that could be a problem with a very large WB type…
I should go back and read your posts again.
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If your horse is less then forward then you need to work on that on the flat. Hence Sansena’s post. If your horse lacks impulsion on landing he is probably lacking impulsion on take off.
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IME that’s usually caused by not having enough impulsion, it’s not really a jump issue, but a canter one. So yes, most basic grids set at correct distances will help-- you just need to experiment with having the right canter through them. Also 12’ is considered an average horse stride for course setting purposes. I think you would be best served by working with a trainer, however if that’s not an option, something like this would be a good start: https://everythinghorseuk.co.uk/a-beginners-guide-to-gridwork/
And of course YOU have to be willing and able to close your leg or even give him a tap with your stick on the landing side of the fence, preferably before he stalls. My guess is that if you can comfortably do that a few times the issue will disappear.
I will say, adding leg or tap of stick on landing is too late. At the risk of being too basic, leg should be added (and crop) at the base of the jump and held through his effort (leg of course) in the air. It’s not unusual for riders to expect hoss to just carry us away.
Ride the whole line and such… Also, creating pace (impulsion/ balanced canter) before leaving the corner. This is what the circle at the beginning of many classes is meant to be used to obtain.
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https://practicalhorsemanmag.com/training/build-bascule-peter-pletcher-25497
I always liked the grids in this article for my hunter.
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Lots of low, wide oxers will help with him learning to jump across the jumps, not just over them. Jimmy’s book has excellent exercises for just his situation. Remember to create the impulsion before the first placing pole so you can carry it through the exercise. It’s too late once you’ve entered the grid.
@Denali6298 :winkgrin::lol::lol::lol::winkgrin: at your typo in your last sentence :D:cool:
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@Denali6298
I’ve been known to implode through a gymnastics line, LOL:ambivalence::uhoh:, so it wasn’t too far-fetched an autocorrect.
So glad you could laugh at it too!
:lol::lol::lol::lol: Haven’t we all?
I was going to add the same pt - low wide oxers.
There was a thread I can’t find - the search function is basically useless now - in eventing several clinicians have used the technique of cropping the horse over the fence. I myself remember this back in the B Davidson yrs of clinics. He would do an entire lesson on the use of the crop as encouragement, the timing thereof. It encourages the horse to jump through their body and to land and take-off. You may want to be prepared for a few times of them responding in a scoot and take-off :lol: ie keep a firm grip with that one hand on the reins.
I also agree that the quality of the canter and working on building impulsion is all together parts of this solution. Try doing some spiral circles - but don’t over do this it can make a horse sore if overdone, too much too soon (and can bring out some unknown issues so be alert to what goes on). Be slow and build the carry strength.
How much length do you have in the indoor? Peter Pletcher had an article some time back for Practical Horseman about improving the bascule that has some ideas that would apply to your issue. Low, wide oxers and enough distance to work with. If you can set up maybe a trot in one stride to an oxer to a three stride to another oxer? The more cantering you have to do in this exercise, the better, but I can understand not being able to start with a good hunter canter in a narrow indoor if you struggle getting that canter otherwise. So, longer lines with some stretch to the jump.
You can also do ground poles exercises. I like to set a bending line off the rail and work on adjusting your canter and track to fit in different numbers of strides. Set a longer line if possible, something like 6 or 7 strides for the comfortable, normal canter, average bending track. Poles give you something for your eye to work with but if you screw up the canter and miss the distance, it’s not a big deal. Just try again.
