Help-I am slowing to the jump

[Cakemom]

Hi–

My horse, Cake, injured his suspensory, so I wasn’t able to ride him for a while. In the meantime, I rode school horse Cora, who always found the distance and the strides in the line. Now I am back on Cake, who has a larger stride than Cora and follows my instructions (which I’m not confident in), and I’m having real trouble finding the right distance to the jump. I feel like we are going to run into the jump (never happened) so I seem to slow down as we get closer, which doesn’t end well. We add in the line, go deep, I end up on his neck…

Has anyone else had this problem? I’m an intermediate level, schooling between 2-3 feet jumps, depending on what’s going on with me. My horse is doing nothing wrong, trainer is great, good exercises. No issues with saddle or anything else. It’s my mental state I need help with.

Any thoughts or things to think about as I approach the jump. I’m interested in hearing about mental imagery or what you tell yourself. I’m psyching myself out!!!

Thanks!

[Willesdon]

Oh, the power of the mind. I would suggest you go back to basics and do pole and grid work at a low height until you re-establish your confidence and rhythmn on your horse. It is always good to refresh the basics at any time.

Alternatively, just have a look at the Facebook page “shiteventersunite” which, surprisingly, inspires many riders.

[endlessclimb]

Grids, and stay out of your horse’s way. I’m surprised your trainer isn’t hollering at you “leave him alone!” as you’re about 5 strides away.

Get the canter and quit fussing around. Deep, long, or otherwise, at least you’ll have the impulsion. grabbing a piece of mane with your pinky might help steady you and encourage you to quit picking.

[Night_Flight]

Don’t think about “finding” a distance.

Approach the jump with a straight, rhythmical, forward canter and I suspect you will find that the distances work themselves out. Just think about the quality of the canter and let your horse take care of the rest.

Even if the distance doesn’t end up absolutely perfect, if you approach with a quality canter you’ll be giving your horse the best opportunity to jump out of whatever distance you arrive at, and over time you’ll get more comfortable refining the approach.

Thinking about finding a distance right now will likely just lead you to pick at your horse.

[Momateur]

Don’t worry about “finding a distance” at your level. That’s a weird and mystical thing – and it happens when it happens. Right now, your focus needs to be on maintaining a good, even pace. Does your trainer have you count out loud on approach? 1, 2, 1, 2, etc.

I feel like I always suggest this for every problem, but poles are your friends. The principles are exactly the same as jumps, but you remove the fear factor. Ride a course of poles instead of jumps. Focus only on straightness and pace. Rinse and repeat :).

[AmmyHunter]

Ground poles are your friend - add them to your flatwork and practice just leaving your horse alone and keeping your canter rhythm. You can also use placing rails to help as well - I tend to get backed off in the warmup ring at shows, so my trainer always starts me with a 2-stride placing rail to get me thinking forward and leaving my horse alone! It helps. You can also use a placing rail to trot in/canter out of a line, where your job is to ride to the placing rail at the trot jump, then leave your horse alone and just let him canter you out of the line without worrying about a distance. Basically, all of these things just simplify your thought process and keep you from overthinking the distance!

[fatappy]

The exercise that helped me get rid of my chronic ‘whoa’ to the jump was:

6-7 stride line with a ground pole at stride 4 (but a long stride 4). Point was to jump into the line and ‘go’ to the pole’ and then have 2-3 strides to sit up an balance to the fence. It did a lot for me in that I was so concerned about the pole that i wasn’t staring at the jump going ‘add, subtract, add, add, add’. It let me feel like i still had control to the fence, but not so much that i added a step.

Good luck!

[Cakemom]

Thanks to all of you.

I’m wondering if anyone has had that fear of running into the fence (even though it has never happened to me) and what you did mentally to banish the thought or reframe it?

[BlueMoonJumper]

It sounds like you’re approaching the fence and saying “Aargh, it’s coming at me!”.

Try thinking about it as you hunting the fence. As in, you’re the predator here, not the prey. You want the fence and you’re going after it.

Overkill? Probably will be after you’ve gotten your confidence back but usually when it comes to riding people need to feel like they’re over correcting in the saddle. From the ground it ends up looking just right.

[Cakemom]

Thanks, that’s a great tip!

[Willesdon]

Oh, to add, use a neck strap. Even putting just a finger under it can make you feel a lot more secure.

[endlessclimb]

This is a great analogy. I will be using it as well!

[rockonxox]

I will be using this tonight. I am on a new horse and subconsciously am used to saying no no add the stride it makes me more comfortable. Tonight’s lesson my mantra will be “this jump is my &*^%” and see how that goes. 5 strides out I’m good and get a balanced canter going then psych myself out the last few strides, so reverse thinking to this I am hoping will help me out. The horse I ride is so game and I think he’ll appreciate me letting him go forward.

[Pippigirl]

I also second the idea of a neck/grab strap. When you get the need to grab, pull or nitpick you can haul on the neck strap to satisfy the need to grab and the horse is left alone to do their thing.

[Janet]

As others have siad, forget about the “distance”, and focus on the “quality of the canter”.

If you have a strong, rhythmic, balanced canter, ANY distance is a “good distance”.

[greysfordays]

this is such great advice! One thing that helped me with a similar problem (I would ride a great corner and then not realize I was steadying once I was straight to the jump and then try to find something), is to have a ground pole say in the middle of the arena, parallel to the short side and just straight gallop at it. And add BlueMoon’s attitude of hunting it down.

Given your hesitation, it is very likely that you won’t be galloping, you’ll just have a nice big canter. I practiced that just to get more comfortable riding out of the corner with leg. And then you gallop towards the pole and rebalance a few strides out (this is great practice for teaching your horse to be more sensitive to your voice and weight). And then galloping, settling and then turning smoothly after.

This is honestly just a really freeing and fun exercise I do when I ride alone. It’s opened my perspective on what the perfect canter really is. But I LOVE @BlueMoonJumper’s predator perspective. That’s brilliant!

[anon99446150]

Lots of great advice here! Going to echo everyone else and say stop obsessing about the distance and focus on the quality of your canter. Pole work is great for this and so is practicing lengthening and shortening on the flat. Do this at the walk, trot, and canter. By short, I don’t mean slow, I mean powerful. Practice having that powerful, collected feeling in whatever gait you’re working in and then being able to send your horse forward in a balanced, powerful manner (i.e. not just running and going fast/flat). Being able to adjust your canter will allow you to work with whatever distance shows up.

[PonyPenny]

Also remember the horse sees the jump and is not going to run into it. Watch horses free jump. They adjust their stride accordingly. A grab strap is great. Get a good rhythmic canter, look up beyond the jump and grab the strap or mane and go…

[Spud_amp_Saf]

One of the easiest ways to fix this is to count 1-2-3-4 as you’re cantering. It will help you maintain your rhythm and more in tune to when you fall off it, so you can make minor adjustments earlier. If you keep a good quality rhythm, the distance usually presents itself. When you’re practicing this, keep the jumps at a height that doesn’t worry you at all and just work on keeping your canter the same before your approach, on approach and on landing.

Courses of ground poles are also a great way to develop your eye without the worry of “missing”. You can canter whole courses just focusing on keeping that canter so rhythmical that you could set a metronome to it.

[paw]

Ride your corner (flow through, don’t take), and then just count strides until the fence. How many strides doesn’t matter - the act of counting itself will tell you if your canter is rhythmic and help you regularize it, and a distance will present itself. Ride the count and the rhythm.

If you’re riding to too much of a gap, fix your flow in the corner (and make sure you come out of the corner with the same step you had going in), and make sure you maintain that step on the way to the fence.

Practice over heights that are easy - poles on the ground are fabulous for this at first, but you can make small crossrails if you feel you need to ride something that’s more than a canter stride. As fence height goes up, so too does the impulsion (coming from behind) that you need to find a good athletic distance with a nice bascule. You should never feel like you’re “running” at the fence.