Just looking for a little input to add to the vet and farrier assessments to come, thanks in advance! My horse has very little motor at home, really, the only time he has a motor is in the show ring. When I jump him at home, it is a struggle to get him going, but we’ve always managed to get a few nice courses done. This past week, he has tripped upon landing from a jump twice: the first time I fell off directly on my head, and then the second, I nearly fell off. Both times it has been in the first several jumps of the lesson, very low (2 foot vertical) when he is most dull. The horse is historically careless over low jumps and especially slow at the start of lessons at home.
You must have at least the first level of the training pyramid in place before asking a horse to jump AT ALL. “Free Forward Relaxed Motion”. That means… “going forward freely and in a relaxed manner, moving forward willingly off your leg”. If you don’t have that, the horse can’t jump, and/or can’t jump safely, as you have found out. Because you don’t have FFRM, the very first step of training that we require of a horse. If you feel that you have a bit more FFRM when at a show, this is not true FFRM, because it is not coming truly from your leg. If you don’t have FFRM, that is the first thing you need to work on, before attempting to jump. The question is why you don’t have this, is it a training issue, a riding issue, or a physical problem (lameness) in your horse? If you need help to discern which is the root of the cause, you need to enlist the help of a professional. Good luck!
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Can you elaborate? Is the horse catching himself? Or landing, then legs giving out and tripping? Has this horse had a work over by a vet to see if there is a reason the horse is so unwilling to go forward?
The horse is landing then tripping at the first stride or two at the beginning of a jumping “session” (within the first few jumps). I would say he is also landing in a heap, heavily. After he jumps a few jumps, he doesn’t do it, or at least not yet. The vet is going to evaluate him tomorrow. Both times he has done this he has been sound on the flat, though he has had soundness problems in the past months in his front end. He has always been a trippy horse (more than any that I have owned), but this post-jump trip is new. Thanks!
I’d be riding him in a nice dressage frame at the beginning of the ride to get his front end up and him thinking about his legs. Lots of collected work, Collected to extended trot, Trot to halt transitions, half passes, etc. then I’d jump. He needs to be using himself better.
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You could also take him over ground poles first.
But yes, horses that are sucked back and on the forehand will trip, even without a jump. You need to get him awake before you jump, however you accomplish that.
If I were you, I wouldn’t jump him at all until you get a vet work-up on him.
For him to trip hard enough for you to fall off once and nearly fall off a second time sounds like something (potentially) more serious than a horse being lazy or clumsy. Horses don’t like to fall and although it certainly does happen that a completely sound horse trips and falls, it probably does not happen twice in the same scenario within a relatively short time-frame.
If the horse gets the okay from the vet, then you do need to go back and re-start the horse over jumps. Treat it as if it has never jumped before. Go back to ground rails at all gaits; then, after several weeks, you can move to low cavalletti; then to slightly higher cavalletti after several weeks at all gaits. You get the idea.
Good luck.
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providing that there are no medical issues, maybe think about the frame that you’re riding your horse in? If you can get them really using their hind end they are not going to be as heavy and in theory, they won’t land in such a heap.
Tripping, previous unsoundness, I would look v carefully at the front end. If both legs are wrong he might present as sound because both hurt equally.
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You need either a vet or impulsion, probably both, vet first.
Please don’t jump this horse again until he’s seen the vet. Horses tend to have self-preservation. If the horse is tripping so hard you’ve come off (onto your head!) he is unable to preserve himself, let alone you, and there’s a reason for that you’ll need to listen for.
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I agree with this. I wouldn’t carry on jumping until this was sorted out. A horse falling or tripping that severely after fences is a danger to you and your horses health.
I wouldn’t jump this horse til he’s had a full vet workup.
Sometimes a lazy horse will trip early in a ride, scare himself, and sharpen up. Two trips severe enough that you fell/almost fell in one week indicates something else to me.
That it gets better as the lesson goes on, or at shows, means nothing except that his adrenaline or energy is up enough to mask/power through any physical issues.
In addition to checking for lameness, do a neuro eval and pull blood to check for tick-borne diseases and EPM. My friend’s young horse was a bit uncoordinated behind (ataxia) and then seemed off in front. At first she thought he was just footsore but pulled blood and he had anaplasmosis and is now on a course of treatment. Would have been pretty easy to miss or write off as footsore/weakness behind without a full workup and labs.
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Blockquote You need either a vet or impulsion, probably both, vet first.
Does the new forum still have signature lines? Because I think I finally found the quote I want to steal for mine.
But seriously, to the OP, as others have said, for safety reasons, please stop jumping until he’s seen the vet, and make sure neck is considered along with limbs given the history.
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Thanks everyone for their kind replies and concern, I’m getting the report from the vet today!
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Did the vet report shed any light on the issue?
