I have an absolutely wonder ottb mare. She is 8 years old, I’ve had her for the past 4 and got her straight from the track. She is a saint under saddle, trail rides, swims, has gone cross country, will save your butt over fences. Just and all around wonderful girl, except her jumping style leaves much to be desired. I ride primarily hunters and I know she will never be successful at larger shows, which makes me sad because she’s wonderful. I set up some bounces today and she still had an uneven front end. I am thinking if we upped the height to wake her up and maybe changed where our ground poles were. Any suggestions or success stories? I’ll post pics when I get to my laptop.
Tough to say without seeing pictures. is she lazy with her front end or loose or too quick or crooked or…? There are different ways of working on different issues. But IME (and generally speaking) a true “mediocre jumper” will revert back to a mediocre jump when faced with a less-than-perfect distance. But again, it depends on what her habits are.
There are a lot of horses who are great to jump around on but not nice enough or quiet enough to be hunters. I’m not sure why that’s sad, why not aim for the jumper ring? One of my best ever jumpers was a mare who was a dyed-in-the-wool hunter type in every way but her front end style (the mare in my profile pic).
My OTTB was atrocious over jumps in the beginning (form-wise). I joke that he didn’t start bending his legs until we got to 1.40m, but it’s mostly funny (to me) because there’s actually quite a bit of truth to it. Long story short, that’s just his jumping style. You can play around with gymnastics and different types of jumps (giant crossrails, square oxers, rampy oxers, or even offset/backwards oxers) to make some minor differences in a horse’s front end style, but I think the best case scenario makes a “good” jumper look like a “great” one, and might make a “mediocre” one into a “good” one.
I can say with my guy that he gets a lot better looking at 1.40m and up. Put him in a 1.30m class and he looks (and acts) ridiculous…overjumping everything and not bothering with his front end. Bump the jumps up and he gets a lot more “normal.” But even so, nothing on this earth could make him an appropriate or even “mediocre” hunter!
Use two rails forming a V at on the top rail of the jump and that will REALLY help tidy up the front end.
Here’s an exercise that can really help…
cavaletti, 4 strides to a 1.0m vertical with the two poles forming a V on the top rail -
As you school over the this, a ground person can adjust the poles so they extend over the top rail of the vertical by a few inches, and then a few more inches so the horse has to put in a bigger effort over the same size jump or risk getting a pretty good rap. Also, a plank on the ground set a bit in front of the jump (12 to 16 inches) will also really help.
Another one that helps a lot is setting a single rail at an angle balanced on the top of the standard and the other end on the ground … like this
https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1452085_10202826931898511_134870168_n.jpg
I was watching the video took and I’m starting to wonder if she’d just do better over something taller? She is not even making an effort, just trotting or cantering over the jumps we were doing. I had 5 bad falls this year, broke my nose and bit a hole through my lip in the last one and sprained my ankle badly in one, they were all from jumping about 12 weeks after having my daughter. They really shook my confidence, so I’m trying to take it slow with jumping, like I said, my mare makes me feel so comfortable so I may just start increasing the height to see what happens? I’m trying to post pics but don’t know if it’ll work.
It’s hard to tell from just one picture, but I think you need to be focusing just as much on yourself as you are on her. In the picture you posted you got to a deep distance and are ahead of the motion. Yes her front end is uneven, but she’s having to work hard to bring her front end up quickly under your weight. Some horses are great jumpers and can make any distance look good, but a better ride will always help.
I think you should really focus on waiting with your upper body and stay over your base. I would continue doing gymnastics, that way she can work on herself, finding her own balance, learning from her own mistakes, and YOU can focus on YOURSELF.
Do you have a coach? Do you have someone on the ground who can video you? Do you have any pictures of her when she gets to a good distance?
I’ll look and see what other pics I have. I know, I’ve been jumping ahead and my lower leg is completely lost. It’s been really hard for me because I used to have awesome EQ. After baby number 2 I lost a lot of confidence and it seems like that’s where most of MY riding problems stem from. I’m doing better, before I’d get really freaked out/nervous over X-rails-18", now I feel like I won’t die over 2’, lol. I think I’m going to start riding without stirrups more, on the flat I have great EQ, it’s once those darn jumps are in the way 
OP: I am working on my TB’s front end as well.
Like one of the other posters mentioned. I would focus on YOU and your position. Leaning up on the neck like in your pic that can cause uneven legs. (i know this… because I can be an offender of jumping ahead.)
V-Rails are FANTASTIC! Gymnastics & bounces are good for your horses front end as well as your balance.
Also, to improve the front end of the horse’s jump (besides gymnastic exercises,) I think it all starts with flatwork. If your horse isn’t soft, supple, able to collect etc, they often won’t jump as well as they can.
[QUOTE=Jhorne89;7274239]
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I was watching the video took and I’m starting to wonder if she’d just do better over something taller? She is not even making an effort, just trotting or cantering over the jumps we were doing.[/QUOTE]
IMHO, I think this is a big part of it. You’re rarely going to see good form, even from a great jumper, over something they do not have to jump. You’re going to see a really wonky front end, because they’re just picking their front legs up as part of a very big, very high canter step.
If you personally don’t want to jump her over something bigger, if you’ve got somewhere you can set up a free jumping lane (and know how to properly set distances in gymnastic lines) set up a simple X-vertical-oxer line, once she has the idea, with big enough fences (3’-3’6) to get an idea what she’ll look like once she really has to jump. Plus, in my experience, it really helps them figure out striding and pace without the rider’s interference.
(ETA: If you follow the link in my sig, the first blog post has pictures from us schooling this weekend. Not the difference in my mare’s form over the crossrail versus the 2’6 vertical. I’d want to see how your horse goes over things she actually has to JUMP before you try to sharpen up her form over itty bitty things unnecessarily.)
Steep X-Rails!
What really helped my guy was steep crossrails. Like, cups on the top of 5-6’ standards. There is very little room for error there, and it definitely helped sharpen his front end up. I’ve also done a lot of schooling where I purposely “drop” him or drive him to a deep distance because he prefers the long ones, and if we don’t school the tight distances enough, he forgets how to use himself.
Thanks everyone! I’m going to do some boot camp on myself these next few months! That actually makes me feel better that I’m most likely the problem, I think it’ll be easier to work on improving myself than to try to expect or fix something in Dolce that maybe couldn’t be fixed, if that makes sense.
JenEM, I will set up a jump chute and film her, probably in the next week. I’ll post an update 
I agree with JenEm’s post completely, and will add that I went to worst-case-scenario in my mind when you said she her jumping style left a lot to be desired. I think you may have overstated your problem a bit
She’s quite cute and looks like she could have a nice jump in her. I don’t pay much attention to my horses over fences that size because a horse with potential to go higher will often not try very hard over tiny fences. Especially if they’ve done a lot of them (or been doing them for a while - whether done frequently or infrequently).
What I was picturing looked more like my guy about 6 months off of the track and a year or so off of the track. (quick side note: i bought the first picture).
And what he looks like now at 1.40m and 1.50m…definitely better, but still a lot of similarity to his type of jump.
Your girl looks like she could have a much nicer jump than my guy with some focus on your body control and some slightly larger fences.
https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1424467_10202826853416549_1608824480_n.jpg
https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/17790_10201129911234055_56504306_n.jpg
https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/521321_10201076433977157_1387324931_n.jpg
https://scontent-b-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/564679_10201076428657024_237496040_n.jpg
https://scontent-b-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/480635_10200960671403165_2014663954_n.jpg
Hopefully all those work.
[QUOTE=Jhorne89;7274239]
https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1452085_10202826931898511_134870168_n.jpg
I was watching the video took and I’m starting to wonder if she’d just do better over something taller? She is not even making an effort, just trotting or cantering over the jumps we were doing. I had 5 bad falls this year, broke my nose and bit a hole through my lip in the last one and sprained my ankle badly in one, they were all from jumping about 12 weeks after having my daughter. They really shook my confidence, so I’m trying to take it slow with jumping, like I said, my mare makes me feel so comfortable so I may just start increasing the height to see what happens? I’m trying to post pics but don’t know if it’ll work.[/QUOTE]
Jump is too small. You don’t have to rush into bigger jumps though. I wouldn’t worry about her form until she gets going more consistently. Focus on straight.
Your falls weren’t off this mare were they?
I have been wondering this about my young horse too!!!
I will try posting some pictures of him. I really think he wants to be a jumper. He is always at least a foot over the jumps but never really tucks his feet in a hunter way.
I am not giving up though because I am a hunter rider! So I am going to try bounces and the big X’s do seem to work.
I also had a jumper trainer start him and he has him going more like a jumper so I think maybe with a little more flatwork and gymnastics I can get him into hunterland.
I do think that he won’t jump great until we at least get to 3’6
What do you guys think?
Excuse his 2 coat colors! This is him this summer and then a couple weeks ago. He is dun in the summer and black in the winter. Too much sun here in AZ!
[QUOTE=DarkBayHunter;7275071]
Jump is too small. You don’t have to rush into bigger jumps though. I wouldn’t worry about her form until she gets going more consistently. Focus on straight.
Your falls weren’t off this mare were they?[/QUOTE]
No, they were off another mare I had and my steady-Edy 18 year old paint (my other mare just had a huge jump that I wasn’t ready to ride, it was 12 weeks after having my daughter, I honestly shouldn’t have been jumping but I was pushed to do too much, too soon (I know I should have said no, I used to do the “big stuff” and that’s what this person kept telling me, that I did it in the past, there was no reason I couldn’t do it then), my paint did a dirty stop and I flew over the jump, he never, ever stopped in the 13 years I have had him)
I don’t know why my parenthesis went crazy in that paragraph!
As for the original poster, I think the mare will need a bigger jump. Those jumps are pretty small and with work she should tighten up when they get more stout. Once you get your seat a little steadier, she should also even out. All horses also seem to have a preferred distance that makes them jump their best.
What is your goal classes to be showing her in?
On another note… Any tips to help the jumping ahead issue? I was thinking lots of no-stirrup work, X-rails with no stirrups…
I’d love to show her in 3’ hunters and then go from there. We’ve done some cross country schooling, which was a blast, but I don’t think I’m brave enough to show cross country.
Me either! ;(
My horse is very brave, me, well I am working my way up to hunter derbies!!
My problem is I don’t ride enough. Riding consistently does wonders for my skills! But I have crappy hours at work which doesn’t leave me much time to ride. 
