Its not just about the jumps with those a nickel short in step. You need to learn to use all of your corners to keep your step ALL the way around your courses, not quit riding after every line…especially if you blew it in and had to hustle out, you cant fiddle your way around the corner then try to fix it on the approach to the next fence…as we Adults are famous for.
Your track around the corners needs to be wide and sweeping carrying the same pace from dead center ( hopefully) on the landing, around the corner to dead center taking off for the fence after the corner. If you can get that, distances will just be there and the line ride easy. If I can learn to do that, you can too. Even diagonals-if you get the corner, they are right there. Really.
Horses gifted in step can minimize track and pace errors by their pilot but, if you happen to be one that is starting to light up, you can use squaring instead of sweeping your corners to quietly back them off a little.
Ask your trainer to work with you on track around your corners and see how that influences getting into and down your lines. Something that helped me greatly was setting two fences at about 3 and 9 o’clock in your ring. Put road cones or similar markers on the left and right of dead center on the take off side of each fence. Use the whole ring to get a good pace and jump the first, get a nice, sweeping corner and carry it to the center of the second fence the keep going around a couple of times.
You want to train your eye and body to quit micromanaging step, picking to find a spot, chasing to get down the line and then quitting on landing. The horse needs to stretch out and flow and you need to let it happen. We spend so much time jumping a couple and stopping and picking at distances while ignoring track, no wonder some look choppy trying to get around a full course.
Its hard to use text to convey a concept but if your trainer is any good, they will understand what Im trying to describe here.