I have a great horse who jumps well over 1.20m bt often drags her back feet when jumping and sometimes knocks them down with her back feet, is there any excercise that i could do to get her to pick her back feet up when jumpin?
Originally posted 2009-04-06 14:32:44.
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You need to get her moving forward a bit more– it sounds like you are a good rider but may want to carry a crop just so she is a bit more motivated. Sometimes riders even use the crop just a tiny tap on takeoff which really helps, if you want, you can jsut use this during practice and see if it pays off in competition. Also, when you are practicing at home you should also try setting up a lot of oxer and fan jumps, this will teach her to jump farther and longer, and when they do that they have to pick up their feet– make sure that you have placement poles when you jump to practice with too.. Is it possible that she is taking off too soon or too late? Which is causing this? Placement poles will tell them when they should take off, which should also help with her little problem :]
Best of luck this year in the show season!
Just a thought but I would snag a couple experienced people and have them evaluate her natural movements and conformation. Its possible she CANT pick up her back legs, and you should check this before you go trying to train her to do so and possibly cause her pain. Try jumping a small hurdle in perfect form and you’ll see what I mean.
Try to do some groundwork with her, and get her jumping without a rider.
Use some old barrels, for instance. Lay them down on their sides, put them together, and lunge her over them. Every time she bumps her feet it will hurt, and she’ll learn to watch where her feet are going and take more care to preserve them.
When she bumps her feet, just turn her around and send her over them again. When she makes a good jump without hitting anything, stop her and give her a breather, praise her, then start again.
Show jumping’s poles are usually made to fall easily for the safety of the horse and rider, are they not? She probably doesn’t care about hitting one because it doesn’t hurt her, at least that’s my thinking.
A good way to help horses learn to use their hindquarters and to strengthen their back end is to use cavaletti’s. Putting 3 or 4 caveletti’s in a sequence helps the horse be careful. Ride her over those a couple of times to help her pick up her back feet. They don’t have to be huge, maybe one and a half to two feet tall. Just enough for her to pick up her feet. Moving these around and creating fun exercises to keep her interested will definitely help. This is what I do with my jumpers when they get lazy. It keeps them sharp. There’s also a couple of good books out with exercises for this purpose. Maybe take a look at those.
Hope I Helped!!
All the answers prior to mine offer good schooling suggestions and advice I’d just like to add: Make sure you are remaining balanced over the withers throughout the jump and not coming back over her back to soon or your weight could be interfering with her hind end