The horse is in a hurry to an obstacle: how to work with it?

Photo: yandex.by

Sarah Lewis, British show jumper and former eventing athlete, shares tips on how to deal with a horse that is accelerating too hard on an obstacle.

“As strange as it may sound, if you move your leg away from the side of the horse, then the likelihood of a sudden acceleration will only increase. The horse begins to rush because it does not feel the message of the rider, so it reports that it is ready to jump, but such a jump will end either with a fall or a throw.

1. First you need to work with the horse on the sensitivity to the legs to maintain the correct pace. Try to serpentine at a canter without losing momentum, i.e. the whole serpentine should be done in the same rhythm.

2. Then I place the cue in front of the obstacle and the cavaletti after, this helps the horse to properly group and exit correctly after the obstacle respectively.

3. After a low obstacle, do not let the horse accelerate – sit deeper into the saddle and draw its attention to yourself with obsessions, because the meaning of the correct jump is that after the jump your horse should continue to listen to you, and not do what he wanted.

4. Don’t go overboard. After you have completed the exercise a couple of times and the horse obeyed you perfectly, praise him, give him a treat. Dedicate time each workout to the exercise you want, but don’t do it for an entire hour.

5. In the warm-up before the competition, do not do too many training jumps. Make two or three good jumps, praise the horse and let it relax a little, if you worked correctly at home, then at the competition you will be able to correctly and skillfully drive the route.

Good luck!”

Source: horseandhound.co.uk