At 22:05:40 on 04.07.10, NMH wrote:
Watching Flicka's recent video reminded me of something. When you have canter poles, eg set out like a course to practice approaches, rhythm, turns etc without the added complication of jumps up, I always find the horse meets the canter poles on horrible half strides all the time, ending with a rather messy 'dive' each time over them rather than a nice stride. If you have a row of them, they sort out by the subsequent poles, but singles feel horrid. I think a horse doesn't respect a ground pole like a jump; should you still just leave them to it, not try to influence how they meet each one, ie shorten/lengthen the stride leading up? To mess with the stride seems like defeating the purpose- "let the fence come to you" I've been taught, but the feel you get if you leave them to it is generally not great- but maybe this doesn't matter? Views please??!

At 22:55:34 on 06.07.10, kibby wrote:
it depends on what you ant to get out of it i would say.. if you want the horse to think about his/her feet then i wouldn't touch anything. just maintain rhythem, still allowing the horse the change their stride if needed.. if you are working on your eye, then yes change it.. :)

At 23:02:35 on 06.07.10, NMH wrote:
Good point, very clear. Mainly the horse & its feet probably!! Thanks!

At 05:03:09 on 07.07.10, kibby wrote:
no stuffing around here :P..

At 23:12:28 on 07.07.10, ToriSilverson wrote:
thats a good one, im would have the same problem. good point kibby :)

At 02:36:34 on 08.07.10, kibby wrote:
aomething i do with younger horses is have a canter/trot/obsticle pole in my round yard. you pretend its not their and let them work out their legs.. it can be quite interesting at first.. haha.. i like canter poles but boy do we have issues with trot poles!! haha we canter bounce them!

At 18:23:10 on 08.07.10, ToriSilverson wrote:
haha it took charlie ages to figure out troting poles, he also tried to canter them, but after nearly falling on his head several times he realised he had to trot them haha i think i need to do more of letting charlie figure out a jump/poles himself because we can get into some sticky situations if i get it wrong, im lucky hes honest! it would be helpful if he learnt to set himself up for the jump

At 21:48:39 on 08.07.10, NMH wrote:
When I had decent jump lessons I was told- the more horses have to learn to sort themselves out when learning to jump, the better: buy a promising jumper from a bad rider not a good one as they will have learned to sort themselves!! a really good rider may have, without thinking, always 'placed' them & they've learned nothing about self-preservation! Hunting is good for this too. This was particularly with XC in mind though

At 00:50:34 on 10.07.10, ToriSilverson wrote:
i had a go at just leaving charlie to it today...he had one miss and after that got it perfect every time, i even tied my reins in a knot to remove the temptation to interfere haha

At 03:51:15 on 10.07.10, kibby wrote:
i believe it is very important your horse can sort itself out.. when starting sam jumping sure i could of changed his stride to meet the jump perfectly and he wouldn't have had the rail.. but this way he learns. he learns where he likes to take off from and how it is easier to do so.. and none of us are perfect.. we all miss sometimes.. or a lot in my case. haha.. but both horses are now clever enough to know how to save themselves..