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Jumping green horse

From: Marlys Pack

Jessica, hello to you. I just found your wonderful Q&A space, and am excited to hear if you can help me out.

I have recently purchase a 6yr old TB mare. She is an ex racehorse, and has had little done(if any at all) since she was on the track. I am hoping to one day do some eventing or jumping. She is doing quite well altho she has started to get fit, and can be a handful at times. I am doing lots of dressage work, and she comes down on the bit really well now. I am hesitant to do much canter work, because her only idea of canter is "run". She doesn't scare me, I just want to be sure she knows "slow" too.

My question is this. I have started her jumping, and she seems to love it. I have always been told that a "greenie" should be trotted to the fences she is to jump in order to get a good spot. My mare insists on cantering to the jumps, and does quite well. I have tried trotting, but all we wind up doing is fighting, and getting a bad approach because of it. Is it wrong for me to let her canter to the jumps since she is so green? She is very willing, and doesn't stop. We have jumped cross rails, verticals, and a gate. nothing more than 2'3".

Also, how will I know when to have her jump more height? I am entered in a starter combined test at the end of this month. How will I know when to start her in some mini horse trials? I don't know how she'll be cross-country, but have faith that she'll be fine. My hesitation is with all the "scary" stadium jumps since my boarding barn has only run of the mill jumps available. Any suggestions on getting her exposed to the new jumps we will face, and how slow should I take all this????

Thanks for listening, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Marlys Pack
Kentucky


Hi Marlys!

To answer your last question first, quite slowly. In fact, I think that your interests will be best served if you back up a little. It takes time to recycle a racehorse, and you'll have more fun, and a better, safer horse, if you take the time to teach your mare to work well on the flat before you begin jumping her.

I would strongly suggest that you NOT jump her until you are entirely comfortable working her in the open at all three gaits. Ex-racehorses have to learn to canter without thinking that they're going to gallop; you need to be able to take her easily from trot to canter and back again, and be able to ride figures with her at the canter, including simple lead changes, before you begin jumping her. This would be a good project for you to work on during this autumn and winter, so that you can begin working over fences in the spring, and perhaps go to a competition sometime during the summer.

I suggest that you find a good instructor -- perhaps someone who is ARICP-certified in Combined Training -- who can help you with your mare and who will be able to start both of you over fences when the time is right. If your mare is an enthusiastic jumper already, she won't lose that enthusiasm if you take the time to have her properly trained. She needs to learn to jump when and where she is asked to jump, and that means trotting to the jumps when asked. Any reasonably healthy and sound horse can fling itself over low jumps at a canter, but that doesn't mean that it's a safe practice! You don't want to create in your mare a habit of running to the jumps, or a habit of taking control when she sees a jump. If you're going to jump her, you'll need some professional help to work out a systematic, progressive training and conditioning program for her. And there are some things you need to think about.

Your mare is an ex-racehorse, which means that her legs, especially her front legs, have already been subject to a good deal of punishment. If she is going to learn to jump AND remain sound, she needs to be built up physically so that she can jump quietly and safely and not ruin her legs in the process. Jumping and flatwork make different physical demands on horses, but you can do your best to minimize the stress of jumping through good preparation on the flat. Your instructor will be able to help you here.

There are very good reasons for trotting to fences! First, your mare needs to be balanced and listening to you, not fighting with you and running away over the jumps. Second, it DOES make a difference to what "spot" she takes -- it may not make a difference when the fences are tiny, but it will make an enormous difference later. Fighting on the way to a trappy fence on cross-country can have disastrous results for both soundness and safety. Trotting to fences is something you need to be able to do on cross-country, too. If your horse can't balance well enough to jump from the trot at home in the ring, you don't want to ask her to trot and canter up and down hills, and jump up and down even small banks and drops. You will want to trot to individual jumps on cross-country, for various reasons: footing, light/dark changes, or just to get in close enough to a wide fence to be able to jump across it safely. There may be times when you have a good reason to trot most of your cross-country course -- for instance if there was a hard rain the night before, much of the course is waterlogged, and there are slippery patches in front of and after each jump! At the very lowest levels of eventing, it IS often possible to "get away with" racing around the course, with the horse pulling its legs out of the way whenever it gets to a tiny jump. But this isn't good for the horse's body or mind -- it doesn't teach it anything that will be useful as you move up the levels. And the people who try to event this way usually STAY at the lowest levels...

When you begin jumping -- and truly, I would put this off for a while! -- your instructor should have you working through small gymnastics so that your mare can learn to use her body correctly and develop the muscles and balance that will let her jump larger fences later. Speed isn't what takes you over a serious jump -- POWER is what you need, and that power must be controlled. If you run your mare over small fences now, she will hurt herself on larger ones later, because she won't have learned to jump well.

Take your time, and find a reliable professional to help you along. It sounds as though you have a very nice mare -- take care of her so that you can have many enjoyable years together.

Jessica

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