Deceptively tricky jumping exercise! | Helmet Cam
Like 4 Dislike 0 Published on 7 Oct 2018
I love this jumping exercise - jumping round on an oval sounds super easy, but it's so much harder than it looks! It's brilliant for horses like Casper, as the jumps come up very quickly and off some quite tight turns/short distances, so he really has to start thinking for himself. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've done a jumping exercise like this on him, and he coped really well considering even the experienced horses in the lesson found it quite challenging! The exercise involved cantering round continually between fences on his least favourite leg, with tight turns into the fences, little fillers to get distracted by and a skinny at one end (making it very tempting for the horse to run out through the turn) - days like this make me realise just how much he has matured since last winter! He even popped in a flying change at one point when he realised it would be easier than getting his legs in a tangle - I'm particularly pleased about that because although I have successfully asked him for flying changes on the flat in the past, doing them by himself in between fences, especially onto his 'worse' leg means he's really starting to think for himself and not just relying on the rider to get him out of trouble!
He also managed he first ever 100% successful quarter turn-on-the-forehand this lesson (he may well have done them successfully with someone else in the past). Casper still really struggles to understand leg pressure and it usually takes him quite a few goes at lateral work to pick it up again each time (I'm not sure how much lateral work he does during the week, or how differently the other people who ride him ask for certain movements). The previous couple of times I've asked for a turn-on-the-forehand he's either panicked because he doesn't understand and tried to shoot forwards or backwards, or just got really frustrated and moved his legs every which way except the direction I asked him for. This week something clicked and he really listened to what I was asking, and slowly but surely got better with each try, until right at the end where he managed a very neat & correct quarter turn - what a good pony!
Well done if you managed to read the whole description! If you did, answer this question in the comments: What is your favourite jumping exercise?
Ponies/horses:
Casper- 13.3hh NF x Appaloosa gelding
Helmet cam: GoPro Hero 6
Follow me on social media for extra clips and photos!
💜 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pony_cam/
💙 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PonyCamOffic...
💚 Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pony_Cam/