Two-Point over Fences

When jumping over fences and even over poles you need to have a proper leg position.

First your stirrups need to be the right length. When your leg is relaxed the stirrup iron should lay right at your ankle bone. For some, jumping position is easier when the stirrups are a hole shorter than on the flat.

Next you need to keep your heels placed down. Don't jam your heel down, simply lift your toe. If you push to far down in your heel your legs will swing forward and unbalance you. Your heels are your main source of balance. your toes should be pointing towards the horses head. if you are wearing spurs you don't want them constantly poking the horses side.
As you approach the jump make sure to keep the legs gently against your horses side, this will keep the momentum and increase your chance of run outs or refusals.

Yours hands should move with the neck so you don't jab your horse in the mouth. The reins shouldn't be thrown up their neck either, this could throw them off balance. If you have trouble with your hands moving to much and are worried about catching your horse in the mouth you can grab some of their mane to start off.

You want your eyes kept straight to, over, and after the jump. If you drop your eyes this can shift you body weight and unbalance the horse. they might add an extra stride or chip. Also if your drop your eyes the horses can feel you looking at it and might thing it is scary and stop.

You want to make sure you are jumping with your horse not ahead of them or to late. this is also known as jumping for your horse. Jumping ahead of the horse can cause the riders leg to slip back, because the riders weight is in front of the leg. Your leg should be under neath your body.

Your body should be slightly tilted towards the horses neck. Your hip bones should be still under you and just tilted a tiny bit to allow your body to follow the horse. Your seat should always be over the saddle even when your over the jump.

~ Jaida
Give a horse what he needs and he will give you his heart in return.

Correct leg aids

When riding your legs are one of the most important aids of riding your horse. Not only do they make the horse movie forwards, they also engage the hind end. along with that they can: move the horse sideways (leg yield or side pass), and lift it back. The reason we want our horses to do these things will help in the jumper ring. For example if you have come into a jump not on the right line you can ask you horse to move over or leg yield over to the direction you want using your leg.

When collecting your horse their back must round and hind quarters must engage. To do so we must use our legs to round their back. Your leg should gently nudge below the barrel of the horse. this will ask the horse to bring up the back. The horse might not respond to that right away especially if they have never been asked too. Soon the horse will round his back with the blending of the hand and leg aids.

~ Jaida
Give a horse what he needs and he will give you his heart in return.

Bounces

People will use bounces to help the horse learn to quickly pick up and place his/her feet. The reason it is called a bounce is because there are no strides taken in between the jumps. The bounce will  teach the horse good balance, to push off with his hind end, and to fold his front end well. It will also help teach a horse to slow down.
When sitting up a bounce you can have 2 jumps or even 10, usually people will use between 4 or 6 jumps depending on the size of their arena. Your jumps are usually 15 inches to 18 inches sometime a little higher. When spacing the first and second fence should be 3 meters apart and the rest should be 3 meters and 3 inches.
During the exercise you need to keep the horse really straight, in between your hands and legs. When entering the bounces you need to have a connection between your hands and legs to engage the hind end. While riding over the bounce the riders body needs to be kept straight, the eyes need to be focus ahead. the riders hands need to be light and elbows need to be elastic so they can follow the horses movement. Their legs need to keep light pressure to keep the horse moving, but must stay and still as possible.
After the bounces the horse needs to say straight as they ride away. Sometimes its a good idea to place a single fence after the turn to keep the horse straight after.

 

 

 

~ Jaida
Give a horse what he needs and he will give you his heart in return.