Teaching a Dressage Horse to Jump?
I have a bay 7 yr old ottb gelding currently being used as a dressage horse (he’s super mellow with a great canter) but I think he would be great as a hunter or equitation horse… How would I go about teaching him to jump? I have lunged him about 3′ over a vertical freely but I don’t know how exactly to start under saddle… I will obviously be working with my instructor but I only see her once a week and we ride 5x each week and I’d hope to do shows next season… What should I do/how do I go about training him how to jump?!
Thanks!
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Its a pretty simple step to teaching a dressage horse how to jump… Well maybe not but here is some simple steps.
1. Start of slowly, make sure that your horse knows you have all the time in the world to train. Because as soon as you start rushing, the sooner everything will go wrong.
2. Trot your horse over trot poles, and canter your horse over poles set up for canter.
3. As days go on, raise up the end pole slowly, then when you trot through, your horse will have to pic up his feet a bit more.
4. Slowly start to raise the pole higher. As the horse starts jumping under saddle, he will start getting used to weight being on his back.
5. Just make sure you don’t over do everything. Free jumping and under saddle jumping are two completely things. A horse who can jump well free jumping, may not under saddle. because there is the extra weight and everything. My horse can free jump perfectly but as soon as you try and jump him under saddle, he tries to refuse, and sometimes he takes off to early, or just bes stupid.