Gia - session 125 - Free jumping!
I've been doing a lot of Zoom lessons with my students lately, thanks to Covid-19. Last week, we did a Zoom lesson on free-jumping, with Annie, Cisco and Pippa, and the students loved it!
Free jumping is when a horse goes through a chute and jumps one or more jumps without a rider on their back. Free jumping is often done with younger horses to see what their potential will be. It's also often done at certain breed inspections, or Kur's, where a horse is judged on their technique and style over the jumps.
Everyone liked that lesson so much that we decided to do it again, but with different horses this time. Just for fun, we chose to use the smallest horse on the farm - Dover, and the tallest - Gia, of course!
Gia had been free jumped before. Back when she was about 2 years old, and I was considering selling her, I wanted to see what her potential would be, and take a video to show to potential buyers. If I remember correctly, we only free jumped her that one time, and she made it up to a height of 3'9" with a 3'10" spread (the width of the jump).
It typically takes several sessions to get a horse comfortable with the chute and the idea of jumping before they actually show off their height. But Gia did it all in one go! So, I was pretty psyched for how this session would go yesterday.
I was a little disappointed 😞.
Perhaps because she has gotten so tall, she didn't know what to do with her feet.
Perhaps because I have worked so hard on getting her relaxed and quiet that she wasn't very pumped.
Perhaps she had been napping a few minutes before, and just wasn't awake enough to exert enough energy.
Perhaps she felt rushed because I was on a time crunch since we were in a lesson.
But she didn't perform the way I had pictured in my head that she would.
Don't get me wrong, for only having jumped one other time, she did great! But I had higher expectations (literally) in my head, so it was a bit of a let down.
When we free jump, we always start by walking and trotting the horse in-hand over poles, and then to the feed pan with a smackeral of grain in it, to help them get the idea of what is expected. Gia was a little hesitant at first, but quickly figured it out.
Then we send them on their own over the poles. She was also a little hesitant, but eventually was going ok.
Then we start putting the jumps up, always starting with crossrails, and not going higher until they look like they can handle it.
Most of the problems came from her being a bit lazy. We really had to push her through the chute fairly hard. And maybe "lazy" is the wrong word. I think she was just trying to take time to think. Think about what was going on, think about why all these people were watching her, think about where to put her feet.
That last one is probably the big reason - she needed more time to think about where to put her feet.
They were all over the place!
She's in that awkward teenage phase where she's gotten so tall and gangly that she doesn't know how to operate herself.
She seemed enthusiastic, so I don't think she didn't want to do it, just that she needed more time than I could offer her in the 30 minutes we had for our lesson.
Don't get me wrong, we did manage to get her up to a height of 3'7" with a spread of 4'2", but in my head, she was going to jump 5' easy and do it with such grace and style.
Oh well, maybe another time ...
Free jumping is when a horse goes through a chute and jumps one or more jumps without a rider on their back. Free jumping is often done with younger horses to see what their potential will be. It's also often done at certain breed inspections, or Kur's, where a horse is judged on their technique and style over the jumps.
Everyone liked that lesson so much that we decided to do it again, but with different horses this time. Just for fun, we chose to use the smallest horse on the farm - Dover, and the tallest - Gia, of course!
Gia had been free jumped before. Back when she was about 2 years old, and I was considering selling her, I wanted to see what her potential would be, and take a video to show to potential buyers. If I remember correctly, we only free jumped her that one time, and she made it up to a height of 3'9" with a 3'10" spread (the width of the jump).
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| Gia as a 2 year old, jumping up to 3'9" with a 3'10" spread |
I was a little disappointed 😞.
Perhaps because she has gotten so tall, she didn't know what to do with her feet.
Perhaps because I have worked so hard on getting her relaxed and quiet that she wasn't very pumped.
Perhaps she had been napping a few minutes before, and just wasn't awake enough to exert enough energy.
Perhaps she felt rushed because I was on a time crunch since we were in a lesson.
But she didn't perform the way I had pictured in my head that she would.
Don't get me wrong, for only having jumped one other time, she did great! But I had higher expectations (literally) in my head, so it was a bit of a let down.
When we free jump, we always start by walking and trotting the horse in-hand over poles, and then to the feed pan with a smackeral of grain in it, to help them get the idea of what is expected. Gia was a little hesitant at first, but quickly figured it out.
Then we send them on their own over the poles. She was also a little hesitant, but eventually was going ok.
Then we start putting the jumps up, always starting with crossrails, and not going higher until they look like they can handle it.
Most of the problems came from her being a bit lazy. We really had to push her through the chute fairly hard. And maybe "lazy" is the wrong word. I think she was just trying to take time to think. Think about what was going on, think about why all these people were watching her, think about where to put her feet.
That last one is probably the big reason - she needed more time to think about where to put her feet.
They were all over the place!
She's in that awkward teenage phase where she's gotten so tall and gangly that she doesn't know how to operate herself.
She seemed enthusiastic, so I don't think she didn't want to do it, just that she needed more time than I could offer her in the 30 minutes we had for our lesson.
Don't get me wrong, we did manage to get her up to a height of 3'7" with a spread of 4'2", but in my head, she was going to jump 5' easy and do it with such grace and style.
Oh well, maybe another time ...
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