Critique Cowboy jumping

Okay, I see what you're saying, and you're right for the most part, but you have to look at rider error before the horse error. He's only doing what he's taught. Each of the girls AT LEAST once, I saw getting WAYWAYWAY ahead of him.

Girls- You need to practice waiting for your horses. Getting ahead is not a good habit to have. Your horse is SOOO honest for taking all those fences with all the extra weight your adding when you jump up the neck.

Love the horse though.

I also agree with maura 500%
The rails you're using are very flimsy, and are EASILY caught under the horses legs when knocked, causing easy injury to horse or rider. I did honestly cringe at your jumps a little bit. Lol. The standards are fine, but please get heavier poles.

Ps. Lubylol, you have a nice hunter form over jumps.

Maura; oh oh oh I get what you mean. I rarely use groundlines anyways and just tend to use whatever is there.

MI; thanks for the compliment. Most of the poles are wood, they are all the painted ones, and we have a few pvc poles do. We normally use them for groundpoles but when we have a big course set up like that we usually run low on jumping poles so we use them. I've never had a problem with them, never had them shattered when the horse knocked them, or got caught in them. My old barn used to use them too and they were wonderful. If I were a horse I'd rather get caught up in a light pvc pole that I can kick out of my legs easily, then a hard wood piece that would hurt.

I'll admit I'm not the best jumper. I stopped taking lessons after one or 2 english ones (rode western for 3 years) then got Cowboy, and got an english saddle with him lol. So I pretty much had to teach myself, or have Jordyn give me little lessons. I'm looking into trainers and coaches now for winter riding, so by spring me and Cowcow can be ready to show. We'll only be doing 4h shows though haha.

You're welcome. Yeah, but it's that onnnnneee time that something happens. I've seen a really nasty fall involving PVC. I'd always rather be safe than sorry.

Okay, maybe PVC doesn't hurt, but why wouldn't you want them to hurt.. When it doesn't hurt the horses legs to knock a rail, don't you think it would make sense for the horse to just knock them all the time? Why put in the extra effort if it doesn't hurt to be lazy? You can easily teach a horse to start dropping rails without hard poles. That also creates a danger, because now your horse isn't picking up his feet and could trip or fall. That's why we wear boots to protect our horses legs.

If he was knocking poles enough times for the chance of them to break, I wouldn't be jumping him as high, and if it got to the point he still wouldn't pick up his feet I would jump him at all...

I agree with what has been said, and I know you mostly want the horse critiqued. He looks very willing and honest to me. You say he has a habit of refusing and your jump set up has a LOT to do with this. The practice of not using ground lines is VERY dangerous to you and your horse, and this horse IMO is too good and honest to mess up because we were too lazy to use appropriate ground lines. If you watch even cross country and upper level ring jumping you will see that all jumps will have ground lines or an appropriate place for a horse to center and judge himself.

A horse refuses jumps mainly out of lack of confidence. You take away ground lines, you take away your horse's confidence. You then put "okay" riders on who are not quite where they could be which causes a horse to be off balance or uncertain of his rider and you take away more confidence. The sharp turn after jumping a certain jump the correct direction probably has a reason as well, you need to find the reason he does it and fix it, and jumping it backwards isn't really a fix and you would never get away with it on any jumping course. He doesn't feel safe going over it and he's trying to tell you it's hard for him. He does it because he is so obedient and honest but it's hard for him for some reason and he is saying "don't make me do that."

The horse is lovely. The horse is willing. The horse has nice form. The horse has great potential. Fix anything that could take away his confidence and you are going to have a horse that others will be jealous of.

Thank you thank you thank you ^^^^^^

Didn't you have the YouTube video posted of him repeatedly crashing through a fence?

Not repeatedly, it was like once or twice....and we don't normally jump him that high that's why we didn't lower it, we were trying to see how how he would go...that's why we normally only jump 2'6" on a good day lol

Maybe it is just me, but I have a hard time evaluating ANYTHING from a 3 second video.

Also, I did a freeze frame on your 3'6" jump. If the jump is 3'6", then you are at least 8 feet tall. And your horse easily hits 24 hands at the withers...





I don't know about the horse, but I suggest a career in politics for the rider.

I think you and Cowboy have great potential as a pair in the hunter ring. He looks extremely willing and that he enjoys jumping. However, I really don't like how some of the videos don't show him landing and leaving the jump, they cut off with his back legs still finishing the jump.

I'm not a big jumper anymore, but I can tell you have a very good boy there. Use the ground poles for safety reasons though, and to help him know when to take off because it looked to me like he took off early quite a few times.

Overall, for someone who hasn't taken English lessons and rode Western for 3 years, you're doing a great job with him and I can tell you guys will have a successful future together as long as you properly train him for jumping. :) Good luck!