Judge the Rider, Judge the Horse!! Videos! Jumping!

Hello :3,

This is a recent show me n' Cowboy went to. Cowboy is 4, and is jumping 18' here. I know he hangs his knees a bit - we are working at it :)
Be MEAN to me!! I want you to tell me every little thing wrong with me, and how I can fix it. Same for CB!! ()By the way, my top-half is not as big as it seems :p The wind was getting into my shirt, which is a little big :p()


The person saying "Good Job Cowboy," and "Good Job C" is my daddy :p He is filming. My name is Celeste, starts with C, so that's what my parents call me ^.^ Okay, Next video!!
*** Minor Profane Language From Mom On This One!!***

Cowboy Showing Round 2 - YouTube

Yea, we knocked a rail x.x

=> Yup!! Crit away!! <=

Here's one more video ;)


Ignore my high-pitch-praise at the end - It was his first course ever, and he did awesome, so I was estatic ^.^

There are more people out there who will be able to critique you much better than me, since I'm learning jumping with my horse as well. I was actually hoping to learn something from your thread! Haha.

Our horses look like their both around the same level jumping-wise. It looks to me that he is very eager and has potential and you're a wonderful rider. :)

By the way, I love where you're riding! I wish my barn's set up was more like that and we had hills to work on. Haha.

Thank You ^.^ That means a lot to me!! The showing videos are from the barn I used to take lessons at, the last video is just at my home ;) It was nice at the old lesson barn - arena when you need it, and rolling field in the back when you don't The problem was they had some crappy trainers...

That's actually the flatest/largest spot at my house. It's all just slow, rolling hills (that's KY for ya) but it's straight there, so I jump :o)

Thank you for the compliments ^.^ I'm hoping to get vid of me jumping higher at some point. We were getting Cowboy used to 2', but he got his shoes pulled recently, so no jumping for tenderfoot for a little bit :/ He has a hard time finding a distance, and relies on me telling him. Any ideas on that?

I live in SC, it's super flat everywhere, unfortunately since I don't live in the upstate.

I don't have a lot of experience under my belt with jumping. I started before my trainer moved, was doing good, and then she moved and I switched to a barn who doesn't have many jumpers (that's where I am now). I love it out there, but it's tough when I mostly have to teach myself everything. So, my horse and I are learning together, luckily he's a patient boy. I'm just getting him comfortable over jumps right now and he's pretty good with distance so far. Wish I could be of more help!

What an awesome 4 year old!

Overall, everything looks very good! You both seem happy and I love that he doesn't rush to the jumps. I would work on getting him to be a little more active in his gaits, not faster, but more active. That will help him pick up his feet more at the trot and keep him from wanting to break at the canter. You two are really good and relaxed together, though, and I think you'll progress very well!

No expert here - but I would work on getting him to use his back more and taking more contact. It looks like there is basically no contact at all between your hands/upper body and his mouth which means there is no cycling of his energy from behind - through - repeat. Otherwise I think you two make a lovely pair and the cadence was good. He has a bit of a head bob going on that i'm not sure what to think of. :/

I saw this, too. When you circled him he did a bit of head bobbing.

I think he needs a bit more energy, and you need to make sure that your hands are not too uneven. At times, your inside hand was much farther back and lower than your outside and looked like you had some lean going on in your upper body.

All and all, looked about right for a 4 year old . I love the relaxed way that you sit him, very nicely balanced and simpathetic to his back.

I do think you look very good, there's a couple of things I could think of for you to work on:
1. I think you need to keep a better contact with cowboy in the reins. Do you normally ride western? Depending on the horse (some have lighter or softer contacts) it should feel like you have a bag of shopping in each hand. When he's cantering, move your hands with his head movements to maintain that contact, then give a release over the fences. It might help to stop him wiggling between the fences.
2. Maybe start working up to cantering your courses, that way you can work out strides, and I don't know about you, but I find it far more comfortable to jump fences at the canter!

Hope this helped :)