Jumping Zippo - critique

Hey everyone,

I got some videos of me jumping Zippo in our last lesson! Rip us to shreds


Thanks!
Equuestriaan

You look good!

You need to get your hands up out of your lap though.

Raise your hands up a little bit and put them together don't keep them in your lap.
Slow him down do a half halt on him to slow his canter. umm also your pumping with your body so do a half seat and not pump.

Other then that you look good.

Like everyone else said,hands up,try to slow your upper body movement down,i see way to much going on up there.Keep your legs behind you instead of in front of you,this is what probably makes you do that "pumping" movement. cute pony good luck!

I do not think that with a speedy horse, the half seat would be effective, at all. This is the mistake many riders make when their horse gets quick, myself included. If i'm not reminding myself constantly, at the canter this is what I do. If you give a horse something to lean on, they're going to take it. Instead sit deep and tall. Bring your hands up a tad, thumbs on top, and breathe. In the second video when you were heading to the second jump I would have broken to a trot to get that change, if he doesn't do flying changes. You don't want to make the turn to a jump on the wrong lead. It can unbalance the horse. You're looking good! Really only a few minor things to fix.
:]

Thanks everyone! I'll work on my hands and seat next lesson. And yeah, I totally forgot to check my lead :P

Not to be too harsh, but that runout was mostly your hands. Judging from the first video, where he jumped something else on the wrong lead, he's capable of it. But you pulled with your left hand, which made his neck come to the left, and his body go left. Next time, keep your left hand down, raise your right hand a little and keep your right leg on him. Preferably, you could have slowed to a trot - those jumps are little enough for him to take from that. Otherwise your position is very good - be careful of getting ahead of him though, as it's throwing you out of the saddle on the landing.

I have to disagree with that. The first time was pretty much my fault cause I felt him start to hesitate and pretty much pulled him out to the right. When we came around and did the line again, I knew he was going to try to dodge right so I added a lot of left rein. The second time he ran out, it wasn't because I was pulling with the left rein. He put his nose in the air and ran to the right even though I was steering him left.

If I hadn't been pulling him left, he would have been able to run out even more easily. It would be silly to add right rein when he's already running out to the right.

"raise your right hand a little and keep your right leg on him."

That is actually good advice. Raising you right rein would help block his shoulder and help encourage him not to run out. She's not saying PULL the right rein, but raise it. You can pull on the left rein all you want but if he pops his shoulder like that he's gonna run out no matter what.

Oh, okay. Thanks for clarifying!