Show jumping video - Critique please :)

Hello

Some of you might have seen this in the "Horse Videos" thread, but I've finally decided to post it here to hear some of your critique, which I hope you'll give me..!

This is at a competition the 18/04-2010
Its a 90 cm. Class
I got a 4. Place out of 22 competitors which isnt bad at all, I think :)
The first 7 jumps were the main course. If you had 0 penalty after the first 7 jumps, you continued straight into the second course, which consisted of 5 jumps. You had to ride these last 5 jumps without penalty and try to get the fastest time to win. (You might notice my horse speeding up round about there, although I didnt feel myself speeding him up. He kind of speeds up himself without me noticing untill its very fast..!)

Well anyway. Its my 2nd competition on him this year, since we had a break from competitions in winter, and the first this year outside.

But enough talk, you can just watch the video and critique on what you see..

YOU CAN WATCH IN FULL SCREEN..! Video quality will not worsen.. At least it shouldnt, and it doesnt when I watch it.. xD

What a cool, willing, and eager horse! I really love him. I'm not very good at form over jumps so I'll leave that to the experts on here, but I just wanted to say, what an awesome horse!

I think you did an excellent job. The first 7 fences you were riding him in front of your leg to the fence, then getting out of his way and staying with the motion over the fence. You really can't ask for more than that especially on a jumper course. When he got rushy at the last 5 I would have liked you to steady him a bit more especially over the third jump where he just kind of flung himself over it. But even then you stayed right with him and didn't get left behind or bang him in the mouth. He seems like a good boy that can be a pistol when he gets excited! I think he's very cute and wish you both the best of luck!

Two comments:

Particularly at the beginning of the course; your reins were too long and your hands were in your lap. Anytime your hands are over the pommel of your saddle you know you need to shorten your reins and get your hand and arm out in front of you where it can be effective.

Your horse is a willing and brave sort who wants to do his job and looks to be capable of doing more. However, his stride and tempo changes frequently, particularly in front of his fences, which is what led to some of the sticky spots. Work on the flat on holding a consistent, rhythmic canter and then carry that over to your over fences work.

Not to hijack the thread...but is it better Maura to really shorten on a horse that has such a short and upright neck? It looked like in the beginning his neck was already so shortened that if she shortened anymore she might end up tipping a bit and giving up her position but I haven't worked with a horse that shortens his neck to that extent so I don't know much about riding that particular type of horse. Just curious though as I'm sure at some point I will and I'm notorious for shortening my reins and compromising my position and jumping ahead on rushy horses.

Nittany,

Great question. By shortening the reins, I did not mean increase or change the contact. I did mean place your arm in a postion where you can open and close your elbow to follow the horses motion and still maintain contact. If your reins are too long and your hands are too far back, you lose effectiveness because you lose the ability to take back and give forward *within* the contact.

This is only true if you've either locked your elbow or your reins are so short that your elbow is straight. Your upper body doesn't *have* to follow your hand and arm, that's what elbows are for!

Totally agree with your point that increasing contact on this horse would be a bad idea as he does definitely tend to shorten his neck. And maybe the rider's long rein is in reaction to that.

She looked better by the end of the video in this regard, in was more noticable in the beginning.

I have a harder time critiquing video because the frame rate is always sped up when you post a homemade video and my brain doesn't think that fast =P. I'm much better live or in sequential still shots. That being said if you don't mind, will you post some time stamps from the video of what you thought she could improve and where you thought she did at the end? I thought she was pretty elastic through her elbows and although she didn't keep them as close to her body as I would have liked to see I don't think her elbows were floppy either. And even when she was visibly a little long in her reins she just brought her elbows back more for the jump and then shortened an inch or two after she landed and before the next fence. I'd love to see another video of him jumping to see if he always gets that excited or if it was just a first show of the season and he was happy to be out.

Thanks for the critique!

I did feel like my reins were to short to start with, but then he sped up which kind of made him stretch more, I guess, and then they were fine.. :)
I don't usually shorten the reins more than that because usually we have a much calmer tempo.. o.o' So there is no need for it since he doesnt shorten his neck as much. I guess he was just very happy and eager

NittanyEquestrian: I'll be posting another video from our training on thursday and perhaps even again on saturday and sunday, since i'll be training again on thursday and the weekends.. :)

By the way, if it will help anybody, I can easily put the video, or just some clips, in slow motion so its a little easier to see..? :)

Maura: Thanks :) I usually count strides in my head to help me keep the same tempo, and I actually did to start with, but then my concentration on that got lost as it was redirected to looking where I was going, and actually riding the horse.. :/ I still forget sometimes, either from the start or half way through xD that's probably why my tempo and stride kept changing.. :/ But i'm working on it.. :p

I used to find simple songs that matched my horses strides when he was lazy, normal and quick and I would sing it to myself over a course. I never had trouble with striding when I did that because I was breathing regularly and I was in tempo with him instead of fighting to find a tempo and then missing it completely. I was infamous at one point for belting out the star spangled banner at a schooling show because I was humoring my trainer and being a goofball lol but we had the best round of the day when I did it.