Jumping Questions?

So today I got board and made some small jumps out of some wood planks and feed buckets the highest is like 2ft I think. My jumping Confidence is really up right now thanks to my cousin amazing Quarter horse that I got to jump up to 2ft well I was visiting. So I was excited to try these jumps with Shaggy my 15hh Morgan Gelding. Well I started by walking him over he wouldn't lift his feet up and over so ended up knocking them over so I sat them back up and tried it at a trot the smaller jump he went over with a little be of a jump but the bigger one he decided to plow right threw it lol I've seen this horse clear a 3ft fence with space to spare(note I was not riding him when he did lol) so I'm not sure why he won't lift his feet. So my questions are

Is it something I'm doing wrong in setting him up for it?
What else I should be doing with my body other then 2 pointing?
How do I get him to lift his feet?
Any advice would sure be appreciated thanks!

So plow right through meaning he knocks it down, or he goes over with no problem? I wouldn't be suprised if a horse doesn't want to walk over 2 ft :) Try making X's instead of a single horizontal pole. You need to make sure you don't whack him in the mouth coming out of the jump. If you don't know much about english, get a riding lesson or look on Youtube, but don't watch idiots if you want to see correct form. Check out George Morris, who is one of the jumping gods.

He knocked it over. I didn't walk him over 2ft just walked him up to it so he could check it out. I know plenty about english riding that's all I ride. I was just wondering if I was setting him up wrong or giving him wrong signals. I'm going to make a cross rail when I get the chance. I can't figure out why he won't lift his feet over the smaller jump its like foot high if that. And I'll defiantly check out George Morris!

So you trotted him up to 1ft and he just ran through it and knocked it down?

If you had a video we could help you more =]

no he stepped over it but he didn't lift his feet high enough and knock it over

im going to try and get one but it rained today so I'm going to have to wait til it drys up lol

Ok I got ya. Then yes, he is being lazy and needs to pick up his feet. Is he going at a fast enough pace? Maybe you need a crop for the first few jumps to show that its not that bad jumping 1 ft...you may not even have to use it. Half the time horses do what you need just by holding one.

True I didn't think about using a crop cause i've never really needed one to get him moving. He's got a pretty fast trot and will trot faster the faster I post. I think maybe I hesitated so he hesitated I lowered the 2ft jump and slanted it (it looks like a half of a cross rail) and he did much better lifting his feet but I didn't to much more cause the ground was a little wet from the rain.

Um, no.. it's not because he's lazy. It's because he doesn't know what you want him to do. If he hasn't been trained to jump or even started by someone who knows what they are doing he has no clue what you are asking him to do. He may have jumped a fence before, but that was without you on him. There is a HUGE difference... You can't expect to just get on your horse and him fly right over a rigged up 2ft jump. That's like expecting a horse to gallop the barrel pattern just because they can gallop and turn.. There is a LOT more work and training you have to put into it before you can expect him to understand what you want him to do... Just because he can jump does NOT mean that he knows how to jump correctly, especially with you in the saddle.

Say your teacher gave you a math pop quiz..You hadn't seen the material before hand..but you can count, add, subtract, and such.. How would you do on an algebra test that you had never seen the material for? But your teacher expects you to be good at it right then, without practice or prior knowledge about the problems in the quiz.. You would fail at it.. It's the same concept with your horse.

And whacking him with a crop to get him to jump the jump will only create problems in the long run..If you want to jump, be responsible and get a trainer or someone to help you and your horse.