Feature
Improve your jumping technique Amy Smith
Amy Smith is a renowned working hunter pony jockey, boasting a number of national titles including at Horse of the Year Show and the Royal International Horse Show. Amy has been selected for Connemara Team GB at Royal Dublin Horse Show on two occasions, taking team gold in 2016.
Mum to three year old Myles, Amy also works part-time as a hair dresser, so her work with ponies has to fit around other commitments.
Photos by LizzyMint Photography
In part three of our working hunter training feature with Amy Smith, we continue to tackle the working hunter classes and this time look at a simple yet effective exercise you can introduce to improve your horse’s technique and concentration.
Jumps across the diagonal
For this exercise, you will need four jump blocks (see below) equally spaced apart to make a square, with four poles to form the sides, connecting the blocks.
Amy explains that it is a very versatile exercise: “You can use this for a number of exercises for both horses and ponies no matter their experience. Ride it
across the diagonal or use it for a figure of eight. It’s also useful for teaching your horse to change legs. Because you can change the height of the individual elements, you can keep the first jump lower to make it more welcoming, too.”
Start the exercise off as poles on the ground, allowing your horse to walk and trot over the poles across the diagonal. Once your horse is relaxed
trotting and cantering over them, increase the height of the poles to make a jump. Start the jumps low, getting the horse used to the exercise before raising the height.
“Training at home doesn’t need to be about height,” Amy explains. “Anybody can keep jumping big fences, but to jump a course, you need to have your technique correct first.”
Open up your inside rein slightly in the direction of your desired canter lead, and shift your weight ever so slightly in that direction.
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