Mavis Spencer’s Favorite Jumping Exercise

Grand Prix rider Mavis Spencer shares a simple gymnastic exercise to help your horse slow down his mind.

This simple gymnastic is helpful to tune up your horse and slow down his mind. I find that placing a ground rail on the take-off and landing side of a vertical, followed by an an oxer gets the horse to slow down a bit at the fence and really use his body. This is one of my go-to exercise for between-show schooling sessions.  

© Practical Horseman

This exercise isn’t about the fence height, it’s about getting them to slow down. When the vertical is 3-foot-3 to 3-foot-6 (or even lower), placing the rail nine feet in front of, and 10 feet behind, the jump is a good distance. When using these ground poles with an oxer or with a larger fence, I push the pole on the landing side a bit further out. If your horse is not used to the exercise, give them an extra foot or two on either side of the jump.

SHARE THIS STORY
CATEGORIES
TAGS
RELATED ARTICLES
suppleness
The Pursuit of Suppleness
IMG_5676
Hone the Half-Halt
stirrup
Stirrup Control for Greater Stability
serpentine exercise
Phillip Dutton’s Serpentine Exercise