Jumping Three Little Bears Style

Have you been just itching to ride Highboy jumping?  Now you can see what it's like!  I recently went into Best Buy to get new batteries for my regular camera in hopes that I could replace the batteries and that would get the camera functioning again.  I came home with a GoPro.  I did get the batteries, too, and now the regular camera works, but I'm really excited about being able to video rides from a helmet camera!

Here is the first video of Highboy jumping a grid in the arena, then a larger vertical and barrels.

There were some questions about what I'm doing with all the kissing noises.  When I'm teaching a horse how to jump I use lots of voice cues, and this sound is one of them.  To increase the pace, stride length, or speed at the canter I make a kissing sound.  I also use the phrase, "ready" to help him see where he should take off when jumping.  You'll hear me saying "ready, ready, ready, *smooch*" to help him know where to lift off at the base of the fence. 

Once the horse is better at doing this and seeing his distance on his own I let him choose his takeoff point so he can make more mistakes and thus learn from them.  Finally the horse gets to where he sees a distance, I see a distance, and then the horse and I can work together to get the distance that will be best for that circumstance.  For example in the arena we can take a long spot, or jump the fence from a longer distance away if the fence is not too large and it of course will fall down if we hit it.  As the fences get bigger especially when we jump cross country,  the horse has to be more precise with the takeoff point.  He needs to jump precisely from the base of the fence because if he hits it, it's not coming down since those things are solid. 

I always teach a horse to find his own distance as well as listen to me when I want him to take a certain distance.  This is because as a mere mortal I'm going to mess it up occasionally, and I want the horse to have the knowledge and experience to save our butts if need be.  This is accomplished by letting the horse make mistakes and figure out how his body works from different angles, speeds, and approaches to the jump.  That way when challenging questions arise on course, he has tried it before in safe situations and can think his way through the problem with me.  Prior to me even riding Highboy over fences, he has spent a lot of time jumping at liberty in the round pen and arena experimenting with his body and the many ways he can clear a fence.

I call this type of learning to jump the Three Little Bears Style. 
Sometimes he jumped it too high for the size...

Sometimes he jumped it very low...

And sometimes he jumped it just right.

I took a second video with the GoPro, this one is galloping out in the fields with Highboy and the dogs.  I still need to do a little adjusting with the camera.  I would rather the horizon be visible in front of the horse on the video, lest the audience think I spend all my galloping time staring at the horse's neck and not steering.