February 14, 2012 - Free Jumping

Rory Was full of beans today and went straight to canter with jumps and bucks on the longe.  He settled and did some easy trot and longer trot on the right after I reeled him in to get him to walk a few times.  I free jumped him after longeing. He wasn't very good at it and banged his toes and knocked the jump down several times.

I set up the chute and run the horse through it without any jumps the first few times just so they know what they're expected to do. Rory went through twice and the second time stepped on a ground rail, knocking it out of position. I went to put it back and he ran round, came up outside the chute... and jumped in!  So I set up a jump in the chute, which he knocked down while I was picking up the pole he'd knocked down jumping into the chute. He did manage a few respectable trips through at the end and seemed quite pleased with himself afterwards.

I'm having trouble embedding the youtube video in my post today - I'll try to fix it later, but here's the direct link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF-aSPrilb4&feature=youtu.be