Loose schooling a young National Hunt racehorse

Here we have a young National Hunt racehorse who has been running in bumpers. We are busy schooling her up over hurdles and like to do a bit of loose schooling with them. 

The white hurdle is in now which is something for her to look at. She is very clever and showing the hurdle more respect. Going a little bit quicker, good. There was no stride there and she left one front leg a little behind. I’m slowing it down, so she is on a different stride, good, and then I’m speeding it up, to maybe surprise her – and there you go. .no stride. I’ll try and do it again, quickening up and slowing it down. And there you go, so that was exactly where she went wrong at the hurdle the last time, and again, so I’m getting it were there is no stride. When she did this the first time, there was no stride, and she crashed through and broke the rails. And now, that jump is perfect. So, she has thought about it, and she’s learnt from it. In this video, you can see the process she has gone through.

So basically, all I’ve done is to try and make it really difficult for her. I’ve speeded it up and slowed it down so I can get her to meet it on a bad stride or a long stride and we can get her to meet it with no stride. She’s actually made that first mistake in exactly the same way as she met it the other day and she crashed through the hurdle and broke the rails. She could have done the same thing today, as she had the other day, but she didn’t. There was only a small mistake and to me that’s a massive learning step forward for her today. I’m delighted that she’s gained more respect of the obstacle and that she’s thinking more. It is all well and good standing off a jump all day long and not having to think about things but that could be inches away from her turning over at a jump. She has to be getting herself wrong and she has to be sorting herself out, getting herself out of trouble and thinking for herself. So by me, slowing that down, you can see that she is coming to the jump with no stride whatsoever and she’s had to really think and use herself to sort herself out at the jump.  I’m delighted by her loose schooling this morning.