Horse Training Nerd
My daughter ‘s pony Sutter (AKA World’s Best Pony) really took to liberty jump training. He is a pretty athletic little guy and loves to jump, buck and play-basically he loves anything that gets all 4 hooves off the ground. Sutter is just learning how to jump courses, but I can already tell he is going to excel at this ;-). Check out his video below:
My “once in a lifetime” horse Tucson passed away back in 2013. So, imagine my surprise when I found out he had been featured in Horse Nation. I love the idea that he is still doing his “demos” for people, even long after he has gone. I hope he is still getting carrots in heaven every time someone watches him jump at liberty! As of today, there are over 30K views….that’s a lot of carrots!
Here is the last step before Wiley learns to jump mini courses! Wiley can:
These are all the basics of free jumping a course. I have started adding some energy to the process as well. Wiley is starting to offer the trot for both the “send” and “recall.” Of course the “jumps” are only poles. I don’t raise the jumps until the horse totally comprehends the idea of jumping courses at liberty. Even then, the jumps are just gradually raised. Wiley is only 2 in this video, so he won’t be jumping any big fences soon, but he can learn the concept! My next step will be to create mini courses out of poles and teach Wiley how to learn the different courses. Even though I can’t ride the baby dinosaur yet, I can still have tons of fun with him….and bond a little in the process!
DelMarHorseGirl
Just wanted to share this old video of my previous partner Tucson. “T” could jump courses of up to 8 fences at liberty….complete with in and outs, rollbacks, and bounces. It only took minutes to teach him a new course too. Sadly, I never got it on video. This is all that was ever taken….just a quick shot on a friend’s cell phone while I was working “T” one day. I didn’t even bother to set all the jumps. I never dreamed this would be the only video of his most spectacular trick. I have started to teach Wiley liberty jumping. It is a long process. You can bet when Wiley finishes learning it, I will get it on tape!
DelMarHorseGirl
My previous horse Tucson was trained to jump entire courses of up to 8 jumps without a rider. Wiley is going to attempt to learn the same trick. It starts out simple with training the horse to walk over a pole or cavalleti on the command “jump.” In the first video, it is is clear that Wiley is getting the idea behind the command.
Del Mar Horse Girl 