June 21, 2002, Newsletter Issue #78: Teach Horses to be Safe and Fun Jumpers!

Tip of the Week

First in the Teaching Scope and Finding The Correct Distance is how to teach your horse adjustment of pace and what is impulsion. To TEST YOU AND YOUR HORSE TO DISCOVER if you have begun to teach your horse adjustment of pace and impulsion, you need to set your poles on the ground at varying distances from one another. If you have a horse that is 16+ hands, then try to set the poles at 12` intervals, for development of a moderate pace requiring a steady even impulsion. Then adjust the distance of the poles to 14` apart. This will require you to SLIGHTLY adjust the horse`s pace to increase stride and utilize more impulsion. Then, in adjusting the pace to a more collected ride and less impulsion, place the ground poles only 10` apart. Now, if your horse is less than 15.2 hands, start with only a 10` distance between poles, graduating to 12` distance and then reverting to only a 9` distance for collection. This will truly develop your understanding of pace and stride and impulsion in the bigger picture of scope and balance.

Successfully riding each of these DISTANCES will have you satisfactorily adjusting the stride-pace and the impulsion of your horse, and will produce confidence in horse and rider in order to move on to the next step in teaching a horse scope and balance, which is finding the correct take off point before each fence.

Next week we will discuss finding the correct take off point before each fence.

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