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There are a few reasons for horses not rounding over fences and I
recently had my horse decide not to round.
Cavaletti seem to be out of favour at the moment since a few horses
have been badly injured using them and as an alternative we use
Telegraph poles as trotting poles. I,ve yet to see a horse that doesn't
look down going through them.
In some cases the horse does not round because he is waiting for a pull
in the mouth after the fence. This usually due to a rider with an
unbalanced seat or a horse which stands off fences giving the rider a
bad ride. The placing pole in front of and after the jump the jump usually
cures this one. Also a good excercise for the rider is to place a
trotting placing pole in front of the jump and two parralel poles 3to 4
feet apart forming a tunnel into the placing pole, when the horse enters
the tunnel look away at right angles to the direction and go with the
horse. It's amazing how your hands improve after a few jumps.
My horse was jumping hollow and he was described as taking off like a
Jumbo jet and landing the same way (almost back legs first). We thought
it might be due to teeth so off we went to the vet (it took 4 to do his
teeth the last time) but his teeth were ok. He asked what we were
concerned with and we described his jumpimg as above. Ah! he said
Showjumpers disease and immediatley pressed the sacroiliac Ligament on
his quarters and he flinched. He gave us a drug called MSM (can't
remember the latin) and he has been as better than ever since. It's as
if all his joints have been oiled.
Hope you get your problems sorted
Good luck
Gareth
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| Wendy,
I"ve just read your reply to my note in 1465 after my last reply
to this note. As your horse is Irish bred the last part of my reply may
well be approrriate. Most good jumping Irish horses have what dealers
here call the "jumpers Bump". This is a pronouned bump on the top of
his hind quarters. From there there is usually a hollow running down to
the top of his tail ( all good draught/tb's have it) this hollow should
not get any shallower at the "bump". If it is then he may have the
Sacroiliac infamation problem. To test if it is sore,stand to the side and
put you hand directly parralell to the bump and about 3 to 4 inches to
either side and dig your fingers into him quite hard. If he goes down
he either has the problem or Myositus. The two can be seperated by
having a CPK blood test done. If the Cpk is above 250 then is due to
lactic acid build up causing muscle damage, if not it may well be the
sacroiliac problem. The Myositus is a mild form of "tying up" and can
be sorted out by adding Selenium, vit e and DMG supplements to the food
and also reducing the amount of oats and barley to the food getting the
Ca/Ph ratio correct.
All the above is from bitter experience and not from being smart I can
assure you,
Gareth
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| Gareth,
Thanks for your advice, William has got a shallow down his back going
towards his tail - to tell the truth I have not noticed it getting any
shallower or any deeper, I will try your methord tonight although I do
chech his spine regularly and he does not seem to flinch. He is very
flexable in his quaters, hocks and fetlocks and I am very careful
about the amount of oats I give him, and he is worked fairly hard, by
that I mean a lot of road work and is turned out every day and at the
moment he is out at night. I have not over done any sort of jumping
with him, I have always been very careful as to not over do it and
try not to jump on hard ground. He does round over bounce jumps, and
trotting poles and never attempts to play about going through them,
infact he rather enjoys it.
As I may have mentioned before he is a big horse and is quite long in
the back (T'bread in him I suppose!) and I think he may need to do
a lot of grid work to get his muscles built up agin.
Regards
Wendy
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