She also says (and I think I finally may have enough perspective to have an opinion) that a green horse will often jump on trail simply out of lack of > experience/perspective...they simply don't know yet what they can step > over > and what NEEDS to be jumped.
I agree completely. I did not allow Tosca to jump until she had quietly walked over everything for several months. She is jumping about 8" - 12" logs with permission and never from the walk, only when moving forward. She is not allowed to jump twigs nor do I allow her to jump over a little dark gully with water running at it's base. This is a spot that the majority of horses would like to jump the first few times because the lighting is tricky and they can't figure out the perspective. The rules are that she can jump what I want to jump, not what she's too green to negotiate. To further complicate this, Hunter is NEVER allowed to jump anything. Although he seems to have turned into a sedate grown up trail horse, he has such a history of anxiety that I feel he needs to step carefully through everything. I use the cue "step", taught at the mounting block They both have learned that "step" means to take a look and a step forward, one step at a time. And it never means "leap". Nancy
