Quote Originally Posted by Husky_mom View Post
and also that´s why they really need to trust you... so when you ask them to jump they should do as they are practically not seeing what they are jumping...
Yes, that is in part true, especially with very large obstacles in which the horse cannot see what is behind it, then he definitely needs to trust his rider that he can get over the fence safely.

However, a horse will jump on its own; many horses, before and after they are broken to ride, are loose-jumped. The horses work out the stride pattern and point of take-off for themselves - in fact they often do it a lot better on their own than with a rider on top!

Plus, there is no exact command that says 'jump' to a horse. Yes, it's your job to get the horse into a good rhythm leading up to the fence, and to balance yourself accordingly to allow him to clear it, and I suppose in a way that is how we show a horse we want it to jump, but you couldn't do the same thing with most horses and make them jump thin air. The horse decides whether or not it's going to take off, whether that's because the stride pattern's wrong or if it spooks at the fence. The rider cannot attempt lift a horse up with their position when they think it's the right time to jump, doing so would make it much harder for him to jump as the rider needs to move with the horse to keep him balanced. So, basically, if the rider wants to jump at a certain point, they have to do the maths and find the stride pattern to that point, then present it to the horse to jump the fence.

JuniorxMyxLove, it's great that this person's tips are helping you ride better, although I wouldn't let him/her take all the glory for it - you are mainly improving through experience and are getting more results with the horses that you ride!