Photo # 70: This is Anna! (Current freebie!)

Hi Anna!

As usual, your position is near perfect here! Your leg is solid, and your heels are well down, yet I get a slight sense of stiffness or rigidity in your ankles in this picture. A more flexible ankle will give you better shock absorbers, and even more solidity in your position. You may need to move your stirrups slightly toward the front of the ball of your foot to help you find that increased depth of heel. 

Your automatic release is simply textbook! And while your seat may be a little too close to your saddle in this photo, I understand why you are doing it here. Since your horse is slightly out of balance over this fence, and jumping a bit over the front end, your quick self preservation instincts have quite rightly kicked in, which has caused you to unconsciously push your center of gravity back and down. It is a great instinct to have, but you do want to make sure that you don't fall into the habit of staying so close to the saddle that your seat might actually hinder your horse's ability to fully use her body in the air. 

Your seat being so close to the saddle actually almost makes your stirrups look a bit too short here - yet I don't think they are. If you just put a bit more weight in your heels and pushed your seat out of the saddle an inch or two, your stirrup length would look perfect. 

As I mentioned, your horse is a bit front end heavy here, as evidenced by her low forearms and that hanging right front knee. Especially as I know that your horse can have quite a good front end over fences, I am quite certain that her canter was unbalanced on the approach to this fence. This caused her front end to be so heavily loaded at the moment of the takeoff, that she was unable to completely rock back and lift her shoulders properly. 

Make sure you do lots of work on maintaining a good quality canter between jumps, and are always checking for self carriage between jumps to prove that you have it. Read this article on how to package the canter stride when jumping, and this one on the adjustability exercise. Lots of half halts, rein backs, and transitions... particularly those that skip a gait like trot to halt or canter to walk, will help you to coil the spring of your horse's hind legs, to put her in a state of balance where she can be more agile on the takeoff. Also read this article on the Rubber Band exercise, and incorporate transitions within the gaits in your everyday work.

I would also suggest that you try some of the jumping exercises listed in this article on getting your horse to spend more time in the air. Jumping over the front end is quite different than jumping flat, but the exercises outlined in that article are designed to teach the horse to rock back on its hocks more on takeoff - so will benefit your horse as well.

Good luck Anna! Let me know if you have any questions.