In my experience, it is always tension that makes a horse hurry in front of a jump—some sort of anticipation—of either a surprise or distracting move by the rider, or even of the opportunity to get in a little “play time” after the fence.
To truly jump their best, a horse should be free of even the most well-intentioned interference from the rider during the final couple of strides. They should have 100% of their attention on the fence to assure a well-placed, beautiful round arc, without a casual brush of a toe on a pole. Any adjustments by the rider should be completed before this point, with the horse learning that the final ‘fine tuning’ of either stride or balance is part of his job.
With a sensitive horse and a partnership that knows each other well, even the slightest anticipation of the horse’s quickening by the rider can be felt by the horse, and create a vicious circle of both horse and rider waiting for that subtle cue that will prompt the rush.
If the hurrying on your mare’s part is only slight, consistently practice a patient ride. Resist the urge to ‘help’ by applying extra leg at a slightly longer take-off or resisting with your hands at a deeper spot. This might be all it takes for your mare to catch on that it is on her to make those small corrections, and thus cover up any minor variance in take off spot. A good place to practice this is at home over tiny cavaletti or poles on the ground. Do not try to find a distance to these yourself. Instead, let your horse learn to make the adjustment to stride and balance required to avoid stubbing a toe or being awkward in negotiating them. You will learn to be more passive, and your horse will learn a lot about how to make the exercise easier by paying more attention. Even if your mare and you find this difficult at first, I promise that continuing to practice in a relaxed manner at all three gaits will reap big rewards.
On the other hand, if the hurrying continues to happen at real jumps, or happens farther back than the last stride or two, some re-training is in order. Since the problem stems from tension, punishment or harsh aids are more likely to make the problem worse rather than better. Instead condition for a different response by cantering freely forward toward small jumps at home and doing a quiet transition down to the trot in front of the fence to jump it from a relaxed and slow trot. Make your transition early enough at first that it can be done without strong aids to get it done. Gradually you will be able to do this closer to the fence and eventually be able to maintain a relaxed canter all the way to the fence without your horse feeling the need to hurry at the last moment.
In the case of a fresh horse hurrying in the last stride or two and then continuing to rush and play after a jump, you will need to educate your horse to realize that his job is not finished when he leaves the ground. They still need to be responsive, soft and focused on landing as well. Again, I do not like to create more drama (i.e. tension) with a hard halt after a jump, but prefer to give them a job to do on landing, be that a transition to trot, a soft turn, or perhaps a slightly indirect line to a narrow pole or half a flower box on a shortish stride until they learn that each jump is only a ‘bump in the road’ of the whole course. This is to be accomplished with a calm concentration and even pace throughout.
Good luck and enjoy the process of educating your mare on what it is to be a happy and consistent hunter.
