Correcting a Horse's Confidence (jumping)

So for this post I am going to be taking a different approach to my blog and am going to be explaining how we went about getting Buddy's confidence back with jumping as a lot of people have been asking and thought I would do a detailed explanation to explain it. I am going to see how this post goes down and if it is successful I will look to doing more of these blog types (I will still include reviews), if not I will stick to my usual style of more reviews and updates.

So back in August (2017) I noticed Buddy getting a little hesitant with his jumps, he had been jumping really well before that so I put it down to him being a little unfit after having a few days off; Buddy also is quite green when it comes to jumping and does refuse a bit so it wasn't anything new for me. However he started to get worse: he was comfortable jumping up to 95cm but when we got to 1m+ he started refusing.

During this time my cousin was visiting and she agreed to give me a lesson with Buddy and it went really well until we got to 1m and then he stared to refuse again causing me to fall off.

After this I talked to my instructor and we booked in some lessons to focus on Buddy's confidence and how to ensure we got him back to where he had been before.

When correcting a horses confidence it is extremely important to take it very slow, not push them and always end on a good note. If something goes wrong do not get annoyed at them; put the jump back down and encourage them into it. If you go against any of these things your horse may become unfixable so it is vital you do these things.

Lesson 1: Straights

So when starting to get a horses confidence back we started with how I would normally start a jumping session: with a cross pole to warm up. However we put it down a couple of holes, then trotted Buddy into the jump for the first couple of times to allow him to see the jump and get used to it. Once I felt that he was happily going over the cross in trot I let him start cantering into it, it is important keep your horse in a controlled canter when doing this and to be sure that you get a good stride, keep your leg on and if they go to hesitate push them on. The first time may be a bit messy but just focus on getting them over it. After Buddy was over it we kept trying him with that jump in canter and when he seemed to be confident and not hesitant we raised the jump a bit and when he seemed comfortable with that we tried him with a small straight.

With straights it is important to put a pole underneath to stop them from looking under the jump, we took the same approach as I did with the cross and gave Buddy a lot of confidence into it. Then we did the same thing as we did with the cross and when Buddy felt confident we stopped there.

The final exercise we did was a grid. The good thing about grids is that as long as you set them to the right striding, after a couple of tries your horse will feel more confident as they know that the striding is then correct and they are more likely to jump it which gives both of you confidence. So we set up a grid of three jumps with one stride between each jump. Then put the first jump up to a cross and left the other two down. The purpose of this is to allow your horse to get used to there being poles after the first jump which allows them to prepare for when the other jumps are up. When approaching the jump it is important to keep your horse in a calm canter and make a square turn into the jump as this gives you the best possible chance of getting the correct stride, give them confidence through the turn and sit quiet and don't mess with your hands too much when approaching the jump. Again it may not be pretty but focus on getting them over for the first time and after repeat until they are comfortable. After this we put up the second fence up to a cross and repeated until Buddy was comfortable and then put up the third fence up to a cross until he was are comfortable going through the whole grid.

Once Buddy was comfortable going through he whole grid with the jumps as crosses we put the last jump up to a straight and continue doing the same thing. Then I kept going until I reached a height we were happy with (not too high) and then finished there as this was a good note to end on.

Lesson 2: Spreads

In this lesson we built on what we did with the uprights where we worked with a grid with three jumps however this time instead of there being a straight at the end we had an oxer, we also set an oxer up in the centre of the arena. To approach the grid we did the same thing as last lesson where we started with one jump as a cross and then slowly put the other jumps up to crosses as well, then we followed the same order as before where we put the last jump up to a straight. This time however when he felt comfortable with the straight we put it back down to a cross and then put a back bar on it. We made sure that it wasn't too big so he didn't feel worried and once he was comfortable with that we gradually put it up. (ignore Buddy balancing himself by jumping to left).

Part 2:

After this we used the jump in the centre of the arena where we put it as a straight and used the same method we did throughout this session and the previous one and then put it up as an oxer after this we put the two jumps together and finished the session there.

Lesson 3: Bounces and Courses

In our third lesson we set up a grid with a bounce at the start then one stride to an upright and then two strides to an oxer, then we had planks which led down to a wall. We started off the lesson by having the first jump in the grid up and then slowly put up all the other jumps as Buddy got more confident with each one as we had been doing throughout all the other sessions. Then we tried him over the single fences where he flew them and finally tried doing a couple of courses.

Overall the best way to get a horses confidence back with jumping is time, patience and repetition. Never push a horse when getting their confidence back and make sure that if you do jump between sessions it is only very small to minimise risk of something going wrong and them then becoming unfixable which could happen.

Please note that this approach worked for Buddy and I would really recommend it but there are plenty of other techniques out there so talk to your instructor about which technique would work best for your horse. I have helped another horse get it's confidence back with jumping before and all we did was jump over crosses but this just shows how each horse varies.

I hope this blog helped if it did please give it a like so I know to do more blogs of this style.

Liv and Buddy