Bitting/Noseband advice needed!

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LJF0664

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My Mare is very strong when jumping, from about 3 strides out she locks onto the fence and there is no stopping her. She has loads of scope, but quite frankly this feels dangerously unsafe as I have no control over takeoff - she does however come back nicely after the fence! Initially this was in a snaffle & flash noseband, I tried varying stronger bits and these made not the slightest difference, so reverted back to the snaffle. I have found that I have brakes in a Grakle noseband, however she absolutely hates it to the point where she will stop and rear when approaching the fence, only wanting to go forward if there isn't a contact.

I should point out that rearing is her default setting, with or without the Grakle. She is a nappy horror when hacking and it took me 4 months after she first arrived to leave the yard without rearing (and more annoyingly, for a brief period, refusing point blank to move anywhere). This is despite her never winning an argument and isn't a problem anymore unless we meet cows, which she hates with a passion. All the usual checks have been done already.

Has anyone got any experience of a bridle or bit combination that would give me some of the control of the Grakle, but perhaps exerts pressure differently? She is fine in the snaffle for hacking and flatwork.

Thanks x
 
Thanks Batgirl, I do feel like its a confidence issue with her, its almost as though shes not sure what to do, so launches herself, but the problem I have is trying to find some middle ground to allow me to work on this. At the moment neither the flash or the Grakle allow me to move forward with her training. I'm not sure how I can build her confidence if we can't get over jumps at a sensible speed!

Without the Grakle I feel like our luck will run out at some point and we'll have an accident, but the level of control with it is too high, hence her reaction. At the last gridwork lesson I had my instructor had to lead us to the first jump in walk to get her over the line with out either me letting her fly at it, or her throwing herself around to evade the Grakle. I agree there is no substitute for training, I just need to make the training a bit safer for both of us!

She's just had a couple of weeks off as she went slightly lame after losing a shoe (opposite leg so I think she strained it slightly) shes fine now and back on turnout so i'll be spending the next couple of weeks slowly building the hacking back up, then my focus will be on flat work initially, then the plan is to build up through pole and gridwork.

I'm just hoping there is a solution out there that will help me get her under enough control so we can build up her experience and confidence without being too severe, as I think this is the problem with the Grakle. I suspect i'm looking for the impossible, but its always worth asking!
 
Fair enough.

Have you tried loose jumping, I found this fab to help my rusher as they could figure it out on their own?
Have you tried a drop noseband instead of the grackle?
 
Batgirl said:
Fair enough.

Have you tried loose jumping, I found this fab to help my rusher as they could figure it out on their own?
Have you tried a drop noseband instead of the grackle?
Click to expand...

Loose jumping sounds like a good idea, she can think more about where her feet need to be and less on fighting the contact. I'm not very clued up on nosebands, but i'll have a look into the action of a Drop and possibly give it a try.

Thanks x
 
cundlegreen said:
Myler combination?
Click to expand...

I've not looked into the combination before, I've just always assumed they're a strong bit, but could be an option as I think a change to how pressure is applied is the way forward. I'll probably give the drop noseband a try first, as I can borrow one from someone on the yard, but if that doesn't help I think i'll try a combination - probably through the bit bank though as they're very expensive if it doesn't suit her!

Thanks for the suggestion x
 
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