Capable horse lacking confidence. Advice?

[onlyhorses101]

Hi.. was wondering if anyone had any advice for me. I’ve recently started BS competing my mare starting at 90 although in her previous home she has competed up to Foxhunter. She is very capable and loves jumping although struggles with confidence. It seems that every time I get a slightly longer stride to the fence she will refuse, even though I know she is perfectly capable of taking off from that stride. Obviously an easy fix is try and get a deeper stride (she always jumps from this) however I can’t do this every time and when we move up the heights it will be more difficult for her to clear it from deeper strides. Was just wondering if anyone had experienced anything similar and had any tips/exercises I could try to improve this. Thank you

 

[ihatework]

Is it because of the fact she is deep or far away, or is it because when she is deep she has her backside underneath her, and when she is far away she has become strung out?

Subtle difference.

I would hazard a guess if you have a shorter more connected canter overall then the issue will disappear. 1. Because she will have her engine engaged and 2. Because she will be less likely to be too far off the fence.

 

[LegOn]

Maybe she prefers to go deeper because she is used to jumping out of a more connected, bouncy canter where the stride naturally puts her in closer to a fence. As the heights go up you need a more connected 'bigger' canter but bigger up rather than out so she might be more used to this type of riding.

Try some canter poles which are a bit closer together than you would normally have them & get the feeling for bouncing up the canter into your hand, and you can try it with cavalettis aswell!

 

[onlyhorses101]

Thank you for your helpful responses. Other thing I forgot to mention is that this only happens if the fence is slightly 'scarier' i.e. with fillers, which is what makes me think there might be a confidence thing too. If no fillers, she is happy to take off miles away if I ask her to!

 

[MissP]

Sounds like you just need to get her more confident, which is just practice and knowing which days to build in harder questions and which days to keep it simple. Good bouncy canter as said above will help. If you know she is likely to refuse fillers on a long stride also get someone on the ground to check you're not changing your riding going in to them in anticipation for trouble. If you are holding the reins even slightly harder or going into a more 'bracing' lower leg or core she might be feeling that and reading it as a sign that mum is not sure either. Or maybe more encouragement needed eg I'd have to whack my boot with my crop to make a noise to get mine to go on a long stride into a more imposing jump - it just reminds him he's meant to be going forward or he switches into 'no' . Hate being flappy but it works for him. Mines a pleb though and your mare sounds more capable!