Clumsy horse come good. I need your happy-ever-after stories

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Somethinglikethat

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Give me your clumsy horse come good stories.... in the midst of a 16-fault crisis with a hugely capable horse, she's most certainly not over faced, xc gives them air beyond what is deemed necessary. Trains over grids, v poles perfectly. Has had time off to focus on fun stuff. does lots of hacking, flatwork lessons, yes that could always be improved, she's only 6...but she's got clumsy its seems once one pole goes the next four follow in quick succession, plus i would love to hear your favourite agility exercises to get the front-end lifting!
 
I do find once they know they fall and it's not painful you can't really do anything.

Maybe a heavier pole if yours are espically light. Otherwise i find they tend to do it more with smaller jumps due to lack of respect that once you bang it up they give it a bit more heed
 
I tend to leave boots off my young horse, so if she touches something she realizes!
I have the opposite issue tho, mine is too careful and if she thinks shes going to touch it she will stop !
 
Any chance this is a thoroughbred?

From what you've said about knocking one and then the next few fences going is it possible it's actually that she's getting tense and then not making a proper shape? Possibly a mistake is made at the first knock and then she gets tense and knocks the next few?
 
Yes she will never stop, which results in some interesting shapes over fences, boots off is a good idea and finding somewhere with heavy poles. Ours are plastic...

Irish Sports Horse, yes you could be right she was quite tense jumping when she first arrived and rushed everything. She doesn't feel tense but i suppose bring it back to trot regrouping and then setting off could be a good exercise to try after a knock.
 
If she is only 6 it could be lack of strength? The strength needed to hold herself together round a course and make a good shape jumping.

XC and grids are OK as they are straight lines or just 1 or 2 fences strung together, but the tighter turns SJ'ing highlight her weakness and once it starts to fall apart she struggles to recover and gets tense/stressed as suggested.

I think the suggestion to come back to trot, circle if necessary and give both if yourselves time to regroup may help, and think about other non jumping work to improve her general fitness and strength.
 
Somethinglikethat said:
Yes she will never stop, which results in some interesting shapes over fences, boots off is a good idea and finding somewhere with heavy poles. Ours are plastic...

Irish Sports Horse, yes you could be right she was quite tense jumping when she first arrived and rushed everything. She doesn't feel tense but i suppose bring it back to trot regrouping and then setting off could be a good exercise to try after a knock.
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Just be careful that if it is tension/ worry then using heavy poles will potentially just make it worse as then she really will have something to worry about! Personally I always prefer a horse that will forgive a miss and tap a pole than is too worried and stops.

Improving her flatwork and strength should also help and make sure you're really aware of your position and aids - e.g. make sure your shoulders are back enough to allow her to use her shoulders, especially when taking off. Some horses you can get away with blue murder and they'll leave the poles up, some are a lot more sensitive!

If there are any good trainers it can be really useful to have eyes on the ground to see what is happening.
 
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I have the same problem with my girl (ISH as well) although more her back end rather than front. She is super careful and scopey but sometimes back legs don't match front leg scope!
I would be interested to hear tips also.
One thing that I have noticed tho is speed to a fence really plays a part, if I am too fast and flat the back legs don't follow and we tend to have it down, a bouncy but forward canter where you can really feel her sitting on her hocks is almost a certain she will keep it up.
 
Well it's interesting you should say that as we did have a little spate of back legs knocking but that was me sitting up too quickly and transitioning my weight onto her backend too quickly before she'd had a chance to get over the jump... we fixed that and created a front end problem.. so perhaps its my weight distribution.... Although our instructor can't see anything untoward with the position i now have, she thinks she's got to learn this new way of using herself, like you say back on the hocks and not fast and flat.
 
I'd lack a lack of performance done, but that's just me.

I recently went through this with my ex racer, I have a thread on here about it. He showed no signs of something being amiss other than being trippy/very clumsy over fences and not working into a contact.
 
I'm new to horse and hound can you
IrishMilo said:
I'd lack a lack of performance done, but that's just me.

I recently went through this with my ex racer, I have a thread on here about it. He showed no signs of something being amiss other than being trippy/very clumsy over fences and not working into a contact.
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I'm new to H&H can you show me the link to your thread so I can read, I can't work out how to find it. Also can you confirm what you mean by 'lack a lack of performance done' do you mean you'd put it down to lack of performance i.e she needs to build up muscle etc for showjumping as above xc etc in straight lines and has speed to counteract any ability issues.
 
Somethinglikethat said:
I'm new to horse and hound can you

I'm new to H&H can you show me the link to your thread so I can read, I can't work out how to find it. Also can you confirm what you mean by 'lack a lack of performance done' do you mean you'd put it down to lack of performance i.e she needs to build up muscle etc for showjumping as above xc etc in straight lines and has speed to counteract any ability issues.
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How on earth to unpack all of this…

Ex racer, 6. Owned for a year. Persistent tripping issue and has never been able to work on a contact. Teeth done multiple times, bitting specialist came, no difference. I have a great farrier who works with the vet who saw him today, he shoes him with a rolled toe and side clips. X rays - we...
forums.horseandhound.co.uk forums.horseandhound.co.uk

If you explain to your vet that your horse isn't performing optimally/is clumsy, they will work her up for you (lameness check, X rays, etc.)

It's absolutely possible that she's just lazy with her feet or genuinely clumsy, but I would like to be sure there isn't something going on if she was mine.
 
Usually I would agree that lack of performance work ups are needed/ helpful but I'm not sure I'd agree on this one - If the horse needs a bit of strength building and is fairly young and not done a lot of jumping then it seems plausible it's not due to a health issue. If she's failing to build up strength or has something else going on (like yours did with not working in to the contact) then I'd absolutely agree with a work up.
 
Also some horses just aren’t as careful as others at the end of the day. Not every horse is going to swing their back end up or snap their front legs up.
I think my mare falls under that category! You can do things to help as mentioned above flatwork etc but I do think some just aren’t as careful as others you see out
 
Thank you all someone far more experienced than me had a sit on her and said although she's fit, she's very weak, so as you all rightly said we will focus on flatwork, poles and hacking for winter and we'll come back to jumping in spring!
 
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