Confidence with jumping

ATrueClassAct

ATrueClassAct

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Just wondered what advice people have for a nervous rider when jumping ( me haha). My pony is a retired BSJA/WHP pony and has seen it all/ done it all type of girl. She's competed to international level so she's quite confident in her jumping. Just I'm not at all. I've had her 7 years and I now finally wanna start competing in some indoor jumping shows. So anyone got advice for home practice. Only thing is that the pony is 22 and obviously I wouldn't wanna push her by doing anything over 2ft 3 or max 2ft 6. She is still jumped that height by my friend at our yard...just I kinda wanna try it now without nerves. So advice/stories of nerve over coming would be fab! X
 
I can really nervouse about jumping if I haven't done it for a while and my horse is really good at jumping doesn't rush and quite laid back considering he is an ex racer.

I find just going in the sand school and jumping over & over practise, I normally start off small and gradually build it up at my own pace

Years ago when I was working in a riding school and training for my BHS stages the instructor used to have us jumping a 2'6 course with no stirrups and the best one was jumping about 5 fences in a straight line with no reins / stirrups and she would stand at the end holding up a different number of fingers and as you went over each jump you had to shout out how many she was holding up. It was great fun, scary at first tho but we would be out there for hours and you did start to enjoy the jumping!

I don't think you would be able to do that sort of thing nowadays - 'Elf & safety would probably have a heart attack :-)
 
When I was younger, I had the same challenge. I had to try and get to 2ft 6in. So my sister gave me jumping lessons. We started small, and went upwards. She progressively increased the size telling me that she'd let me know when it got to 2ft 6in. Well she didn't. She announced one day that I'd been jumping over 3ft and hadn't realised! The point is, when you get really tied up in the 'numbers', I think you focus on that and nothing else. Have lessons and start small, just keep increasing it but forget about the numbers for now. One day you'll jump something and measure it and realise you've made it fine :D:D
 
Starting small is where I'm at now haha. People keep giving the advice to steady her up...but her speed actually gives me some confidence. That jumping exercise sounds insane haha. I just gotta be careful the old girl haha. I wouldn't wanna hurt her :/
 
I'm sure she'll be fine despite her age :)
take it slow - I found that the more I made myself just do it, the happier I became and I started asking for them to be put up.
no point in rushing :)
 
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