Does anyone have a horse like this?

[xRobyn]

I love Phil to bits but he can be quite frustrating at times!

Both loose, on the lunge, in-hand and under-saddle he will sometimes jump and sometimes not.

Sometimes he will drag me to the jump and it's such a lovely feeling. Other times he will get himself so stressed over a tiny x-pole that he ends up dripping in sweat

If he refused all the time then I'd understand he didn't like jumping etc, but I don't ask much from him. Sometimes he seems genuinely scared and when he clears a new/bigger jump he has a characteristic head toss which is a bit like "Yes, I did it!"

It's not like I'm over-facing him. Everything we jump is smaller than 2ft (in fact most of the things we jump are no more than a foot ) and considering he's 15.2hh they're not like mountains It's not fillers or anything either and our poles are so worn they're not even bright any more. We've been doing lots of trotting pole work and when he gets it right it's brilliant. I just feel like EVERY time I put up a new jump we're starting from square one again

Does anyone else have a horse like this? Should I aim to pop a small jump every time I ride so his confidence grows? Sometimes he won't even jump it when I lead him, and this could be a 6" jump He's a spooky horse anyway but it's quite frustrating!

Oh and the refusing/pulling me can happen both in the same session! He might refuse the first time and then drag me to it, then all of a sudden he'll just decide he doesn't want to any more.

 

[wench]

I would suggest an instructor...

 

[spike123]

How old is Phil? Is he green or is it your confidence that means you stick to jumping such small fences?
Candyman started jumping a couple of summers back and just popped the odd pole and the odd log out hacking. He then started to jump fillers and after crashing through a jump with fillers he became scared of them. That coincided with the start of winter and not being able to jump at all and then last summer when we started up jumping again he had an issue with fillers. This year I started from scratch with polework and then cross poles and then jumping doubles and small spreads and then putting fillers to the side and gradually working him over them. We did our first course with fillers at a show 2 weeks ago and he is now far more confident.This week I started to introduce the water tray into his jumping and this is where we are at now. I found that with Candy its one step forwards two steps back so progress has had to be very slow and steady. He either charges at a fence and then backs off a few strides out and puts in a terrible leap or goes sideways into a fence with the intention of running out if he can. I have also found that he jumps much more willingly once the height is up to a minimum 2'.Anything under that height and he just can't be bothered.

 

[xRobyn]

I would suggest an instructor...

I would love to, but I'm currently saddle-less and can't afford an instructor.

How old is Phil? Is he green or is it your confidence that means you stick to jumping such small fences?

I have also found that he jumps much more willingly once the height is up to a minimum 2'.Anything under that height and he just can't be bothered.

Phil is 10 His green-ness is all my fault and I take full responsibility for it, but I am really loving jumping at the moment! I would love to be able to jump bigger but I don't feel like he is up to it. He does jump bigger jumps a lot better but I tend to stick to smaller ones because he seems to have more confidence over the smaller ones. Plus as we're working bareback I don't want to do too much in case it all goes t*ts up