He hates drops, any ideas??

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Jazzy B

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my lad loves jumping up steps , but is really scared of going down/stepping down - I think its the thought of disappearing into thin air :o has anyone got any ideas how I can get him over this, I have even tried getting off and leading him but he still won't have it - any ideas appreciated - thank you :)
 
I lead mine, but it took lots of goes before he plucked up the courage to join me! Are you starting with one bottom step or asking him to jump down a line of them? Even if they're all the same height it would maybe look more intimidating from the top.
 
Horses don't have a good sense of "depth" which is why water is often a problem. Start small - like tiny, that he can walk down. And gradually increase. This principle applies to everything....."baby steps"....So start with, like a kerb from pavement to road what is that 3"?? Then increase in stages.....just move on when he is confident, not when you think he should!!
 
Has he ever gone down or does he just refuse? If he's bold with other things then maybe just make sure he's 100% in his feet.. If he's a ok then the advise from Alyth is good and practise as much as you can.
 
so far, he seems very brave with everything else :) think just need to hire somewhere and start very small :)
 
One of mine is not very brave with drops, we took him schooling on Friday to really get going over them. Firstly go up every one before tying going down, they often "get" it then, follow another horse can help, go somewhere with plenty of choice so you can really make progress. With ours once he had popped up he would not go down the first one so I threw a handful of gravel at him, I was not riding obviously:), this worked he quickly went forward and repeated several times without any gravel throwing. We moved on to several different drops, always going up first and by the end of the session he was happily dropping down rather than launching and even jumping a fence before or after, this helped him focus more on the rider and less on actually dropping down.

They can take a while to realise they dont need to jump off and just lower themselves, the rider needs to be calm not too aggressive and a person with a well timed aim with some gravel is less stressful than a rider kicking or hitting them it worked really well with mine and he was not in the least worried.
 
well would you believe it, today a small drop and he did it!!! :) big pats and wot a superstar of a boy!!!! :D happy, happy, happy!!!
 
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