Help, Ive taught my horse to run out!

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djlynwood

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I have rather stupidly taught my horse to run out, and Ive taught her well. Im a novice who started riding late in life at 31 and Im 38 now. I have had my first horse for just over a year now. She is a 7yr old ISH.

The last 3 months we have knuckled down to our jumping and have been doing really well considering we are both green (not ideal, I know) and we were jumping a course of 2ft 6 confidently with fillers and water trays.

The last few weeks, I have been feeling really down due to circumstances and it has knocked my confidence in most things I do, not just riding.

My horse is a keen jumper and we have come on from her not picking her legs up over jumps to making a better shape and picking her feet up si we have made a lot of progress.

I know the run outs are due to me not riding her to the fence. She is quite forward to the fences and Im starting to panic a bit when she takes them on so I stop riding her, its then that she swerves out. Its only happened in the last fortnight. I have also done the thing that I never wanted to do and that was to pull her away from the fence when she is already commited. I wanted to bash myself with my whip, could not belive I had done it but I just lost my nerve.

Have a ruined her? Will I ever get back to how we were?

Thanks for reading x
 
You have my every sympathy but no you haven't ruined her and yes things will get back as they were. It will take time and in my opinion you shouldn't attempt anything now until you as a rider are in a better place.

I am 42 and have been jumping for years, only locally and not huge jumps, but none the less I jumped both my horses regularly. Last year I had a huge confidence crisis jumping which eventually resulted in me not even being able to canter over a pole on the ground. I seriously used to canter towards it and pull out.

Both my horses take me into jumps too, they love it and I was in such a state I started shouting ' I can't do it' a stride before the jump and pulling out.

I started again from scratch when I felt I wanted to jump ( it took months ) and with the help of my instructor I am now back to jumping 2'9 without a problem so it is possible.

I would say don't rush it, just wait until you WANT to jump rather than doing it because you feel you should to rectify things.

Good luck :)
 
I was just going to post a thread exactly like this! My mare lives jumping but until recently I have only jumped small (70cm and less) due to nerves. Nerves are going but unfortunately when started jumping bigger my position was crap and to my shame I know I socked her in the mouth on a couple of occasions. Cue her running out when we approach the bigger jumps! I do get her over them and am trying v hard to give with my hands but it seems she has a good memory and had lost some trust in me :(
Sorry for hijacking thread ;)
 
No you haven't ruined her. She is responding to your aids like she would do normally. In this case she is responding to an aid that tells her not to jump. So, she is doing as she is told. When you are ready to give her an aid to complete a jump, then she will. All horses will look for the route of least resistance and if you do find your confidence again and she tries to run out, it is because she will know it is easier and will do whatever is easiest first to test the limits. Just make sure you are clear about what you want and ASK for it!
 
Build your confidence up slowly again with a line of canter poles making sure that you travel exactly down the centre of them. When she is calm and you are confident then raise the one at the end to a cross pole, then one in the middle concentrating on staying central and keeping the getaway straight, as you get confident that she's staying straight take canter poles away until you are down to one placing pole, keep aiming only for the middle and concentrate on a straight get away. Put up several jumps around the area/arena with a placing pole in front of each one. Keep aiming for the centre and a straight getaway. Job done!
 
You have not ruined her: you just have a horse who's behaving differently because you're riding differently. She's responding to your lack of aids and lack of confidence. Horses don't learn to run out: they're more than capable of seeing that fences can be run past rather than jumped over. She's just not needed to do that before because she had a confident partner in crime.

Your horse is a mirror to how you feel. Take time to build your confidence and enjoy your horse without pressure: she is not ruined and you have some good advice above. Best of luck 80)
 
I know this is not my thread but as I said earlier I have been having the exact same problems!
Well result! No run outs tonight...mind over matter as they say
 
Thanks you so much for your replies. It helps to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and we can get back to where we were before.

Im jumping again next week, and we are starting with grids and building up again from there.
 
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