Help Please!

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Jade2007

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Hi Sorry It's a bit long
I bought a new pony called Boomer. He's 14.2hh and has been schooled very well and has amazing talent. With his old onwer he was jumping 3ft6 courses and once even reached 4ft9 in a chase me chalie! When I heard he was for sale I thought he would be perfect for me. The pony I had was fairly old and was struggling as the height I was doing at her, so really I needed another pony. Once I bought him, I had lots of trouble with jumping. Eventually though, we were jumpin 90cm courses and we were both learning to trust each other. Of course, things would not be that easy. We had equine Influenze up my yard a couple of days after my first time doing the open, and couldn't ride for two weeks. We can now ride, however all my hard work has gone down the drain. I am struggling doing small jumps. The other day I was doing a triple with a 2ft3 bounce a stride and 2ft9 at the end. My freind was also riding and put the second part of the triple up to 2ft9. As it was up, I decided to have a go. Even facing him at this jump freaked him out, and after that I couldn't jump a cross pole. Today, I dared try a 2ft3 straight as he seemed to be alright at a 2ft3 cross, and exactly the same happened as before!
If you've managed to read this far, please give me some advice! My instructor isn't up for a while and it's not long till camp [luckily hickstead is after camp so hopefully I will be ok by then]!
Thanks Jade x
 
Sounds like he has lost his confidence for some reason. Maybe you would be best to just forget about jumping for a while until you become more familiar with each other? He needs to trust you and I get the feeling that he doesn't. If you are going to jump then I think you would be far better staying at tiny heights for the moment and move up very gradually. Either that or have someone, who is comfortable with these heights, jumping him so that he can get back his trust in the rider.
 
Thanks for the advice, and I think for a while I'm going to stick to 2ft3, although my DC wont be very happy as I'm going senior camp this year and you're meant to be able to jump 2ft6 courses. The thing that puzzles me is why he's lost his confidence. I've known him for about five years and he's never had an accident when jumping. I think I'll ask his old owner to come up and ride him because she's sometimes up the stables anways. Thanks for the advice.
 
Ah that was the next thing I was going to suggest - that's great if the previous owner is still around and if she can help you out a little that would be fantastic.
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She maybe knows something about him that you don't and can maybe give you some personal advice. Best of luck.
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Have you been jumping him to much so he is fed up of it? have you changed his saddle? had his back/teeth checked , he could be in pain?
 
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