Help scared of coloured poles!!!!

T

tinytopsy

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Hello
My new pony has a fear of coloured poles he will jump over ground poles if another horse goes first. i'm not sure how to get his confidence up so does anyone have any ideas or tips??
Thanks very much in advance :)
 
I had loan pony just like this only he wouldn't go even with a lead. I started walking in hand leading over. The rode in between two the when ok with this stepped out over one. The worked over single random poles being very patient and just keep on calmly asking him to step over. When he did this ok I made them minute jumps and started again in hand then on board. Then gradually increased height and went over in trot and finally canter then doubles etc... Took about 2 years from single pole terror to jumping a simple 2 6 course in a steady canter. I never forced him or hit him just kept on calmly asking him over. It was slow progress but it did work in the end he was actually very nice to jump.
 
In his stable, put his feed bowl in a corner, and place a pole diagonally from wall to wall across the corner, so he has to step over it to get his feed each time. Pony we had who was terrified of poles [Pure fear, not just 'unsure'] and we had to do that for a while just to get him accepting poles on the ground.

If he's not too scared, as in he'd bomb around away from them, turn him out with some fences and poles up.

Then just start schooling him with poles on the ground in the school, working around them, not over them, to start with till he's relaxed. Then build up to striding poles etc. Do this on the ground first, so long lining/lunging/inhand etc to build his confidence up.
Then introduce pole work over them, single pole at a time till again he's relaxed.

Once he's happy like that, build him a jumping lane. Again, start as a clear chute, then put a single pole, then build up from there, trot poles, canter poles, and then a single fence with placing poles and then building up to grids, so he can start thinking about what poles are for, rather than stress about the build up to them.

That's what we did with that previous pony.
Granted, he was too damaged to ever be used as a jumping pony and was retired/banned from any form of polework. I'd just manage to get him over a small course of 2ft fences after about a year of working him, and even then, he was still utterly terrified and hated it and no other rider could do polework on him. He was traumatised. Which was a shame as he was only a 5/6 year old but had had an awful experience prior. But I'm guessing yours isn't quite as bad as him! We only had him on loan, he got sold...found him up for sale from a dealer who'd bought him no more than a week after leaving ours, advertising as having a 'big jump' and just a bit green jumping! Quite a few weeks later, still for sale, and a few adverts later with various rewording about his jumping, to 'Doesn't like poles, needs a lot of work'. :/
 
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