Horrible horse help really needed :(

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wench

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Been to a small (ish) eventer trial today at Shelford, and it was totally awful.

Trigger warmed up really nicely, stopped at a spread, but it was rather large (for me anyway), someone then dropped it down for their daughter, so I thought I would take advantage of it, and he jumped it nicely.

Went into the "arena", and everything possible went wrong. Wouldnt jump the first fence (a spread), so turned him around, kicked on, and he launched himself over it, cue me having to drop the reins, which then left them to long to be any use, which then resulted in another refusal at fence two (a simple 70cm ish upright), had leg on etc everything, so turned him round, went to it again, then we decided we didnt want to do it again. Now cue rearing and generally paddy attacks. Eventually get round the other 5 show jumps, and then move onto xc jumps in the hope that he is a bit nicer. Cue even more horrible horse. All the jumps were 75 ish cm's not very large at all, stopped at all of them. Got to fence 9, which was a 2ft roll top, so not much really that should go wrong with that, went to jump it, got front legs over , then decided back ones dont want to go over, so result in horse half over the jump. Then we decided that the back legs could climb over, and so we got over eventually. Decided to give it up as a bad job after that.

I just dont know what went wrong, back, teeth saddle etc all ok, been jumping well at home over larger hights, has won local 60 cm sj classes, and come 3rd in 70 cm (beaten by ponies), so shouldnt be to much of my dodgy riding.

Any help/comments appreciated, I really dont know where to go from here.
 
When a similar thing happened to me once, I was in dispare (SP?). I knew the mare could do it all and couldn't put a finger on what was wrong that day, just that something was clearly wrong!
Anyway, when we got home, she had a small lump on her chest, right in the middle where the martingale goes. I thought it was a bit odd, so out of interest tacked her up again and it soon became obvious that the martingale made her uncomfy. I then realised that the lump was more likely a sting of some sort and the pressure of the tack over it, made poor Bella go ouch when she tried to jump - so didn't.
I took it off and jumped her at home the same day just to see and she was fine.

What iam getting at, is that your horse probably has something niggling him. What that something is could be any number of things, even a sting. Try popping him over a few things at home, before venturing out again at a lower height so it becomes fun and easy.
Good luck, sorry you didn't have such a good day.
 
If good normally probably just a bad day, maybe just something about the environment she tok a disliking to but if it is that out of character I'd go over everything with a fine tooth cone, sometimes even the smallest thing can get stuck under the tack and cause issues. Fingers crossed it was a one off!
 
Oh I feel your pain - just been eliminated myself (twice) at a RC team SJ event. It was horrid and I have had my horse 15 years! He warms up brilliantly but we (well I!) have an issue with spreads and I must be doing me doing something different in the arena as we can jump spreads no problem warming up.

Think about how you are riding - are you changing what you're doing, are you tensing up? It could just be an off day - we all have them. I have jumped mine at home tonight and he's been pinging and I do despair cos deep down i know it's me not him.

I think you need to put it behind you and just look forward to next time!
 
Been there done that and got the T shirt. lol. Yes probs bad day but have you had back, teeth, saddle checked recently, did he have a loose shoe or was the ground v hard??
 
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