Horse that shuts down when he doesn't want to jump

clairebearnz

clairebearnz

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My 7 year old OTTB is a bit of a frustration at the moment. He's going phenomenally well on the flat and seems to be picking up lateral moves far better than I am. He's not spectacularly sharp off my leg on the flat but when I say go, he does move off my leg. I call him Mr Minimum Effort because he'll do exactly what you tell him but nothing more. However, he *will* do it with no argument and a smile on his face.

Gratuitous pictures of him rocking his dressage moves

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Jumping has been a bit of a battle. He has a tendency to stop at jumps he doesn't like, typically 'scary' ones. He doesn't stop nastily or anything but simply Grinds. To. A. Halt. and refuses to move. He doesn't throw his head up, he doesn't dive to the side, he simply slows to a halt a couple of strides out from the jump and stays there. It doesn't seem to matter how big the jump is or what I am doing or if I'm wearing spurs. If I smack him with a whip, he tends to slam on the brakes and kick out then really wind himself up. I'm perfectly content sitting his bucks but don't seem to achieve anything by producing them. If he stops once, he'll stop multiple times. Most of the time with a bit of 're-installing forward' (ie going past the jump and hooning around), I can usually get him over a fence. I've tried taking him XC to get him thinking forward, and tried following other horses over jumps, and took him hunting last winter, and the problem keeps recurring. He's had back/teeth/saddle done and 90% of the time he's fine, he will just pick a couple of jumps that he's really not keen on. Once forward is reinstalled, he'll usually canter in and pop the jump with no spectacular drama.

I'm trying to get some regular jumping lessons to try to solve this problem but haven't managed to make contact with anyone yet.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem and if so, how they solved or at least improved it.

When he's going well

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And a somewhat gratuitous hacking picture - we went to the beach after a 5.7 earthquake (no tsunami warning) and had the place to ourselves.

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My old boy was like that.

It didn't matter if the fence was 70cm or 1.30 - if he didn't like it, he wasn't going near it. he was even worse at shows and would slowly grind to a halt when he spotted something he wasn't sure of. Nothing - kicking, Spurs, a stick - would get him to move forwards towards it.

He ended up having a 9 month break after doing a tendon and he was a different horse when he came back from it - he jumped everything we put in front of him and jumped round at shows without any drama for the first time since we'd had him.

I do wonder if he originally felt pressured into jumping and just couldn't take it. Once he'd injured himself, we basically said right, that's it, he only jumps for fun and as soon as the pressure was off, he started 'performing'.

Hope you get to the bottom of it soon. 🙂
 
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was he raced over hurdles or fences? that sometimes produces the reaction you are getting and if it is the reason its sometimes harder than a physical reason.
 
my exracer just was never a jumper. He just didn't have the braveness or enjoyment of it and he never really got into it ever. He would pop around small courses happily but it was just never his thing at all, but like the other poster it was all fun low pressure stuff. I ended up getting a different horse so i could go out competing as he was never going to happy doing what i wanted. But you could get round a course but he'd always pick one fence and have a meltdown at all, could just never trust him to be consistent.

Saying that he did turn out to have sacroilliac issues so i think some of his reluctance might have been pain related once pressure went on his hind to push off over the jump.

The only thing that improved my lad was keeping jumps so low he didn't register stress at them, but if competing is important to you then he mightn't be the horse that can achieve that with you.
 
I would never school without a person on the ground if he stop have the jump put down at one side and walk over it so he never gets past the jump without jumping .
Never look at the jump your self look up and into the distance .
I think many horse who do this have back SI or hock issues or foot pain with some it's just a bad habit and with some it's a lack of courage .
Personally I think once it's an established habit they will always tend to do it when the chips are down .
 
agree with goldenstar, for months i kept my jumps low enough that he had to get over them- there was no circling away. After months of that we did gradually higher them up so gradually he didn't notice them. But to be honest, I ended up giving up most jumping and just concentrating on his flatwork - he was much happier.
 
He was a flat racer only (and a fairly appalling one at that - he was content beating one horse home most of the time).

I do think part of it is me, because he has stopped in the past, I tend to over-ride into the fences which enables him to stop. The one lesson I managed, he tried his creep to a stop trick and I'm not even sure how the instructor managed to get us out of it but he was pinging over everything by the end of that lesson.

Keeping the jumps at "you can *step* over that" level has helped, but having someone to drop the jump down if he stops is a good idea. If he really doesn't want to jump, he's got a budding career as a dressage horse that he does seem to enjoy. I don't have high jumping aspirations but making it around a 65cm course should be within his capabilities even if he has to step over everything.
 
My hanoverian has been like this. Hers I think was a combination of natural lack of confidence but I believe she was suffering gastric issues ...Not formally diagnosed and not classic symptoms but since treating her as an ulcer prone type her jumping has become far more consistent and the stops/shutting down is going away and she's mostly loving her jumping.

It has been a very long haul though, needing oodles of patience with me on the ground to drop poles if needed and give her confidence and my niece on top as jockey.

She is mainly my dressage horse but I like her to do other things and she does have a natural jump in her now she realises it's not going to hurt.

She was a classic for ulcer pain as she'd often happily jump once and then completely shutdown when represented even down to a pole on the ground.
 
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With a horse like this I wouldn't rule out pain, it might be worth getting his hind suspensories scanned/ SI injected. If this was ruled out then I'd look at realistically why is he stoping. It might seem like he only stops at scary fences, because we have a tendency to look back and attribute the stop to something. However it could be a multitude of things - lacking confidence from the rider or he's sensitive to your seat/position. Have you had anyone else ride him? Or it could be that his mind isn't in the right place for it & he might benefit from some time off from jumping followed by reintroducing slowly plus help from a really good trainer. Good Luck with it - I've had one that was a nightmare for running out and I won't perserve with one again, there are too many other horses that love it as much as we do!! I always like to hear stories of ones that haven't been straight forward come good though so I hope you get to the root of it.
 
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