How would you deal with it?

[Taz975]

I have a little story! (Its long sorry!)

Having a lesson today at my local riding school (lucky me) to polish myself up for stage 3. We were doing XC (alien to me as an SJer!)

One girl was on a big green 8 year old. He jumped the ditch (tiny, simple etc) once having been given a lead. Then started messing about, and had to have another lead to pop it again. Instructor (quite rightly IMO) say 'keep going round until he doesnt make any fuss'.

Then he wont jump it again. Not with a lead or being led.
So another girl in the ride pipes up
'I think you should stop trying to make him jump it, as your making an issue out of it'
Arguement follows - instructor versus girl. Girl saying give up, instructor saying carry on.

In the end the instructor moves on, as time is running out and tells the girl riding the green horse to jump another small fence. So she does and he runs out in EXACTLY the same way as he was at the ditch. He jumped it second time.
BUT. Did it not give the idea to the horse 'if you dont want to do something, you dont have to'?
Ive ALWAYS been under the impression if you start something you finish it? Or not?
If you have problems like that, do you carry on until they do as you say?

 

[Claireg9]

carry on unless theres an issue like horse has hurt itsself or horse has been frightened badly, if its just being naughty theres no excuse. i would of left it after being lead over it and come back to it later to try again with a lead, once it looks comftable with a lead then try on its own or put bigger gap in between the lead and the horsey.

 

[flyingfeet]

Depends on the fight you are having

I generally do a lot of ditches in hand with mine when they are young, so they never bat an eyelid (after all if human with 2 legs can do them, so can a horse!)

I haven't ever let mine get away with anything, but not sure a group lesson is a place for that approach (unfair on the rest of you).

 

[riotgirl]

With my girl, if she doesn't do something after a few times then I'll leave it be and do something else for a while. I then go back to it when we've both had a breather! However, because she is so inexperienced when she dosen't do something it is generally because she is not sure of what she is supposed to do - she always tries. The odd time it has been a case of bloody mindedness I try and win the battle!

 

[ihatework]

Depends on the horse and the situation.

In that situation - group lesson - each person has the right to an equal amount of time spent on them, in this situation I would leave the issue and come back to it later privately.

If the issue arises in an private lesson I may be tempted to switch horses attention onto something else, get it going forwards over different fences and then try and find a different ditch to work with if possible, if not re-visit the same one.

 

[Bossanova]

Not always- sometimes they need to move on and come back to the problem once theyve regained confidence.
Naughty of the girl to argue- not her horse, horse is instructor's responsibility and if she wanted the horse to jump it then either she had to help the rider do it or get on herself

 

[Tempi]

definately carry on and make him do it - in my experience all stage 3 riders think they are brill and infact probably couldnt even get round a 2'6 x country course let alone anything bigger............(thats not aimed at you btw, just in general some of them are pretty useless and i wonder how they actually get to stage 3 in the first place). good luck with it btw, you will be fine xx