Improving horse's jumping confidence

[Fuzzycat]

I've got a 13 year old mare and I've had her since December. She had never jumped prior to me getting her, she was previously a very successful show horse and a broodmare. She has a super willing temperament and is the type of horse that will go anywhere alone or in company when hacking.

I've been introducing her to jumping since March. She has gone from being totally clueless and trying to step over jumps to making a really nice shape and jumping with real enthusiasm. We are now jumping up to 75cm and my instructor gets us over all sorts of spooky things.

However, my mare lacks confidence and will stop at something new or different.

My question is, is it just a case of practising and getting her used to it and her confidence will naturally improve? Does anyone have any tips or experiences? I am having regular lessons but I'd love to hear from others who have had similar experiences.

 

[be positive]

This is a difficult on because my priority when starting something jumping whether it is a youngster or older horse that hasn't done it before is to gain their confidence and build it up from the start so by the time they have had a few months of training they are happy to pop over new things without a second thought so somewhere along the lines this mare has missed out on the basics and her confidence has not grown as the jumps have got more challenging.

I would go back a step to fences she can step over and get her jumping from trot or even walk, introduce the scary things and new jumps but only at a height she will step over rather than stop at and need to reapproach, then build up the gridwork putting things in once she has gone through confidently until she is jumping without questioning anything at home, when you go somewhere new drop down to fences she can walk over if required until she stops questioning everything new and goes over even if it is an uninspiring clamber to the other side.

Her confidence will improve but only if she is able to succeed in each new challenge so set her up for success never for failure, she will still have the odd "fail" but try to have more good jumps than bad ones and if you do overface her remember to go back to her comfort zone to reinforce the confidence rather than keep going on to meet more scary things until she doesn't cope and stops again.

There is a fine line between getting them jumping new things without question and having them stop to check it out every time, you have to let them see new things but they have to be well prepared and confident enough so they don't learn to stop early on in their training which can then be a difficult habit to break.

 

[Fuzzycat]

Thanks for your reply, I think you're right. It definitely feels like I should be going back to really tiny things she can step over to break the stopping habit.

 

[scats]

I'd go small and scary when introducing spooky stuff. So reduce the height to something they can pop from a walk or even a stand still if need be, horse needs to learn that no matter what it is, she must go over it when presented.