Jumping a heavy cob

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SEH

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Hello Everyone,

Training question.

I have a cob that loves cross country, we fly round and never skip a beat.

In the paddock with a "show" type jump however, is a completely different story! As he started cross country jumping first e.g. logs/natural poles ect, he had never seen those colourful jumps before. He didn't like them at all at first but a couple of summers down the line he is generally okay with the look of them now (Always have to get used to new ones/different colours).

He LOVES jumping, however, we have one major issue. Crosses are still absolutely terrifying for him. I think this is because when I first started jumping these kinds of jumps with him, I focused on straight jumps as he would be lazy with the super small crosses. Also, he is fine with a natural pole cross at one of the X country courses, so I think it might still be an issue with the look of them/colours. He flys over straight jumps. Now, if he sees a cross, he either leaps over it enough to jump even if it were the height of the wings, or he runs out. He always runs out super late so sometimes this ends up being us soaring over the wings. Once he went into the wing, luckily they were small ones and he's very big so didn't hurt him. I have stopped using crosses now but I don't know a way to remedy the problem without continuing to try them. I have even left the jump in his field as a cross to see if he needed to get used to the look of it or something!

It's very weird! I have an instructor who is willing to help after lockdown but they are equally bit unsure of how to proceed. He is the same in hand and lunging over them.

Someone suggested two poles to act as a 'funnel' or something to direct him at the jump but I think this will scare him more and might trip him up if he does still run out!

Any advice for training that would help would be great!
 
I would want to see how he is jumping generally, to jump x poles they have to be straight on the approach and also in the air, anything that struggles to remain genuinely straight may find it hard to jump them well , x poles are used to improve their technique for this reason but if there is an underlying issue it can be tricky for them, so your instructor needs to have an open mind as to what can be done as it may be something simple such as improving the approach, getting the rider in a better position, working on the canter, building confidence or they may see something else that requires work.
I would suspect being a chunky type that he actually finds them harder to jump cleanly than a straight and has decided that they are not for him, this has been allowed to be an ingrained habit, that he is not actually terrified of them but has lost confidence and has also taken away the riders confidence so they are not working well together over the 'dreaded' x poles, a few good lessons should make a difference but they need to be aimed at gaining his trust not forcing things by giving him no choice other than to jump or run through wings/ poles which will reinforce his concerns.
 
Personally I'd be putting him over small x poles and incrementally building his confidence over small, inviting, wide (long poled) x pole fences until he's ready to tackle bigger fences. I presume that this issue doesn't exist when the x pole is so low as to resemble a straight bar? There must be a point at which you can play over small x poles without worrying the horse. Build on that. What about where a x pole has a straight bar behind it to make a small spread?

I also suspect you could use some serious work on straightness over fences, given the running out / wing jumping issue, coupled to the x pole issue. You need a good instructor to help with this.
 
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