Jumping exercises to build up confidence in horse?

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kayleigh_and_rocky

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Ok i'll start with telling you the history. Rock always used to jump fantastically, nothing put him off and he'd fly over everything. Then he started putting in little chips in front of the jump, no idea why but he still cleared them. However then this got worse, and he tried to chip to close to a jump and ended up hanging himself on it, and since then his confidence has been shattered showjumping (but xc he jumps fine).
So now everytime he does a double, or a spread, he backs of majorly and either stops or jumps it awkwardly, scaring himself more.
I had a jumping lesson the other day, and he flew through the double when it was two uprights, but as soon as the second part was put up into a spread he stopped. Instructor basically told me to smack on landing over first part when he backed off and get him going forward more, and in the end he jumped it fine but still not very confidently.
So i was wondering if anyone had any exercises to build his confidence up?
Also how often to jump school him while im trying to build his confidence back up? More often or less often? (im thinking more often)
Will be having jump lessons every 2weeks but trainer cant do more often so will be relying on myself a lot.
 
Why not use a pole to a jump, its the best to start with. Then ur horse has rhythm and regularity to a fence. A set distance helps to make this and also helps your stride, i.e no stand offs and no burying.

Also if you are having trouble with spreads, jus set up tiny spreads in the arena and pop round them, then keep them low but make them really wide, this will help your horses confidence.

On the jumping side, jump small jumps nothing big and this will help again by giving your horse confidence. I have a stressy horse who looses confidence easily and i spend days jumping cavalettis and little jumps and this really helps him.
 
Has he been checked out physically? My last horse could never go forwards thru combinations, etc and then started chipping in short ones SJ, and he was developing ringbone..if thats not the case then sorry! After a few months off and pure flatwork training he was a SJ beast and would attack doubles!
If school is too short, then what about putting two jumps up, that you can play with the distances with in between, say upping a gear to fit in 5 strides, then get the canter back and try and fit in 6 etc.. rather than shoving him in his doubt zone of doubles, work on him having confidence in you- that way you can change the jumps to spreads and still work on the canter approach inbetween with a bit more time to re-organise than in a double.
Sorry! Essay alert..
 
Excellent thanks for your input
smile.gif

Hes been checked out and is all fine and dandy (well lame atm he pulled a muscle last week chuking me off lol)

School wont fit 6strides in unfortunately thats the prob my trainer has, we worked last time on a double with 3strides in and by the end he was fine but still not confident. I think he really needs gridwork, like jumps coming up at every stride so he doesnt have time to back off
 
I had a young horse who used to really rush thro combinations and when they went a bit higher he was very reluctant to jump them (would try and run out when he saw it was a double and then would really rush thro to get it over with) I found that jumping very small combinations, literally about 2'3", mixing spreads and uprights very helpful. I used to jump several every time I rode him so that it became no big deal. It didnt take long before he had no problem even when I put them up (only very gradually) Beware building grids that have over 3 jumps as I have found that this tends to panic horses that are not confident, even if the jumps are very small
 
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