Mare hates jumping

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Welshie17

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I have a 5yo homebred mare who is wonderful in every way... but she will not jump!

I've done all the ground work with her, she's taken to everything brilliantly and moves beautifully. She was bred for dressage and we had some great results this year so if that's the only route we can go down I won't be disappointed but I would love for her to be able to pop even a tiny jump too!

I've tried everything I can think of. She does trotting and canter poles with no trouble, even if they're raised. However the second somethings higher than about 20cm she either goes into it brilliantly then flings herself through it including taking the poles with her or if it's slightly higher (say 40cm), she'll approach and slam the brakes on and stop dead. I've tried leading her over, following another horse both on the ground and under saddle, lunging, loose schooling, the lot. Nothing works at all. It doesn't matter if it's in the arena or a little log while out on a hack, she just hates it.

I'm an experienced rider and deal with youngsters day in day out. I know I take her in on a good approach and I've tried altering speed, adding placing poles, even tiny grids but nothing works. Is it time to accept defeat and stick to solely dressage? Any advice greatly appreciated!
 
My youngster couldn't jump at all until she turned 6 and strengthened up. However she still hated jumping and so I just don't do it, she enjoys doing other things instead so why force her to do something she dislikes so much? For you as your youngster gets stronger then the jump should improve.
 
Whilst I agree that you shouldn't flog a dead horse in a discipline it has no enthusiasm for, this does seem a rather extreme reaction. At 40cm, the horse should really be stepping over, and extreme reluctance to do so would concern me. It would worry me that there is some kind of underlying physical issue.

If she won't even step over a small obstacle (and 40cm is small for a horse) while being led, in walk, and in the absence of a physical issue, I do think it's something missing in her basic handling training, and I would want to address it. If she's compliant stepping over small obstacles, and is just baffled by jumping, I might leave her to mature, and see how she is in a few months, or not worry about jumping at all.
 
I would go XC schooling with another horse and follow them over a few small logs or similar or better still out hacking - just to see, if she still hated it then I'd leave her alone and not bother
 
yeah i have a mare in like that, I genuinely thought she would never jump, we'd be 40 mins in a clinic with her planting instead of going over a pole. And I knew it was just her personality, not a physical thing, cause she's a svery strong minded mare. What fixed her was going on a very small controlled funride where i knew the jumps and i knew the logs would be walk-able over, and that the situation would be controlled. The horses in front got her blood up and she was was so busy following them, that she stopped overthinking the jumps and just went forward freely. They were small enough she didn't worry about them, and she absolutely had a ball. A few of those and she's a machine jumping now. She really just needed to get over whatever her own issue was in her head.
 
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