Mare Propping at fences - Advice needed

[Spangles]

We have a super talented 8yo mare who is relatively inexperienced but has schooled XC a couple of times, has previously hunted a couple of times and taken part in Dressage and SJ'ing a little bit.
She is well schooled at home (schooling livery) and when she's been out to various schooling grounds she doesn't hesitate or prop quite so much.
My teenage daughter rides her well and is really determined but getting disheartened of late as the jumping is such hard work at times. The mare has a big jump and once she has seen fillers, fences etc, will jump them cleanly. It's as if she needs to see them first. We obviously don't want habits to set in so if anyone has had similar experiences, did it turn out to be purely lack of experience and confideence .. getting out to lots of venues and practice ?

She's competed and schooled in Arena Eventing on a surface, Dressage and SJ'ing with us and hunted a few times with previous owner. She's been allowed to grow and mature slowly as she's 16.2hh ID/ WB and gangly legged when we got her a year ago.

 

[be positive]

It could be due to several things and the first is to check everything is well, especially the saddle fit, so you know it is a schooling issue and not physical in some way.
You say she is on schooling livery but no mention of how often your daughter rides or if she has regular lessons, I assume she does but is the jumping geared towards getting her really confident, building up the relationship by doing grids, working on the canter not just the jump and finding out how to avoid her needing to take a look? there will be a key to her if the trainer is able to think a bit outside the box.
Many trainers seem to work too much on individual jumps and jumping courses without getting the basics in place first so when the horse sees something new it tends to question why rather than thinking 'this is just another jump' and continuing forward with no hesitation, once they learn it is acceptable to stop and have a look it becomes a pattern which can be hard to break.
I would go right back to basics with this type, ensure they are only presented to fences they can jump from a steady trot and build the confidence up slowly avoiding stops or hesitations o the approach, getting them both trusting each other and not moving on until they are genuinely working together.
I would not go away from home until they are jumping everything with real confidence and any outings would be dropping down from whatever they are doing at home, mares can be extra sensitive, if they are also talented and careful it can be easy to push on too quickly, even if you think it is slow, before they have really grasped what is required, give her more time to become really established, it will be worth it in the long run.

 

[paddi22]

Mares can be funny when on schooling livery as well. Some mares can bond with the person who feeds and rides them the most, and they can get out of sync with other riders. There are some mares that you really need to put the graft in and build the partnership on. They can go to the best pro trainer and school over any amount of fences and courses with that trainer - but then put a different rider on them and they just won't give them the benefit of the doubt to take on a filler or ditch they have a question with. The first thing I always think with mares when they are proping is that the mare doesn't trust the partnership she has with the rider. Because generally mares give their heart more and try harder if the trust the rider.

 

[Spangles]

Thank you for your replies, very sensible and helpful advice. Lots of food for thought.

 

[Red-1]

I have found that sometimes this can be a self fuelling vicious circle.

The horse has a look at something strange so the rider is more 'determined' next time, but instead of making the horse stand off more it actually means they are in a longer frame, longer stride and are therefore less balanced. They therefore prop.

Because they prop the rider is even more determined so legs on with gusto, and the horse becomes long, on the forehand and unbalanced, so the horse is more worried and props...

To stop the circle I would even walk to a small scary thing and pop over. Walk then trot the last few strides so the horse has plenty of time to assess but then accelerates over.

Next session come to the first 'scary' thing in a slow trot, accelerate to a faster trot over. Ride really strongly away from the fence in canter so the horse will start to anticipate speeding up and going into canter, it will then start to break to canter before the fence.

Work on this next time, warm up well in canter over non scary fences then canter a slow and contained canter to the first scary thing and ride strongly away, so again the horse anticipates a strong canter away and starts to take you to the fence.

I would keep a slow and contained canter to the scary fences until the horse is taking you. Pushing the horse into such a fence is likely to end in a prop.