Phobia of Oxers

[Festive_Felicitations]

Me not the horse, and it is only oxers.
I will happily jump a rising spread or upright at 1.05m (sj or XC), but show me a 80cm oxer and I get so scared that the horse can sense it and either stops dead or cat jumps adding to my fear...creating a vicous cycle.
It is worse at comps. I have tried practicing over small ones but the minute they go back up to 80-90cm it starts all over agian and I cant seem to mentally kick myself out of it.

The problem is definetly me, as he will happily jumps oxers of all sizes with my mum.

So O' Knowlegeable HHO's any suggestions?
=)

 

[Shazzababs]

I think practice, practice practice is your best option. Try not to be a chicken at home (hard, I know from experience) and start to raise those oxers gradually up to gently stretch your comfort zone. How about putting them at the end of a grid so that your horse will already be moving forwards.

Maybe have a lesson concentrating on them? Someone telling me to just get on with it always helps!

Can you have a lesson on a different horse who won't stop if you are just a passenger?

 

[MrsMozart]

Get photographs/video of horses jumping oxers, then you can see that the shape of the oxer fits nicely into the 'arc' of the jump - I found it made me feel much happier about speads of any sort.

 

[nagrags]

hi its just practice practice practice start off with them really low and just stick to that height for a few days of jumping it until you feel totally comfortable and then slowly start putting the height up to what you will eventually want to be jumping all the time, i found this helped not only me b ut the horse aswell from past experience.

 

[Festive_Felicitations]

Thanks guys, I figured it was practice and giving my self a severe talking to.
I was just being lazy and hoping there was some lovely wonder cure/ short cut out there =)-