Rider Confidence When Horse Disrespectful Small Fences

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alijane

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In a nutshell, bought horse last year for teenage son. Horse capable of jumping BE80 and video to prove it, son jumped him at trial. Taken us a while to sort saddle out etc so gap in jumping. Horse crashes through 45cm show jumps when I try to help at home, makes no effort. I think horse needs to jump bigger fences but son understandably thinks he's about to die and won't entertain idea. Struggling to find good instructor who will do one to one instruction to get them going and son wants to sell as he doesn't feel safe. I dont think horse has been given chance, and is very good in lots of ways. How do we go forwards?
 
Get someone a bit braver on it to jump bigger and see what it does. If it's good it might give your son the confidence to have a go
 
Son is being very sensible if he has decided he does not feel safe and does not want to die! He is only acting on what his senses tell him.

Whereabouts in the country are you, someone may have a recommendation?

I would perhaps find a trainer who is prepared to mount up and ride the horse to trace the problem, and if it is just that the horse thinks 45cm equates to roller skates then they can prove this to him, and get the horse popping down a small grid nicely.

If it is still a saddle issue, or other issue they can help to identify this.
 
Whereabouts are you?

How big is said horse?

I can't blame your son for being nervous but if it is an actual horse 45cm is a stick on the floor. If i put my mare at 75cm she would be pretty careless put her at 1m & she will pop it happily. I'm not saying the solution is to force him to jump bigger as that would be silly if he isn't happy but horse is probably thinking it doesn't need to bother putting in the effort, hence knocking the fences down although i would be concerned if it knocked every fence.

I think you need a good instructor tbh :)
 
Does son want to jump? I would be wary of pushing him too much as he is of the age where he might prefer to throw in the towel than that anyway- especially as you say the horse has lots of good points. I definitely think you need to find the right help, (as parents trying to help kids doesn't always work anyway either!) and someone else that might sit on the horse too is probably right. Does the horse lunge over jumps.
 
Thanks so far. We're in North Yorkshire, horse is 15.2 and a bit clueless where his feet are on the flat nevermind over fences. Son was recently popping 80cm on friends schoolmaster that he'd not sat on before, so he's not as nervous as I first suspected. We are really trying to find the right instructor to give everyone a chance. It definitely doesnt work with me trying on my own.Yes horse will lunge over them and enjoys himself in the process.
 
It sounds as if the horse has missed out the basics in his jumping education so has no idea what to do if not set up into a small fence, 45 cm is not big but any horse that has been correctly started should make some effort over even a small x pole, that he seems to not really know where his feet are on the flat may be a sign of an underlying issue or again just poor schooling in the past, if he is genuine then going round an 80 track with a rider setting him up would be a doddle but he may have learnt very little in the process.

I would go back to polework, trot and canter until he is taking interest and looking at what he is doing then introduce a x pole at the end, treat him as a 4 year old starting from scratch, he should come on fairly quickly once the basics are securely in place as long as your son is willing to do this, getting a good instructor involved will help but you should be able to do plenty if you go through every stage correctly allowing the horse to process it all and only move on once he is really understanding what he is meant to do.
 
Agree that you need to find a good instructor. Not sure if this helps but if your son has come off ponies sometimes getting a forward enough canter on a horse (even on a 15.2) is a problem as it will feel a lot faster and more active than a pony. If the canter is not forward and bouncy the horse probably won't jump very well even over little jumps A good exercise for sharpening up the canter without using actual jumps is to use 4 canter poles on a 20m circle, then when the horse is keeping a good rhythm pop one of the poles up to a small cross pole. Initially, you could just pop one side of the pole up a bit but the aim is to keep the nice bouncy canter all the way round and for it not to change at all.
 
Red-1 said:
I would perhaps find a trainer who is prepared to mount up and ride the horse to trace the problem, and if it is just that the horse thinks 45cm equates to roller skates then they can prove this to him, and get the horse popping down a small grid nicely.
Click to expand...

This. If son is even slightly nervous then it sounds like the horse could be picking up on it. Get someone else to ride it for a while, it'll help the horse and your son gain confidence. Perhaps even try the original owner if they are nearby, I know I'd be more than willing to help if I sold one of mine and things weren't going well.
 
Why does he crash? Does he get it wrong and get too close? I don't think the answer lies in jumping bigger, as it would likely scare your son more and also, any horse *should* pop nicely over a cross pole. There is a difference between a horse tapping a smaller fence out because it doesn't respect it, and crashing through it. So if yours really is crashing, then I'd want to get that sorted. Do you have a video? An instructor would be a better bet than us lot on the basis of a video, but I think, in short, the answer is fix the crashing and get son and horse happy at trot poles, canter poles, 45 cm and then beyond.

As to why he is crashing, have you thought about the rhythm, balance, pace, is that all ok? Try canter poles, then add a small cross and move on to grids. Grids are likely to be easier than individual fences, as once you're in, you ought to be set up with the right stride and then son just has to relax and keep coming.
 
alijane said:
Thanks so far. We're in North Yorkshire, horse is 15.2 and a bit clueless where his feet are on the flat nevermind over fences. Son was recently popping 80cm on friends schoolmaster that he'd not sat on before, so he's not as nervous as I first suspected. We are really trying to find the right instructor to give everyone a chance. It definitely doesnt work with me trying on my own.Yes horse will lunge over them and enjoys himself in the process.
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Pmd you :)
 
Thanks everyone, lots of great ideas which have helped me focus and reassess things. I loose schooled him today using wooden poles at about 40cm. After he nearly fell over them once by not bothering to pick up his hind feet he worked it out and was much more careful. I think he's just green (came through dealer from Ireland) so just doesnt know any better, and he knows he can scatter the lightweight poles I'd been trying previously. Son also had moved from 13.2 so it's been a big change for him to deal with, but its been close to a year now to get used to him. Going to show son this thread and see how he feels.
 
When we trained the Police horses they thought lightweight poles were a bit of a joke. The loose schooling over more solid poles sounds like it has been beneficial.
 
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