Starting to wonder if I'm wasting my time

blood_magik

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I'm not really sure what direction we should be going in so some advice would be appreciated.

Some background:
Jerry is a 20yo kwpn show jumper who I inherited from my dad last summer. He had major confidence issues in the show ring but has become a lot better and finally got round a course without being eliminated after a lot of work and dropping down several classes - he was competing at the equivalent of fox hunter and now does BN and 1m open.

I prefer jumping to stressage but end up stressing myself out over jump heights - don't know why as jerry is a babe and will easily jump 1.30 without much input from me.

Anyways, he's getting on a bit and although he still enjoys jumping I'm not sure whether it would be fair to keep pushing him. I did want to aim for discovery but we've had a long break from competitions and will probably have to start from scratch when we start again over the winter.

The other option is to try some stressage.
I've spent the last 14 months working on getting him working properly but our canter is still pretty awful - think ears up nose. I'm guessing it's a balance issue which I probably don't help (dodgy hips which make me feel like my legs are different lengths)
Is it worth pushing on and attempting more advanced movements even though our canter is pants?

Feel free to apply your size 12 boots - in need of a good kick up the behind as I have no motivation at the moment, even for jumping as I got dumped during my last session :(
 
My first thought is to drop him back to unaffilliated comps and just go and have some fun. I think he is too old to change his flatwork ways to much.
 
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