Tackling Trakehners

[Ranyhyn]

Did some XC schooling last week, horse was very good and bold as brass as usual.

Until I decided to try him over a rather large trakehner.

As we neared I lost my bowels which didn't exactly imbue him with confidence, I dropped him and he dropped me right back. Leaving us skidding into the ditch and horse ending up with his head over the bar lol

So please tips on riding a trakehner. My horse is very good and I am convinced the fault is mine so how can I take the fear factor out of trakehners and how do I ride them more effectively?

Thanks

Mogget

 

[SpottedCat]

They are a rider frightener. Ignore the ditch and ride them like they are a hanging log. The ditch is basically irrelevant (assuming you don't have issues with ditches in general) because the horse would have to take off before and land after the ditch if it were just a hanging log. Don't look into the ditch, just sit up and ride them like any other let up type fence.

 

[little_pink_piggies]

head up, hands up and kick

 

[FigJam]

Exactly what SpottedCat said, they are purely a hanging log, nothing more or less, so ride them the same, but obviously if you have a ditchy horse you may require extra encouragement on the last stride or two when they clock the ditch.

Focus on something ahead of you (next fence, tree in distance) and under no circumstances look at the ditch!

(I know this is far easier said than done!) I am away ditch schooling on Sat, will try put my own advice into practice!

)

 

[stencilface]

Agree with others, head up and under no circumstances look down!

I have a bit of a thing with ditches (old horse had a habit of letting me get in them first

) so now if I feel nervous (and I know this is bad!) I sit up and almost showjump them

This is ok for me, never going to do bigger than PN, and horse is more than capable of jumping that

 

[ajn1610]

I pretend the ditch is a ground line. Unless it is a mahoosive one I don't think they even really see the ditch unless you point it out to them! I had a bit of a personal revelation schooling my rather ditchy youngster at the begining of the year. I've found my mare really follows my eye line. If I look into the ditch she looks where I am looking and stops every time without fail even if she's jumped it lots of times before. I guess it must cause a tiny change in my weight and make her think "OMG there must be something terrifying down there because Mum is staring at it!" I am inadvertantly focussing her on the spooky part of the fence.
If I fix on my line and then look at the horizon she just pops them. So my advice, like spottedcat and Figjam would be to keep looking straight where you are going.

 

[kerilli]

as above. BUT do not jump one out of your comfort zone yet, jump lots of small ones that you think are easy and can ride confidently to - as you've seen, riding to one and bottling it on the way in is not conducive to a good jump, the fear goes down the reins and it takes a horse in a million to ignore your fear and carry you blithely over. when you're happy over the smaller ones, and over open ditches, go on to larger ones... and never look down into the ditch (incl when walking them!), just use the edge of the ditch as a guard-rail and judge your jump from the log on top, if that makes sense.

 

[Ranyhyn]

It was utter stupidity on my part, because we were schooling round novice (well unaffnovice

) sized stuff and because my faith in my steed knows no bounds I decided to just throw him at an open fence. As I got closer my faith had deserted me and him!! lol

So I will start small with the tips given here