Teaching an older horse to jump

[HashRouge]

Well, she knows how to jump, she's just a bit erratic and quite hard to control! I've owned my Arab mare for nearly 10 years (she's 18) and I'm hoping that this summer we might have a go at a few clear round classes. The problem is we have quite a few issues to iron out first and I'm hoping some of you guys might be able to help me!

This summer I have a long break ahead of me and would really like to work on her jumping once we've both got a bit fitter. The problems we have though (which were very obvious when me and my sister had a little jumping session with her earlier in the year) are that: 1) she gets extremely excited when she jumps and becomes very hard to stop/ steer. I end up just turning her into the fence on occasions which obviously isn't going to be much use if we want to try jumping a course! 2) she won't go over anything that she finds scary (bright poles/ fillers/ jumps with tyres under them etc). How do I get her used to this sort of thing? She isn't scared of any of them when she just has to walk past, it's when I ask her to jump over them that she becomes convinced they're plotting her demise 3) she runs out, and I can't seem to predict when she's going to do it! This is only on scary jumps, but obviously not everything is going to be nice and inviting if we go to a show 4) apparently it is 100% necessary for her to refuse every jump once before she's goes over it. I don't think I've ever convinced her to jump something without one refusal first (she's a bit weird, I should warn you!).

What do you think? Are we a hopeless case? Once she get's going (as in, once she's had that first refusal) she has a nice, careful jump and never knocks anything down. The big problem is she gets so enthusiastic that I can't stop! How do I get her to slow down? She's in a french link snaffle and running martingale and isn't generally strong or difficult. I'm a little bit unsure of myself jumping because I'm not very good! We do have an instructor as well btw, but this post is sort of "research" because I'm at uni atm and we won't be able to get going for a while. I like planning ahead! Any suggestions are more than welcome!

 

[kirstyl]

Hi!
Don't think you're a hopeless case!
I think you need to get your mare used to working well over poles, in walk, trot and canter. You can then perhaps introduce raised poles. Your instructor should be able to help you with all sorts of different ideas. You can put out pairs of cones, blocks etc that you have to ride between to get to the poles, which will not only improve your accuracy but will get her used to being in close proximity of scary things. Once you and she are confident and consistently working well through polework (and this may take several months), you can then progress onto little jumps and gridwork. If you put the basics in place well, the confidence and ability often comes quite quickly. Good luck!

 

[miskettie]

She sounds just like my arab mare was when I used to jump her. I also got her when she was older. I posted a topic with an old video of us recently . Unfortunately I never succeded in slowing her down (she's retired now) - though she was an amazing jumping horse. I am currently trying to do the same with my mums mare, who also goes full speed into fences.

What I am doing with her is lots and lots of polework. She is the type of horse that will jump a pole on the ground, so we are trying to get her to realise she doesn't need to jump a pole .

You could also try loose schooling if you have a safe enviroment, it may help her to be more confident about jumping scary things? Though have to say I have never tried this myself.

Best of luck - arabs are extremely clever (too clever sometimes!), so they take every opportunity to make sure that their rider never has a boring ride

 

[Girlracer]

I always try to keep jumping relaxed, so that when you do jump they don't see it as a big event. So when your schooling have a small fence up and just at random times trot over it. Leave it for a a few minutes and randomly do it again. This way jumping shouldn't be such a big event as it were.

Maybe try a full cheek snaffle for your steering difficuties? I agree try and do a lot of pole work, and maybe try some gridwork to slow her down a bit.

 

[HashRouge]

She's good at pole work (with plain poles ) but we've never tried altering the distances between poles or raising so those are good ideas as I think that will really get her thinking. Is there a system to work out how far apart they ought to be? I always have to get on and off about 4 times to adjust the distance

It's also a good point about incorporating a jump into normal schooling. I think because we don't do much, I tend to keep jumping as something we do at the end and then maybe it seems like more of a big deal?

We'll have all summer to work on it - I'm aiming for a show at the start of September, just before I go back to uni! These ideas are all really good; obviously I know I need to put the effort in, I just wasn't sure what exactly to do! I think my sister has a full cheeked snaffle lying around somewhere so I'll try L in it when I'm next at home. And Miskettie I agree about Arabs being very clever - L is a sharp as a knife! This does make it tricky to persuade her to do something she's not keen on though. She certainly wouldn't ever do something just because I told her too! You have to make her think it's her idea

 

[Girlracer]

She's good at pole work (with plain poles ) but we've never tried altering the distances between poles or raising so those are good ideas as I think that will really get her thinking. Is there a system to work out how far apart they ought to be? I always have to get on and off about 4 times to adjust the distance

It's also a good point about incorporating a jump into normal schooling. I think because we don't do much, I tend to keep jumping as something we do at the end and then maybe it seems like more of a big deal?

We'll have all summer to work on it - I'm aiming for a show at the start of September, just before I go back to uni! These ideas are all really good; obviously I know I need to put the effort in, I just wasn't sure what exactly to do! I think my sister has a full cheeked snaffle lying around somewhere so I'll try L in it when I'm next at home. And Miskettie I agree about Arabs being very clever - L is a sharp as a knife! This does make it tricky to persuade her to do something she's not keen on though. She certainly wouldn't ever do something just because I told her too! You have to make her think it's her idea

Popping a jump a couple of times whilst your schooling is great, it really does help makes jumping much less of an event... so long as you perservere and do it regularly of course! The worst thing you can do for an exciteable jumper IMO is set-up a fence and keep coming round over it as they learn to anticipate it, which is what you don't want.

As far as jumping scary stuff, make sure it's small enough that if she stops you can make her go over it from a stand still, if she runs out don't do a circle turn the opposite way (say she runs out left turn right, back up if you need to) and make her go over it. Then she can't learn it's an easy avoidance of anything scary. But try not to work her up, let her stand and look at it for a minute if you need to, it's hard to say sat at home typing it but i find the less of a big deal you make over things the easier it is.

Set up distances (4 of your strides per her canter stride, depending on her striding) and make her shorten and lengthen between these distances so she learns she has to do as you nicely suggest else she'll be falling over poles!

Probably none of that will work, but it's all stuff i've done.

 

[Ella Bella]

Providing she is fit and sound enough for the increased physical activity I would take it slow and keep it simple. Treat her as you would a young horse just being intoduced to the concept of jumping.

I would break it down into small easy goals each ride rather than attempting an entire course for now. Keep fences low and inviting, set grids to stride so they are confidence building. She needs to feel good about this new job and not be intimidated. Work on straightness, regulation of pace and accuracy over poles. Once she is happily trotting and cantering poles and cavalettis you can safely add slightly higher and wider obstacles. I think the key is to take it slow and easy and try to keep sessions light and positive. If you can get her to relax and ease into jumping so that it becomes routine and not overwhelm her you'll do fine. Don't skimp on the warm-up/cool down for this girl.

 

[HashRouge]

Providing she is fit and sound enough for the increased physical activity I would take it slow and keep it simple. Treat her as you would a young horse just being intoduced to the concept of jumping.

I would break it down into small easy goals each ride rather than attempting an entire course for now. Keep fences low and inviting, set grids to stride so they are confidence building. She needs to feel good about this new job and not be intimidated. Work on straightness, regulation of pace and accuracy over poles. Once she is happily trotting and cantering poles and cavalettis you can safely add slightly higher and wider obstacles. I think the key is to take it slow and easy and try to keep sessions light and positive. If you can get her to relax and ease into jumping so that it becomes routine and not overwhelm her you'll do fine. Don't skimp on the warm-up/cool down for this girl.

Thanks, that's a really useful post! And don't worry, my RI is very strict about L getting sufficient warm up/ cool down time - I want her to keep going for as long as possible . I'll let you guys know how we get on!