Why do horses refuse jumps?

I started back riding after about a 17 year break about 5 years ago.
I relearned how to ride and how to jump on the current beast. I'm ashamed to admit that my washing line reins taught him that he could run out when jumping :oops:
I've improved now and I don't let him run out but I did let him get in the habit with my dodgy riding :rolleyes: I suppose these things are part of learning.
 
dixie said:
Maybe the question should be why on earth they jump for us in the first place. Especially around coloured poles, at least XC is more natural - well it used to be before corners, skinnies etc came in.
I think they are mostly very generous animals.
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They are generous. I think that's why we can do so much with them. I read something before about attempted domestication of zebras. The zebras basically told humans where to go :D
 
Maybe we should have an unbridled horse appreciation thread :p

Obvious I think mine are all terrific. Not least because I can trust them all to hack out bareback sensibly, with a dodgy ankle so I can't jump off easily (mounting / dismounting from the bonnet of my defender!).
 
dixie said:
Maybe the question should be why on earth they jump for us in the first place. Especially around coloured poles, at least XC is more natural - well it used to be before corners, skinnies etc came in.
I think they are mostly very generous animals.
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Yes, I often think that. But then you get one like my little connemara, who like tonight, merrily takes herself off over the fences up I'm the school when all I was asking her to do was walk a circle (leaving me in the middle just giggling at the silly thelwell critter). At least some of them get a genuine kick out of the same nutty things we do!
 
Absolutely, DabDab - Daemon's like that - he'll jump for fun if he's loose in a field/arena with a jump, he'll make it really obvious what he wants to be doing if you go anywhere with fences...

He's the polar opposite of Fergus who finds jumping stressful, but loves going sideways and doing simple changes and stuff like that. Skye, I think, just likes to be told she's a good girl, and to "get" her job!
 
Ash has always jumped when in a field with showjumps in it she would pop round them ever since she was a foal if something was in her way she simply popped over it. She even went out of her way to line up to them sometimes just loose in the paddock. Oddly unlike her mum she never jumped the perimeter fences to the paddocks. Hazel (mum) jumps anything in her way especially if their is something tasty at the other side but now a days only choses to jump competitively if she feels like it, mind you she does tell you as soon as you enter the arena as one day she will jump a clear round and another will snort violently about 20 feet away from the first fence and nothing will induce her to go any closer. Even if she has jumped clear a few minutes before
 
Ha ha my old pony used to take himself off over jumps, he loved it. With Buzz as far as i'm concerned he's going over everyone until he doesn't :D I can never tell if he's going to stop or not, he's in a lovely rhythm then just forgets to pick his feet up ha ha.
 
mule said:
They are generous. I think that's why we can do so much with them. I read something before about attempted domestication of zebras. The zebras basically told humans where to go :D
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Zebras are trainable; it's just harder (and some species of zebra are harder than others). Marthe Kiley-Worthington has described her training of a young captive zebra stallion on Imire Wildlife Ranch, Zimbabwe. She commented that: "The speed at which this zebra learnt and quietened down as a result of the development and use of improved handling was remarkable and took the researchers, as well as others, quite by surprise. It certainly indicates, even with this one sample that ease to be handled by humans, to learn and to work is not different between wild and domestic equines. This wild zebra, never in close contact with humans before, was easier and quicker to be handled and lead than many young domestic horses even using the same techniques."

However, as far as I know this zebra wasn't broken for riding, let alone jumped!
 
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