XC jump judges/cars really freak the horse out what can I do?

[joy]

Yesterday was a complete disaster, I went HT and the horse that jumps everything in training and at home is paralysed with terror at the sight of jump judges or their cars. So far at every XC, HT or ODE he has ground to a halt if the judges are in close proximity to the fence, if the judge is 'working' say 4 fences and is sat at a discrete distance away he isn't bothered but if they are within a few yards he freaks out, running backwards etc, his eye comes off the jump even if he has zeroed on to it and that's where it all ends.
Yesterday having had to pull out of two pre-entered classes I took him home, went straight out into the fields and popped him over two big metal sheep feeders that he has never jumped before without any trouble so it's not a terror of fences problem or a jumping in cold blood problem.
What to do now?

 

[DuckToller]

You need to round up some friends and go off to an xc course and school over around and over again with your friends starting off at a discreet distance away, then standing nearer and nearer until he relaxes and stops seeing them as an issue.

If you have a friendly local xc course you could explain the problem and see if they will let you take a car on the course and get your friend to drive round and park up at various fences with you, again starting off far enough away and then getting nearer. Or book onto a clinic and explain the problem before you go and see if the instructor can help with ideas.

 

[Firewell]

What about parking some cars, your car in your field and schooling around it? Then you can put a fence up near the car and incorporate some jumping.
Is he OK in traffic and with cars parked around the yard? He probably just can't understand why they are there, I'm sure with some practice you will sort it .

 

[joy]

This is what I thought this morning after I had calmed down. There is a local course where we can take cars on so I just need to get a gang together so that several of us can be riding on the course just like a real event.
It was so frustrating yesterday because he was a real knob who could be a fantastic horse if only he could get over this problem.

 

[Firewell]

Just re-read your thread again. As well as parking a/some cars in your field to school round, get some mates to sit on chairs and russel paper. Dot them at random points round the field and work him in a quiet spot away from them and gradually work him closer and closer untill he's working in a circle around them. Maybe let him go up and sniff them and then work him round them?

 

[ironhorse]

It really does work to set up 'judges' at home. Our mare wasn't scared of the judges in her western classes, just too busy looking at them to concentrate on what she was doing. So we got people to sit close to the various obstacles, first of all just very quietly, and then with picnic baskets, umbrellas etc - you also have to cater for what spectators might be doing if you have a 'looky' horse. In the end I could sit close by twirling an orange umbrella and she just got on with her job!