youngsters refusing.....thoughts?

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georgiegirl2

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twiggy is now doing a little more jumping (she is 4) nothing big or too scary. ive broken my last horse in from a 4 yo (hes now 13) and at the time he was very trustworthy and never seemed to stop or look at anything.

with twig we are keeping everything very small and she does like to have a look. now in all the books etc etc it always goes on about how a young horse shouldnt know how to refuse but twig does very occasionally put a stop in when introduced to something new ie the other day she did her first spread - a cross with a straight back rail and she stopped in front and had a look - really not a nasty stop as her head dropped down to have a look and her eyes were popping out of her head.......next attempt and afterwards she jumped fine. she doesnt stop once shes done something once. although we havent done that much with her yet

now my question is......in a young horse do you think this is a bad sign of there future attitude to jumping? or can green 'looky' stops be forgiven as long as they jump afterwards? is it something they grow out of once they have done a bit more? just wondering really as george was so easy to introduce to jumping?

in a way im glad she is a bit 'looky' as i would prefer my horse to care about itself a bit - i event and yes they need to be bold but i also want them to care about themselves (and hence me) just a little bit!
 
i wouldn't worry about it, as she's so young and is obviously careful and a bit fazed by new stuff. once she gets more used to jumping whatever's in front of her, i reckon she'll be fine. i've had wimpy horses turn out to be exceptionally brave and honest.
 
thats the thing....she does appear to be a very quick learner and once shes jumped something once she then becomes very bold with it! almost to bold! when she is bowling on a bit im not checking her as much as i would like at the moment because the main thing is she is going forward, and enjoying herself
 
absolutely.
sounds pretty good to me. the only other thing to do is to keep everything under 2' and teach her that if she stops, you will back her up a few strides (never turn away) and then expect her to jump from one stride of walk or trot, being v. careful to chuck the reins at her the moment she takes off. this is hard work, and most keep going once they've had to do it a few times!
 
We as people are all different, so are our horses. If we treat them all as individuals then we succeed in giving them confidence to do their job. I have had all sort to break and they all have been different. I wouldn't be worried at her being "looky"
Best of luck with her. Baby's are fun :-)
 
When Flo was a 4yo she couldn't get the idea of jumping at all, she just bent her knees slightly more and trotted over the fences. I had to lunge her over a fence before she finally "clicked" with the jumping thing, cue massive bucks and squeals, as if she was happy to have finally worked out the puzzle of what to do with her legs.
I'm sure you will be fine, just keep the fences low and varied, by Xmas it will be totally different situation I'm sure.

Fiona
 
I had exactly the same thing as this with our youngster. She'd done virtually no jumping when we got her. I've just kept everything small and easy so that she can jump it from a standstill - and I mean really small - like under 2ft!

She used to stop at everything the first time exactly the same you as you have described - she'd look all goggle eyed then cat leap over it. Once she'd done it she'd be fine the next time - but she'd be so spooky that if you changed it from a small cross to a vertical she'd stop and look, even if she'd jumped the cross about 10 times.

She's much better now - it all seemed to suddenly click into place and she's quite cocky now - almost like "I know what I'm doing now!"
 
I agree, keep them really small so you can pop from a standstill. Introduce variety and things for her to look at, but keeping them at 18 inches. So throw a coat over a pole, coloured blocks, tarpaulin, use your imagination anything scarey but really small and safe. One of the reasons lots of people take their youngsters hunting is that the momentum of the other horses carries them across jumps they might otherwise be scared of and they get to see lots and lots.

Can you take her other places to trot over poles etc? Don't let her get used to her "own" jumps at home. If she can learn at this stage, to always expect something new she'll happily pop over jumps in the future, once she gets her confidence.

What you have to avoid is teaching her it's ok to look, then turn away and jump. She may then think this is how it's done when she sees something new, quick look - thinks that's ok, turn and pop a second time.
 
Totally agree with what others have said about keeping jumps small enough you can do them from a standstill. Best way to teach them to keep going forwards, yes she can have a quick look but needs to know she has to keep going and not learn she can be circled away from it. Id keep them like no bigger than 2'3 and put her at as many weird fences as possible with as many spooky little fillers as you can so hopefully the spookiness will be gone as you move up height-wise.

I wouldn't worry about it though, as long as you know she's being honest and not taking the piss. She sounds sweet enough
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