More confidence jumping?

Question

My pony is a good jumper and I really enjoy jumping.

But this is the problem...

I didnt get to jump much during the winter cause the weather was so bad, I did mainly roadwork, and sometimes poles if the field was dry enough. Before that, when I did jump a lot, my pony was always confident and eager to take any fence, she rarely refused!

Now that I've started jumping again, I've been doing slightly bigger fences, but my pony seems to have lost confidence, I can often feel her slowing down before a fence as if she is unsure whether to jump it or not.Then when she refuses, I lose confidence, then we're both nervous!

Once she's been over the jump before, she's fine, but if it's her first time, or if she just knocked the jump down then she refuses.

How can both me and my pony get our confidence back when jumping?

I'm pretty sure the problem is due to confidence, not because she is in pain - we have had her checked and the vet can find nothing wrong with her.

Answer 1

Bring the jumps back down and work up again, to help you gain confidence in you pony, and for the pony to gain confidence in you. try some simple pole work exercises, and small fences. Once shes going well and is not refusing as much put the fences back up. It may be a case of you changing the way you approach the fence because you are wary of whether she will refuse or not, so try to ride the bigger fences exactly the same way you do with the smaller ones. If you feel her starting to back off, put you leg on and push her into the fence. Remember to sit up striaght and lean back slightly as this wil encourage her to bring her back end up (think of it as a see saw! if the back end goes down, the front end will go up). Also try trotting in to the jumps, at it will be harder to refuse. If she carrys on refusing with her, then she mght just realise that she can try and get away with it, even if you do get her over the jump in the end. you could also let someone else ride her (who is very confident) as she may start jumping well with them and gaining her confidence, and so will have confidence when you ride her aswel. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Go back to basics first.  You need an instructor to have a look at what you are doing and what the horse is doing.

After a break from jumping as you have had, it is always good to do some ground work, then some poles and build up gradually again.  It could be that you are overfacing her now you are doing bigger jumps.  You could be overfacing yourself and unconscious muscle tension in yourself could be transferring it to your pony.

Or maybe you have had a bad few jumps and inadvertantly pulled her mouth as she is going over, or banged her on the back.

It could be down to your position.

It is difficult to answer without being able to see what is going on, which is why I say it is necessary for a teacher.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Start with littler jumps.

Answer 4

do the jumps you did before the winter and during the winter do the  jumps  now or then if it is to cold to ride walk over them with your pony

Answer 5

Bring the jump down lower. My horse is green and he refuses and gets scared the first time. I have been through it so much that refusals do not bother me at all and falls only give a minor bruise to my confidence that is gone the next day. You just have to remember the more you get worked up, your horse will loose confidence. Remember your horse is scared too, so why do you need two people getting worked up about it? Just work with her over the jumps. Start low and get her used to it. Then when she refuses, you can walk her over it or make her jump it from a standstill.

The only way to gain back confidence is to do it. =]

Answer 6

maybe you are asking to go to high.  go back to height she did willingly before the layover.  after  a while you can go up an inch or two.

Answer 7

hi,

maybe you are asking to much of your horse...considering she hasnt jumped for a while.

if that was me (which it was one time) i had to start of with little jumps so thats what u should do. Even if it's just walking aand trotting over poles **i had to do that** Then when she starts getting confident and you then start working up to some nsmall jumps but dont do that until you are sure she is confident enough. Then when she is going fine over small jumps raise the height a bit.  Dont jump her every day either i would just jump once or twice maybe three times a week if you jump her to much you might over jump her ( thats what i did with my pony)if you over jump her this means she might get bord of jumping and then just wont jump.

hope this helps x

Answer 8

Maybe start with the jumps abit lower to get your pony back into it.

Answer 9

start over with the little jumps then step by step... slowly take it up

Answer 10

I had the same thing but my problem was in the Autumn she started stopping for no apparent reason. Little did i no it was her back. But it was evry similer with your horse; if my horse overjumped a fence she would loose alot of confidence adn stop at the next fense.

Wat i did was i went X Country after her back got better with the horses old horse. No one no's ur horse more than ur old owner!! The thing with X Country is you can start small and eventually you WILL get more confident guarenteed as long as you do nothing drastic.

And you can jst start jumping smaller and gradually build up (Easire said then done i no!!)

Hope things go well!!

Answer 11

I used to ride a little Arab school horse. I moved on to a different horse because he couldn't jump that high. He was being used as a beginner horse for a very long time and didn't jump higher than little crosspoles. Then my horse was off for a bit due to an injury and I started riding the Arab again. Anyways, When I jumped a 2' 6" verticle (the height I used to jump him at) he would get very nervous and deek out or refuse. My coach had me jumping him over very small jumps and gradually made them higher and he gained his confidence! Just remember that when you lose confidence she will lose her confidence to so even when you are jumping her over a 1 foot crossrail ride to it like it is the spookiest jump in the world and you are going to MAKE her go over it!Try doing that it should help a lot!

Sorry you had to read all that just to get to the important stuff LOL

Nicole