Tucky's great jumper, but hates it!

[Kylie Chamberlain]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Sometimes I hate my horse! (but mostly I luv him to death)
Today Sharna and I worked Tuck over little jumps and he was such a pig!
Unless kept completely collected before the jump he will run around the jump or refuse!
Any suggestions?

[jUmPingIsLifE]

how long has the horse been jumping??? is he trained to jump? are you training him? if you are training him yourself and cannot fix this the best thing to do is get a experianced trainer as jumping can get dangerous and not something a inexperianced rider should try. if you cannot afford that or are relativly experianced enough, or if he has allready been trained and just picked up the habbit it NEEDS to be fixed NOW

go back to troting poles and get him through those without a problem first, than canter poles, use your leg to creat somewhat of a wall, don't just pull on the reines when he trys to go around this will pull his head the way you want but will not stop his body use your leg to keep him straight over the poles. than do canter poles than a cross-rail. first set up a cross rail without ground poles and see if you can post over it (treat it as a troting pole) and see if you can keep him relaxed and troting over it (you may want to be ready for a jump). sometimes when horses refuse one the rider gets it in their head 'oh no is he going to refuse again?' and what happens the horses refuses than the rider thinks its going to happen and of cource it will...you want to picture yourself going over the jump in your head, not thinking your horse will refuse or run out. refusing and running out is my BIGGEST NONO when i teach and its the same for my instructer. even if you have to jump that jump from a standstill i get my horses over it. if he stops give him a boot and get him over the jump...if he runs out pull him back....if you find he still is running out than take it from a walk so you can think more about what he is doing. (its only a cross rail its easily jumped from a standstill)

later on add the ground poles and raise it higher and higher as he gets better....again horses can jump pretty high from a standstill so if he stops MAKE HIM JUMP IT! and give him a HUGE pat whenever he goes over...goodluck

[Lgd]

Take up dressage!
Some horses plain don't like jumping, Peri can jump but doesn't enjoy it. If you watch her jump she is technically very correct and very scopey and has jumped well over 4'6". She will jump up to about 2'8" fairly willingly then after that she can get really stroppy about it if she isn't in the mood. She will happily jump huge x-country fences but hates showjumps. I have never overjumped her - she rarely jumped more than once a week at home when we were jumping. She basically seems to find it boring and doesn't see the point, she is impossible to school over jumps because of this, yet she will school something on the flat over and over until she gets it right with no objections.
Our 'baby' loves jumping and will quite happily pop over 4' jumping loose on her own. If you loose jump Peri she actively tries to avoid jumping the fences.
If you really want to work on the jumping try doing some on the lunge or with him loose down a jumping lane, both methods will help you assess where the problem lies.

[FreedomStar]

Do you jump him everytime you ride? Maybe he just wants some time off, or he's bored of jumping.

What I would do is set up some trot poles and canter poles, and work on some groundwork. See, your horse will be expecting to jump, but you can surprise him by not jumping at all. By doing groundwork for a long time, he'll eventually become bored and then you could put up a small jump and slowly progress to larger jumps. But, try not to do the same thing all the time; give him a change of routine.

[Rachel C.]

Good answers from everyone... if you think he does enjoy the jumping, just needs to learn a little more, doing poles first, next start working over little crosspoles, having an EVEN rein contact, and legs gently encouraging forwards equally on both sides, jump from TROT on a nice forward stride. If he runs out don'tbe forceful, walk towards the fence face hm up to itand ask him to walk over it (we're talking 6'' crosspoles, so he CAN walk over it) if he refuses don't turn him round and approach faster, encourage him to walk OVER so he learns stopping or running out still means he HAS to go over the obstacle on that attempt. Remember it should be fun for rider and horse, and for the rider to have fun the horse's basics must me good and correct.

[maverick927]

My pony is super at jumping and i never understood why at shows he wouldn't go (the jumps were bigger at shows) and the reason why was because when he jumped high he tucked so high that he hit his tummy with his feet. I bought him a stud guard and I now have a super pony who jumps wonderfully at shows and we even got a 2nd on Saturday.