Yorkshire_Lass
5th Jul 2005, 11:57 AM
I'm having a lot of problems with jumping my pony at the moment and I was just wondering if anybody on here could give me any advice.
My pony has never been a brilliant jumper, when we first got her she would jump practically anything I put her to, but would get extremely close to it, she would never stop but would get so close it was never a confident comfortable jump and i think she maybe did it because she had been pulled in the mouth previously and obviously feared going forward to the jump. My instructor has spent two years with me teaching her to go forwards into her jumps and to go off longer strides etc and she has improved loads. The problem is, I have only done very small jumps straight forward jumps and usually in grids to get her confidence up.
The problem now is more my confidence I think. I've never really done any jumping since I stopped going to a riding school about 5 years ago so it's sort of a novice on novice situation which is never good. When I first got her I was fine, I would jump up to 3 foot on her because she was used to jumping that sort of height, but as we havn't really gone over 2ft for 2 years i'm finding going any higher quite daunting. It sort of goes into a downward spiral, as because of the height or width or whatever I sometimes forget everything else I should be doing, like keep pony confident and going forwards which she really needs as she always looks at things she hasn't seen much of before, so she goes back into her old ways of getting close and me getting left behind and sometimes accidently pulling her in the mouth so she we are both even less confident the next time and usually ends with me on the floor.
It's not so much of a problem at home as it is at shows, as at home my teacher is there and i'm being told what to do and we're both happy about what we're doing. But at shows it's all new jumps and pony can sense I don't really want to do it however much i pretend I do and I know i'm just going to make pony go back to her old ways if it carries on like this and I just feel like giving up, but when she's confident my pony loves jumping, as she's proved my going xc with my teacher and she will always jump off the lunge and I would love to be able to jump her, but we're totally losting confidence in each other and I just don't know how we're going to get through this. Help!
Any ideas will be really gratefully recieved. YL x
My pony has never been a brilliant jumper, when we first got her she would jump practically anything I put her to, but would get extremely close to it, she would never stop but would get so close it was never a confident comfortable jump and i think she maybe did it because she had been pulled in the mouth previously and obviously feared going forward to the jump. My instructor has spent two years with me teaching her to go forwards into her jumps and to go off longer strides etc and she has improved loads. The problem is, I have only done very small jumps straight forward jumps and usually in grids to get her confidence up.
The problem now is more my confidence I think. I've never really done any jumping since I stopped going to a riding school about 5 years ago so it's sort of a novice on novice situation which is never good. When I first got her I was fine, I would jump up to 3 foot on her because she was used to jumping that sort of height, but as we havn't really gone over 2ft for 2 years i'm finding going any higher quite daunting. It sort of goes into a downward spiral, as because of the height or width or whatever I sometimes forget everything else I should be doing, like keep pony confident and going forwards which she really needs as she always looks at things she hasn't seen much of before, so she goes back into her old ways of getting close and me getting left behind and sometimes accidently pulling her in the mouth so she we are both even less confident the next time and usually ends with me on the floor.
It's not so much of a problem at home as it is at shows, as at home my teacher is there and i'm being told what to do and we're both happy about what we're doing. But at shows it's all new jumps and pony can sense I don't really want to do it however much i pretend I do and I know i'm just going to make pony go back to her old ways if it carries on like this and I just feel like giving up, but when she's confident my pony loves jumping, as she's proved my going xc with my teacher and she will always jump off the lunge and I would love to be able to jump her, but we're totally losting confidence in each other and I just don't know how we're going to get through this. Help!
Any ideas will be really gratefully recieved. YL x