Training your horse to jump 'scary' jumps

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By: Susan Kjaegard

Taking your jumper to a horseshow usually means getting the horse exposed to many different colourful and potential fear eliciting stimuli (otherwise known as 'spooky jumps’!). 

Some horses are more fearful of such ‘scary’ objects and jumps than others and I often meet riders that have problems with their horses refusing to jump the colourful ‘scary’ jumps.

This issue is usually addressed in training by introducing many colourful and oddly looking jumps to habituate the horse to jumping different types of jumps. Many riders recognize the situation where their horse refuses the ‘scary’ jump the first time, but once they’ve jumped it once they are no longer scared of it and the following approaches are nice and easy.

When this happens at shows it’s easy to see that such behaviour will not produce a pricewinning routine, and it often spirals going on and on forever, causing great frustration to both rider and horse as well as leading to welfare issues for the horse if the rider gets too harsh with the aids in his attempts to ‘force’ the horse over the jumps.

To change this, I focus on the horse giving a correct forward response to the rider’s leg-aid. Even if that means just riding past the fence when the horse starts to hesitate!

If the horse stops in front of the fence and stands there while the rider is applying a leg-aid that the horse cannot respond to accordingly, habituation will occur, and the horse will become "dull", desensitised and unresponsive to the leg-aid. It is even possible that the horse will begin to make an association between the leg-aid and the standing still part, which will lead to displaying an incorrect slowing response from the rider’s legs.

Shaping

A very effective exercise to assure the horse gives a proper forward response to the leg in front of the jump is to place a pole on the ground approx. 10-15 meters in front of a very low jump and then walk over the pole and then transition to trot between the pole and the jump (as demonstrated in the photo below).

If the rider feels the horse hesitate just change the direction slightly and ride past the jump. The MOST important part of this exercise is to make sure the horse responds to the leg and transitions to trot.

When the horse starts to respond better after a few repetitions the rider can direct the horse to the jump again. Make sure it’s a very small jump so the horse can jump it from a standstill without effort.

Slowly you can increase the difficulty of the exercise by rolling the pole closer to the jump and creating ‘scarier’ jumps thereby gradually shaping the reaction from the horse to be more and more reliable in all situations.

It is SO important to remember that the crucial part of this particular exercise is not getting the horse over the jump, but rather getting the horse to respond correctly to the leg-aid, and to go forward in correlation with a scary jump.

Keeping the stress level low

One of the reasons I prefer to start this exercise in walk and transition to trot is to keep the horse’s stress level as low as possible and encourage the horse to move quietly.

It is important that the horse is calm and ‘mentally present’ if you wish to train sustainable responses that will eventually consolidate and become reliable in more situations. If your horse is food motivated you can even add a positive reinforcer i.e. a treat after the small jump. This will both help increase your hors’s motivation to jump the scary jump AND help the slowing down on the backside of the jump and prevent your horse from expressing it’s flight response in association with the jump.

Be smarter – Not harder

Many showjumping riders know how problematic it can be to have a horse that runs to the jumps without being ‘mentally present’ and without listening to the rider, because this greatly increases the risk of having rails down.

By training the forward response quietly like described, you can avoid the risk of converting one non-pricewinning routine of your horse not responding to the leg and refusing to jump into another non-pricewinning routine of your horse having rails from not responding to the reins and running into the rails.

I call it a win-win when you can increase your chance of winning while improving the welfare of your horse in the process... Enjoy!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  A professional Showjumping rider and trainer from Denmark, Susan competed at international level, ranking no. 76 on the world when she was at her best. To date she has more than ten top 5 placings in National and Nordic Championships and has represented Denmark in Nation Cups and European Championships as well as competing successfully in the World Cup series. Impressively, all her best results have been achieved on horses that she has started herself.  Susan is extremely adept at training and teaching techniques that align with learning theory and the horse's nature and ability to learn. She is a brilliant example of the outstanding results than can be achieved using an evidence-based approach. Susan is renowned for riding with flow, feeling and harmony and aims to instill these qualities into those she teaches. To find out more visit: http://www.blueberryhill.dk

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