Keeping your horse from refusing

The most frustrating thing for me as a young rider was training my new arabian mare. She was my first horse and I loved her dearly, however I could not for the life of me get her to jump over a jump. At first everything was going great, and then she figured out how to refuse. From this point on I made it a task for me to figure out how to get her to jump confidently over a fence. After months of trying countless things, I figured out three different ways to build your horses confidence again.

Step One:

Start from the basics. I know this is frustrating to here, but sometime you must go back and teach your horse the very basics. This could mean re-teaching him/her to walk over trot poles, or even one pole! If your horse is refusing, there is something that is obviously going on that your horse is not happy with. In order to find this out, you must go back and build his/her confidence, even if that means walking in circles over a single trot pole.

Step Two:

Next, after your horse figures out that he/she is not going to die from walking or trotting over a trot pole it is time to move on to lunging over a small fence. For those of you who do not have small x-jumps, this is where it might be hard for you. Before you even think about jumping your horse again, you must see him/her approach the jump and examine when he/she starts to back off over the fence. This is key in knowing when/where to apply more leg to make sure the horse jumps over the fence.

Step Three:

After your horse has started to confidently jump over small jumps, it is time to move to attempting it yourself. You can either try over trot poles will a small kavoledi at the end of three or four trot poles by yourself or by having someone else lead you with a lunge line. It is important to relive the experience that the horse was most comfortable with in the actual attempt. If this means going back to being lunged by your instructor then so be it.




Lani has always had an interested in horses. Her other interests include Panasonic Electric Shavers and
Remington Hair Clippers.