From: Lauren
Dear Jessica, I ride at a regular barn in Quantico, VA. I have my own Quarter Horse/Welsh pony. Hope is 14.1 and just turned six in April. My problem is with her getting to excited. This is a big problem in my jumping class, especially in equitation because we're going so fast that the judge can probably not even see us. My pony was abused when she was about one through two years old, then my instructors says that her old owners over faced her, which I agree with. They had her jumping 3 feet oxers that were a foot wide. In my lessons Hope is calm as can be, but the second I'm dressed up and she see's a lot of people walking around it's a different story. I value your opion and I'm hoping that your knowledge will help Hope and I learnto jump over fences over them. PS. I was thinking about changing her show name to Sonic Boom:)
Thanks in advance, Lauren
Hi Lauren! It sounds as though your mare associates shows and show clothes and crowds with being frightened and being punished. You need to teach her a whole new set of associations with these things, and this is good-news, bad-news: the good news is that you CAN do it; the bad news is that it's going to mean no showing over fences for most or perhaps all of this show season.
You can't make Hope forget about what's happened to her in the past, but you can give her a lot of good, calm, pleasant experiences that will eventually become stronger in her mind than the old, painful ones. Sadly, it takes many, many good experiences to outweigh a few bad ones, or even one really bad one! So you're going to have to be very grown up and patient with your pony -- you're the adult in this relationship, and you're the trainer, and your job is to rehabilitate a frightened horse, which is MUCH harder than just riding a perfectly-trained, calm one. ;-) If you can stick with it, you'll be a better rider and a much better trainer...
Here's the plan. At least once a week, in your lesson or just for schooling, wear your dress-up clothes. At your age, it's a good idea to wear your show clothing regularly anyway, because that way you'll notice as soon as you start to outgrow something! ;-) At first, Hope will be nervous -- just ignore that, behave as you always do in your lesson, and let her adjust to the idea that you can be dressed up and yet nothing horrible will happen to her. When she's adjusted to this -- it may take a month of "dressing up" three or four times a week -- it'll be time for the next step: arrange to have a lesson at a BUSY time, when there are a lot of people around. If this isn't possible, bribe some friends to come out and hang around, talk, walk around, etc. while you have your lesson. When this no longer bothers Hope, you'll be ready for the next step: taking her somewhere else for a lesson (talk to your instructor about this, she'll probably have a good idea about where to go). Get dressed up, pack up your tack, dress Hope for travel and take her somewhere new. Give yourself several hours there; turn her out in a safe area if you can, or hand-walk her and let her eat grass or hay, then have your lesson, and keep things very, very pleasant for Hope: only ask for things that she does easily and well, and praise her a lot. Then hand-walk her/ graze her some more, pack her up and take her home.
You'll need to do this on a regular basis, taking her to different places and proving to her that going somewhere else, seeing new people, and seeing YOU in your show clothing doesn't have to mean anything nasty.
I haven't forgotten about the jumping! ;-) Meanwhile, at home, ask your instructor to show you how to set up some very small fences so that you can practice trotting over them calmly, on a long or even a loose rein. When horses are worried about jumps, they go too fast, and when horses go too fast, riders get scared and pull the reins hard, and the horse's mouth hurts, and that makes it go even faster, and the rider gets MORE scared and pulls harder, and the horse goes faster and faster..... it's a really bad feeback loop! The way to change it is to put a neckstrap on Hope so that you'll have something to hold on to that is NOT connected to her mouth, and then set up tiny, attractive jumps in an enclosed arena. When Hope is warmed up, let her get over them SOME way, and leave the rein loose and pat her and talk to her, telling her "Good girl" in a calm voice after each jump, even if she's running away. She won't run away for long, because she won't have any reason to run. As the two of you become more comfortable with each other, you can put up more jumps -- again, your instructor will need to help you set distances. Keep the jumps VERY low and inviting: if Hope can jump tiny jumps calmly and cheerfully, you'll be able to increase the height later, don't worry. The important thing is to convince her that jumping is easy, that you're pleased with her effort, and that she can go slowly -- and you can't FORCE her to learn any of this, you have to set the scene and then let her teach herself.
By the time you've done all this, it'll be late spring or early summer, and it'll be time for you to plan to go to some shows. Don't get too excited -- I said "go to", not "show in" the shows. ;-) Shows are what worry Hope, and even all the preparatory work you'll have done isn't going to stop her from worrying at the first few shows. So here's what you'll do: take her, dress up, and just walk her around the grounds, pet her, feed her, hand-graze her, and let her relax. It may take hours, but she'll get there if YOU are calm and pleasant. Then, at the end of the day, take her home. Do this at two or three small schooling shows, and if she's calmer by then, take her to the next little show, do the same thing in the morning, and then tack her up and RIDE her around the grounds -- again, you're not going to go in a class, you're just going to hack around and talk to your horse. After your ride, hand-graze her for a while, and then take her home. Do the same thing at the next show, and the next, doing more and more riding as she gets more calm and less worried. If all goes well, toward the end of the summer, put her in one or two classes over the tiniest jumps, and don't plan to be competitive -- you will be using those classes for SCHOOLING, and you're not looking for a ribbon! The only thing you want to take home with you is a pony that had a nice time going over those tiny jumps calmly and being praised. If you can get this far by the end of the show season, you can keep up the good work at home over the winter, and you'll have a cheerful pony that enjoys jumping and is ready to go to shows the NEXT spring and summer. And if she gets calm and quiet over fences, and can jump them with a minimum of energy, you'll have your equitation pony! ;-)
Jessica
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