A show jumper that wouldn’t jump long water.

This mare was a talented show jumper but couldn’t progress past the 2nd rounds because of her fear of long water.

Rather than try to get her to jump it with a rider on as that had already been tried and it didn’t work. Doing more of the same wasn’t working so I change things up, this is where the groundwork really comes in handy. So the aim is to gain the horses confidence jumping the water with out a rider. Once she starts to really attack the jump rather than back off I can put a rider on. I break down the tasks into smaller chunks so that the mare can learn that its ok and that the water jump isn’t a lion in disguise.

The way I approach issues like this isn’t dissimilar to a loading problem.

I would also use these techniques for teaching horses to jump ditches, drops and water.