He didn't refuse to go over an obstacle once yesterday. Most significantly, he went over a new jump of his own accord.

They weren't big jumps, about a meter high, no more, but he went right over them with only one slight hesitation.

I suppose most riders might not find this particularly outstanding, but two years ago it was a life-and-death argument to get over a simple trot-pole. He would explode over it and follow it up with a wild-west show. The arena has a couple of very hard spots that really hurt to land on.

In early summer we began to work through the final part of Clinton Anderson's training program. This includes jumping over obstacles as part of the groundwork training. It was coming up time to start doing proper jumping training.

Going back to what I learned long ago, you can beat a horse into doing anything, the way they still do out on the steppe, and the horse will do it, but it will not be a pleasant experience and woe betide you if you let up for just a second. That is the kind of training that puts riders into the ground, hard. It is far more satisfying when all you need to do is gently ask your partner to do something and he goes willingly. That requires patience and it requires teaching the horse a bit at a time, at his own speed.

  • Find a starting point, however far from the end goal, and work from there.
  • Reward the slightest effort.
  • Never ask for too much, just a little more each time.
  • Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.

So, looking at the way Oakley tends to refuse to jump, it is basically his way of taking control. I could try and whip him over the jumps, but that is distasteful to me. I want him to want to go over the jumps, I need him to trust me that it is safe to go over those jumps. The best way to do that, I reasoned, is to give him what he wants, so he'll give me what I want.

He wants to be a fat, lazy quarter-horse, munching away on grass all day.

I want to go over jumps and and ride cross country.

So, the training plan is simple: make him want to go over the jumps, because on the other side is something he wants: rest. Every time we went over a set of trot poles or over a small cavaletti without an argument, he gets to stop and rest for a while. Whenever he balked, we turned around and spent 10 to 15 minutes of sweaty flat-work on this side of the pole, and present him to it again and again until he decided to hop over. As soon as he went over, then we'd stop and rest for a couple of minutes.

At first, back in September, we managed no more than one jump per session, even if it took over an hour and five tries to do it. Balk after balk after balk interspersed with lots of ground-work until finally he excitedly leaped over some small cavaletti a few centimeters high. Then we did things like put out plastic flowers or cloths or something to make him balk. So we did the workout we were going to do anyway, just in his mind, it became a consequence of not jumping promptly.

Gradually, he refused less and less frequently. He would balk once, maybe twice, then go over and without the histrionics. Gradually, we did two jumps over the course of the hour. Then three. Then four.

Yesterday, we were working on walk-trot-canter transitions that are so important to getting collection and for getting the horse attending to the aids and, after 10 minutes, I brought him to a canter, pointed him at a jump and he went over with only a slight hesitation. I immediately rewarded him with a stop and rest. A couple of times I got off to do a clean up. We did seven or eight jumps, with a minute or so rest after each. We worked on side-passing, on leg-yields at the trot and always pausing only after a jump. He didn't refuse once.

And then it happened.

We were on a loose rein, trotting along, working on developing quiet, collected trot/canter transitions when he turned of his own accord towards a new jump, one with plastic flowers and such that used to frighten him so and hopped right over. So, of course, he got to go right into the corner and pause for a few moments. That's it. That's the moment I've been waiting for. The moment he decided we should jump.

Banner day.

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Comment by Jackie Cochran on November 9, 2013 at 7:46pm

Good work!

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