Just a little jump

Last night I took Chad out for a short ride bareback. The ground was very hard, the weather was hot, so neither of us was very energetic. We went up a broad, grass covered path & I decided we should pop over a small jump, about 2' high, just to keep in practice. Chad decided otherwise.

There was nothing scary about the jump & he's been over it several times. It's a small log horizontal to the ground set on a couple of larger, vertical logs with a few others filling in the center. The ground is fairly level on both sides. It does look solid, but there is a good ground line and a fence on the left side. More often than not, we don't jump it, but go around to the right. There is no wing or pole on the right side to funnel the horse in, which isn't unusual on such a small jump.

We started trotting into it about 40' away, plenty of distance to get in straight & build up to it. We broke into a canter a couple of strides before the jump. At the last second, Chad decided to duck out to the right. His sudden sideways move threw off my balance. I held on tightly with my legs & pulled hard on his left rein. This helped me get upright & forced him to face the jump again. We wound up jumping over the far right hand side, but it wasn't pretty.

I let him take a few strides & pulled him up. Then we turned around to jump it again. This is a training issue for both of us. I can't let him get away with trying to duck a fence - ever. He has to learn that if I ask him to do something, we do it right or else we do it until we get it right.

So we jumped back over it & he slammed on the brakes about 2 strides later & turned to go back to the other horses. I almost came off since the sudden stop slid me up on to his withers & I didn't have as good a grip with my legs any more. His sudden turn to the side just about tipped me off & a bounce on his withers hurt my crotch.

I wanted to go back in, but we didn't. Instead, I hit him with the whip once & gave him a piece of my mind, letting him know just how unhappy I was. We jumped that same jump 3 more times & he did fine it each time. He could do it, but he was just being lazy & a bit hard headed, so we had to work it out. We always work out such problems.

Any horse will duck out of a fence or stop occasionally. Sometimes it is the rider's fault. I've occasionally over faced a horse with too big a jump or guided it into one poorly. These things happen. Then the rider needs to do things right. That might mean skipping that particular fence, but I don't like doing that. If I do, I'll take them into a couple of others ASAP, just to make sure they don't get the idea that it is OK to stop.

Sometimes the footing can just be bad or the horse stumbles as he makes the approach. When that happens, we'll usually try again until things are right, unless there was something dangerous like a half hidden hole, in which case we'll skip it.

Not all horses are as willing & honest as Chad is, though. Some, either through poor training or just because they've got a streak of devilment in them, will duck out on fences every chance they get. Some horses (ponies can be especially bad) will figure out that if they almost stop & drop their shoulder as they wheel to the side, they can launch their rider into the jump. That hurts.

Most of us have gone over or through a fence without the horse & it's never fun. Bruised or broken bones (especially arms & ribs) are common when this happens. It's not something to take lightly. Training minimizes such events, although nothing can make every jump a certainty. That's not a bad thing, but part of the thrill of horse riding - the dash of danger in everything you do.