Why is Your Horse Taking Poles?

Why do you think your horse is a bit careless? It’s easy to say ‘that’s just how he is’ but try to be more objective.

While each horse and scenario will differ slightly, there are some common themes when it comes to horses who regularly crash through fences:

1. Is he spooky or prone to stopping?

You’d think that a spooky horse would give everything extra in the air but this isn’t always the way things play out. Sometimes, a horse lacking confidence or being spooky about jumping can prove to be careless.

Normally, the root of this is that a spooky or underconfident horse will back off your aids on the approach to a fence or coming round a corner if he catches sight of something. Because the canter becomes underpowered and you have to then kick or smack, the rhythm can often be disturbed, which means the horse might reach the fence on a half distance and/or without enough impulsion to clear it easily.

If this is the problem, it’s really important to go back to basics and work on building your horse’s confidence over spooky fences and fillers. It’s also key that your horse stays in front of your leg so that you can react to any backing off quickly and keep a good canter on the approach.

2. Is his flatwork good enough?

There’s no getting around the fact that a good jumper needs a good canter. Part of this is due to natural ability, but you can definitely improve the canter.

If your horse is arriving at the jump strung out and too fast or behind the leg and resistant, it’s going to be harder to use his body effectively over the fence. If your horse is lacking balance or impulsion, the canter needs more work.

Flatwork is key to improving a horse’s carefulness. You want to develop a canter which is soft, balanced, and connected with impulsion.

What is key to a good jumping canter is that you have adjustability without losing impulsion. Your horse needs to be able to lengthen and collect his canter stride easily so that you can make adjustments as you jump without losing the rhythm or impulsion.

3. Is he young, green, or under developed?

Remember that jumping requires strength and balance. If you had a long break from riding, you wouldn’t immediately be able to do lots of sitting trot or two-point work.

Horses need time to develop the muscle tone and strength needed to jump. If your horse is very green, under muscled, or just lacks balance in his work then remember that jumping is HARD for them!

Sometimes, some time to grow up, find their feet and improve their general body awareness is all they need. Some horses might be very well balanced by four or so, but this depends on so many factors.

Your horse being five or six doesn’t mean that he’s necessarily ready to jump bigger or with more control because so many other factors are at play including height, breeding, previous work history, and the rider on top.

4. Is it something you’re doing?

We don’t want to admit it, but often, a horse is taking poles because of something we’re doing. In inexperienced riders you will see this often, but these issues don’t go away as we become more competent!

You may not be doing anything drastically wrong, but with horses who are technical or sensitive, you don’t need to be! In fact, it could be something as small as sitting up a little bit too early and causing them to take a pole with their back legs.

It’s easy enough to check this by putting a very experienced rider on board to see whether your horse has the same clumsiness or carefulness with them or not.

Check out Coachfinder, the innovative service from Pixio, official FEI Partner, as they can connect you with an online coach to take a virtual lesson!

Words by Sophie Baker