Horse Who Rushes to Fences

[KandC]

Current horse I ride likes to gun it the last 3 strides out from a fence- very resistant to half halts. She does like a particular ride, a strong leg to a strong hand and is HOT, but I was just wondering- what causes a horse to rush to a fence and explode on the other side?

I know pain, absolutely, and that is ruled out for this mare (hooray!). Anxiety is another, but she has no stop in her, and is incredibly honest and tolerant of my mistakes in that regard.

As a general discussion, what are other causes? What do you do to manage it or fix it? Just curious to see what you all have in your toolbox.

[btswass]

It sounds like she’s rushing just because she can. There are a couple different things you can try. One is setting up a simple gymnastics line so it forces her to slow down and rock back or she’ll crash through the jumps. I wouldn’t leave any more space than 2 strides in between the jumps. Start with some bounce poles to an xrail, one stride to a vertical, 1 or 2 strides to a small oxer. It gives you the chance to focus on you and she can figure things out on her own. Approach the line at a walk and start your trot just a few feet in front of the first ground pole. This gives her no room to start rushing.
Another option is to place a single small fence in the center of the ring and work around it. Turn to approach it then circle, change directions, leave her constantly guessing what your going to do next and when she least expects it pop her over and again immediately turn don’t let her go straight and explode. Turning forces a horse to slow down. As she gets better with this you can add more fences with the same idea of always turning, changing direction, and never letting her anticipate where you will go next.
If you have a round pen another thing you can do is set up a small jump (like 12" small) and have her walk over it then trot over it until she isn’t jumping it but simply trotting over it. Then ask her to canter. If she charges it back to trot until you can get a nice smooth canter. Because it is a round pen it should force her to balance herself more since she has to continue turning. As she gets better at this you can increase the height. As you increase the height have her approach at a trot not a canter so she is less likely to rush.
Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

[MissingASock]

Sounds like an inexperienced horse with holes in training. Does the height of the fence matter? I would drop things down and do very simple work; trot into a fence with trot poles, and halt straight line after. Nothing even remotely complicated, no courses, no bounces, no short lines. I like a trot in to a low vertical, canter 5 strides in the line (easy five), to another small vertical or an square oxer.

I had one horse who I knew was just green, and thought jumping was the best thing to ever happen to his life, brave as brave could be and din’t care if I messed up. But rushed everything. Just took time with him, simple tasks with a lot of flat work in between to get in always listening before he would settle. Would he ever make a hunter round look pretty? No. Would he squash a 1.30m course and do the jump off with every inside option possible? Absolutely.

I also think that some horses are just hot. They have a lot of blood and like to go, but you need them to have some rideability, and thats where those very simple exercises come in handy.

[Jealoushe]

Resistant to half halts? Go back there and get them consistent and effective.

[Raine]

If you are sure there is no pain behind (hocks, etc.), then loads o’ flatwork and poles.

This was me a few years ago. What I found was that 80% of the problem was me being horribly under-paced going to the jumps and riding off my hands - holding. holding, holding. I think that made my mare very anxious that she did not have the impulsion she needed, so we developed the awful habit of charging the last 3 strides. She had no trust in me as a rider, so was filling in with her own ideas about what she needed to do. Since she didn’t have the temperament for hunters anyway, we switched to jumpers. As soon as I started riding FORWARD, the rushing became less and less. Now we do 1-1.10m jumpers and she trusts me to tell her to wait or move up. She’s like a different horse and I haven’t even thought about that problem in ages…until I read your post! So there is hope. For us it was a combination of hock injections, fitness and a totally different ride…but mostly the ride.

Have someone video and see if it looks like you are trying to hold more than you think. LOL - I still feel like I am going Mach 1 in my jumper classes…and then laugh when I see how slow I really am in the video.

[KandC]

She backs off as the fence height increases. She’s very much an “I know better than you” minded horse. She will take you to the base, but at about 100 miles/hour and she picks the distance. She’s more manageable around 2’9-3’0 than 2’, but I’m not comfortable with her hit or miss rideability to go above 2’9.

We definitely spent yesterday re-learning the half-halt- canter to a single fence, land, if she played nice, we carried on to the next; if she took off, we did a 20 m circle in a shortened canter until she came back and maintained a good canter. Brought her down to a trot for a trot fence. I think we spent about 20 minutes yesterday learning that a trot fence means TROT to the base. Not trot and gallop the last 3 strides.

She is very responsive on the flat, but becomes a freight train over fences. She’s old enough/has had enough training and skilled rides to know better. She was previously owned by two very talented eventers, before becoming my lease. I don’t mind the hot, but would like the rideability. She’s not an angel on the flat, but lengthens and shortens well, transitions well, lateral work needs some work.

By resistant to half halts, I mean head flinging, inverted, and occasionally, she will do baby rears/crow hop. On my adult amateur on days, that doesn’t phase me. On my adult amateur off days, I may cry, but I get the job done. :yes:

She’s a very rewarding ride when we have our good days, and so much fun on those days. She’s also rewarding for those 1-2 fences on our bad days.

[skipollo]

When my horse was a baby he also “had no stop in him and was incredibly honest” to everything I pointed him at, but that didn’t mean anxiety wasn’t a factor. That was the #1 issue we had. He was green, he would rush, I’d grab his mouth/catch him on the backside of a jump, he would scramble/bolt/panic. I’d do it without even realizing it (I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing exactly, it’s just that we as flawed humans can be doing things we aren’t even aware of and our horses are doing their best to tell us.)

It was to the point where I could trot him on the buckle, point at an 18" crossrail, and he would rush/take off because he was so worried about me hitting him in the mouth (even if we did the entire thing on a long rein.) It took two months of walking tiny Xs on the buckle to fix his anxious behavior. It also helped to give him a job after the fence vs stopping at the end of the ring and just being excited we jumped it semi quietly. I had to (and still have to) ride the approach, the jump, and after the jump (which I still struggle with sometimes.) We’ll canter a circle, canter a pole, trot a figure 8, change directions, etc. Anything to keep his brain working.

Now several years later he’s pretty solid o/f if I jump him regularly.

[Raine]

Sounds a lot like my mare. We were stuck at 2’6" until the rushing issue was fixed. I never felt safe jumping higher.

[KandC]

Here’s a “good” day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1yT80AOMgM

Here’s a “stronger” day (she was also in a rubber snaffle, and I goosed her to move up to that oxer):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kz_fTMwayo

She’s a cutie!

[btswass]

Haha um I don’t know about anyone else but I wouldn’t consider either of those videos of her taking off at any jump. She got a little strong to the oxer but came right back to you. My experience with horses rushing is literally grabbing the bit and GOING then landing and bucking for the next 6 strides. Also I would die if I tried to ride in a rubber snaffle.

I think you need to give your horse a little more credit.

[KandC]

Should clarify, those videos are definitely good days for her. First video, she is in an elevator, second is the rubber snaffle. We tried milder bits because she will pop up/get fussier. She is currently in an elevator.

Videos are more to see if anyone sees any rider error contributing to her bad days. Sorry for not being clear!

[btswass]

Ok got it. My horse does not have good breaks but is even worse in stronger bits. I bought the neue schule verbindend bit which is a loose ring and it has made a world of a difference. He no longer runs through my hand and actually accepts the bit instead of just locking his jaw. I can communicate well with him without putting a super strong bit in his mouth so we’re both happy. Might be something worth looking into.

Did she always use to rush or is this something new? You might be doing something very subtle that overtime has caused her anxiety that has built up

[greysfordays]

I agree with you OP, she is super cute.

I don’t see so much of the rushing so much as it seems like she pulls and opens her mouth when it looks like she is getting a bit unbalanced. So I would say, I think this is going to get resolved with more flatwork so she has more strength to support herself when she makes transitions within the gates (moving up and coming back).

You may want to think about giving and taking with the contact in the corner so she can’t lean as much on your hands. But she’s not so much what I would call a big “rusher”.

[541hunter]

Watched the “worse” video—I didn’t think it looked bad at all. To me it looks like a horse going forward to the right distance (whether because she saw it herself or you asked). However, I get that it can definitely feel different than it looks.

We have Claudia Cojocar out to my barn for clinics once or twice a year, and she has a great exercise for this. After some flatwork, she has us start with a few poles set for a regular trot, nothing fancy. We trot up to it and a few strides away, come back to the walk, get in two point and release (like, hands to ears, big loopy rein release). Trot to walk is a test—are they feeling strong? Do they stay the same speed when I fully release their mouth, or do they try to jig? If not, we keep doing it over and over until they get the picture.

Then we do canter to trot in front of the poles. Same thing, big release and evaluate. Sometimes she does cavaletti instead of poles. Sometimes we do canter to trot to a low fence. The important thing is that no matter what is in front of them, the horse carries one rhythm to the obstacle without input from the rider. It’s really helped me and my horse when I’m unsure—I know I can put my hands forward and my horse won’t try to shoot forward to take a flyer. He knows when I release in front of the jump that I don’t want him to totally take over for me, just keep his rhythm. He might adjust a little bit to get comfortable but he doesn’t rush.

My first clinic with her, I swear we did that exercise for a solid 20-30 minutes each day. It was a lot. But by the time she came back six months later, we’d been practicing it pretty much weekly and all the horses got the drill so we didn’t need to spend as much time on it.

[meupatdoes]

You say she likes a strong leg and strong hand.

Probably if you put the whole ride into your butt and back and OUT OF your had (but you have to tell them not to get past your seat, and then let go and see what they do, and then tell them, nope, not past my seat, and then let go and see what they do, etc) the whole picture would soften.

But you have to set her up so that you can let go, and then let go more.

[Pally]

I watched the videos too, and I guess I was surprised not to see hotter, but I’m not at all surprised to see that it was (like Raine suggested) that you are actually underpaced. I didn’t actually see a mad death grip that, which a lot of people favour for killing the forward ;), so that’s really good. But honestly, I turned on a video looking for a rushing horse, and instead I had time to go make a sandwich while you were jumping your first three fences of the “worse” video. The fence she did shoot at (besides your goosing) was a related distance where so her self preservation at getting out kicked in. Now I would say in the “better” video, it’s not that you are flying at mach 10, but she is more up in your hand and has more bounce to her canter. That is telling. Moral - Needs More Impulsion!

If I were you I would do some work over poles, especially lines of them. No fear, no excitement that way. If the poles aren’t working out nicely and your rhythm has to change to get over them, probably Needs More Impulsion!

[BLBGP]

I was going to guess underpaced/behind your leg before watching the video and, well…

Have you tried letting go and getting her more in front of your leg? The biggest “rush” was her taking care of you to get a 5 in the line instead of a 5 1/2. She looks sweet! Are you working with a trainer?

[dags]

We have a school mare like this. She is the bees knees and she is smarter than the kids. They compensate for her tendency to make a bid at the jumps by starting behind the pace, which requires she take over the last 3 strides so no one dies.

There’s rushing the fences, and then those that just make a bid for them. Our mare just makes a bid at them. And once you learn to ride her it is dang hard to miss on her. Sitting is fine, but you have to be careful not to sit and accidentally drive with your seat bones.

I might also suggest that she is pretty… plump in the worse video. She may need to carry a bit more pace at that weight, and she’s trying to tell you that.

[Soaponarope]

Is this the horse with fused hocks you were considering leasing? If so, she may be telling you she doesn’t want to jump anymore.

[Jealoushe]

ummm… am I missing something after watching those videos…this is not rushing.

Watch my old event horse…this is rushing…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWYDQkHerz0

Looks like you need more leg, and to get up out of the saddle.