This
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This was exactly my advice but nice to see it seconded 
Sorry! Missed this. I do think many horses need a buddy to get them feeling more comfortable. The first year I hunted my OTTB, I put him in a pick and choose field with a solid horse leading and he gained so much confidence! He was a horse that would start getting worried so it was important for him to have a lot of small successes.
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I know you said you did everything, did that include looking into the feet? X-rays, etc.? One of many possibilities, but that was what first came to mind when you started talking about how he starts to take off and then changes his mind. Sometimes with horses whoâs feet bother them, they approach a jump intending to go over it, start to take off, and then as that happens, they start to think about the landing, which hurts their feet, resulting in them âchanging their mindâ about jumping.
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Um ⊠who are âtheyâ?
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Most successful UL horses are indeed a bit hot. Itâs very hard to them foward enough if they donât naturally have an engine.
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What level was he at? Iâd sell to an adult ammie that doesnât want hot but wants to be safe aspiring to First Level.
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Which is, to be fair, 99.99% of the market. If she gets creative, she can trade this horse for one of the 17h, 20 ft stride monsters that many overhorsed dressage ammies struggle with.
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Ooh yes. Just flip a coin in any direction and you will land on a lovely woman of a certain age who waited her whole life to buy her giant high dollar Dream Horse and is now in pain and fear and wanting to hang up her spurs forever. In my barn, in your barn, on COTH.
She would love to scale back to a quality horse that will keep her safe now that sheâs figured out she will never sit Big Beastâs extended trot even with a total back replacement and is never âgoing up the levelsâ with him despite his potential. Thereâs a big market for well started but not hot. Thereâs a big market for quality horses that arenât upper level in their discipline.
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If the horse began as a dressage horse, there may have been a reason for thatâin other words, he may have been started over fences, had some of the same issues, and then was transitioned to a dressage home.
Although itâs true Charlotte Dujardin said she likes them âthe hotter the better,â itâs also true that for the average dressage rider, not having to scrape your horse off the arena when you ride after work during the winter is a big plus. On the other hand, as a wimpy amateur dressage person myself, Iâm not a big fan of spooky and looky, and, sad to say, just because a horse doesnât like to jump doesnât mean they have even middling dressage talent (you said he had a lazy hind end). So financially, you may take a hit reselling him, especially if his ground manners are iffy.
Like those who are in the h/j discipline said, itâs hard to tell just from a description what the specific issue is, but based on what you said, even if some of what youâve described can be schooled out of him, a horse with a serious âstopâ button may never lose it. From the description you posted, it sounds less like a visual issue but more that heâs very fearful (needing to be coaxed over poles, then finding them not scary, then crossrails, then not scary) and it will be a long and perhaps not terribly rewarding path forward to get his confidence up (without losing yours).
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I havenât been to this exact place but comparable ones, and Iâve been coming to think that a lot of these very sensitive, careful, flashy movers and jumpers can be a little neuro and have axial skeletal problems. Or at least their nervous system is not calibrated quite right. And they can do the âponyâ behavior because they can be simultaneously âshut downâ. That is a thing I have lived with some horses whose problems just manifested in different bad behaviors. Truly one that sensitive is not also that dead by nature. Quiet, sure. Not reactive to some other kind of stimulus that is less of a trigger, sure. But hypersensitive at the same time to other triggers? Yep. Propensity for big explosion or meltdown? Yep.
Landing in the middle of jumps is really bad. Much worse than the running out or stopping at the base. Very dangerous for everyone and very scary for the horse. Potential for serious injury here.
Other than being ânot hot enoughâ to move up the levels, why was he sold? Was he being marketed as a hunter and already started jumping or just a pretty prospect that may or may not have had any jumps at some point way in the past?
What you might get out of a Warwick Schiller type trainer is uncovering the triggers. And also waking him up out of the shut down-ness. Which could potentially create a worse problem for a while. Potentially give you insight on how to address the root of the problem. And hopefully rebuild some basic confidence and give him a better relationship with people in general. And the answer at the end of the day still might be that this horse isnât right for a jumping job. Especially if the end goal is for a lower level hunter and not a full time proâs horse.
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You may have mentioned it but - double triple quadruple check your saddle fit. I know a high quality, finished jumper that ended up like this due to a poorly fitted saddle.
Edit: even with a properly fitted saddle, this horse never jumped again. Whatever didnât fit left such a huge impression on him he never recovered from the trauma.
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Two horses spring to mind.
First would jump the moon and back, placed every time out.
Then stopped being able to make the second part of a double, then started cat leaping after a will I / wonât I jump hesitation and then we had full on explosions and no jumpingâŠ.or she was amazing and no bother at all.
Veterinary investigations went on for 9 months and nothing of worth to explain what was going on.
Eventually after she had a twitching fit and collapsed she went to the vet hospital and it was discovered that as well as a few other well hidden issues she had spinal ligament compression that was only impinged in certain situations.
Did not return to jumping and was eventually euthanised.
Second horse - pro SJ / Eventer competed up to 1.40 / Adv.
Started stopping / getting in deep, explosive and grumpy.
Veterinary investigations follow, ulcers dealt with, nothing else found other than soreness that maintenance body work should have helped with.
It was a hoof issue - NPA and thin soles all round. Landing toe first shod, as not âlameâ not considered of note by top veterinary hospital.
Issue dealt by taking rim shoes off and rehabbing barefoot. Sound as a pound and back in full work although didnât go back to competition - ownerâs choice.
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A lot of people are referencing horses that suddenly start stopping. This is likely a different case. A very careful and somewhat spooky horse who isnât yet fully trained to jump. They stop.
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Not at ground poles and extremely low Xs. That phase should be pretty well over by now.
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My thoughts too, this is a horse going backwards. Iâve started lots of youngsters and unless thereâs a physical issue or they are being vastly over faced they donât as a rule stop or run out just because they arenât trained to jump.
I read it that although very novice he was already jumping when they bought him - âyoung, sweet, jumps a 10+â but he was running out from the get go when the OP jumped him.
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@horse_crazyi: Just for clarification, before you bought this horse, did you see him jump with a rider on his back, over various types of jumps or a small course? If so, how was he ridden and how did he perform then? And did you try him in-person first, or was he bought straight off of video?
Thanks!
It doesnât sound like a âsuddenly started stoppingâ thing either as he was running out the first week they jumped him. So something was going wrong already and now heâs gone way backwards.
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I was confused by âjumps a 10,â too. I assumed it was in a chute, though the OP said they first had him jumping small courses, he ran out to the left, and when they got him straight, started stopping, even in the middle of the jump, and even ground poles are sometimes objectionable and scary.
Even dressage riders like to do poles and cavaletti and, no offense OP, this horse sounds like a bit more of a handful than the average amateur would be eager to take on! I wouldnât call this âsweet but not naughty.â
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The careful ones who have made a mistake and hit one absolutely do stop at ground poles and xs. It has nothing to do with the size or type of jump. Itâs the correlation of jump to discomfort. Ability to tolerate discomfort is a wide range in horses. Very sharp careful horses have no tolerance. They are either scopey and talented and end up as top horses or not and end up useless. The average amateur horse has a lot of tolerance for discomfort. They can hit one or work hard to get over something out of a tough distance without deciding they have no interest in doing that again. A green horse might develop tolerance by having most experiences be positive enough to make up for the bad ones. But it also depends on the nature of the horse. The vast majority that either lack a little tolerance or whose bad experiences outnumber good ones want to run away from discomfort as horses are naturally designed to do. They rush at or away from jumps, and are low and quick and might hit some and rush away more. People inexplicably tend to think these horses enjoy jumping when Iâd say they like it the least. The other type of horse is sharp, slow, careful, and over jumps, lands on the jump, leaps and gets hit in the mouth or back, and stops, all in one self fulfilling repeating cycle unless someone gets through.
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