I Need Her Brain

When I am jumping my mare I always do it away from the gate. In the process of doing we are facing a section of dense bush and she tends to lose her focus and look into the bush for something that may eat her. Right now what I do is I just talk to her and massage her gums this usually works, but lately she just stares into the bush and I usually steer her away becuase I don't want her to trip on the jump and go down. I have tried jumping away from the bush and towards the gate but then she spooks at the 'bush monster' and I have a panicky horse barrleing towards a three foot object. I have tried flipping the jumps so she is going length ways but she still spooks at whatvere she thinks is through the trees. I think that maybe becuase the trees are so thick she can't see into them is what is scaring her. Any tips on how I can get her brain in the game before she loses it completly would be nice. Thanks soo much for anything!

I'm not sure if your horse is in turn out, or if your horse is stalled, but either way I would put her in an enclosed area and let her run. A good run in one direction. You are the boss, so you chose the direction and you keep her moving her feet. I'm not talking about lunging. I'm talking about letting her run her butt off in a controlled environment. It sounds to me like she's just amping up at stupid things around your area. She needs to release that silliness and come down out of the clouds.

Could you flatwork school her near the scary trees enough to get her bored of looking at them? And also to give you more opportunities to insist she stops looking at them.

We have been doing LOTS of work in the tree end of the ring.... She is turned out 24 hours a day and her paddock is surrounded in trees we do flatwork almost everyday and only jump probably two days a week. Our round pen is actually farther into the trees than the ring and I run her there al the time. Who knows with a horse who is crazy enough to be afraid of rocks she is capable of anything an chris is Shadow that we are talking about...I swear she is a schizophrenic :p anyways thank you for all the tips, I appreciate them all :)

Hmmm, so how determined are you being with her? When you're jumping do you set a course and ride her through it, or do you slow down or stop when you think she's not paying attention?

Have you tried setting up a grid to jump her through? Or a course? Something that she will discover she NEEDS to concentrate on otherwise she will make a fool of herself.

Try working her hard on the "safe" side of the arena, then resting near the trees at the end of the session.

Another thought, something I notice I often do if I have some bad experiences in certain areas of a field or arena... do you think maybe you tense up in that area without realizing it, and in turn she picks up on your nervousness and acts out in response to that?

It might not hurt to watch someone else ride her briefly and see what happens. I find I learn a lot about my horse and my own riding by observing sometimes. If you don't want someone else to ride her, then have someone record you riding her. It might give you another perspective on what and why this is happening.

And if that doesn't work... ride her through it. Don't focus on that area. Focus your attention on another point past the scary area, and just work on getting to that "safe" spot.

I have thought of it being me and it pretty well could be. Shadow and I have had some bad experiences around that end of the arena and I do have sub-concious confidence issues so I am working really hard on that so I don't mess her up by her feeling that from me. I will try all of these suggestions and we shall see how this works out! Thank you VERY much!