FIONA'S 1 YEAR PROGRESS // Problem Horse To 1m20 Showjumper

For this video I thought I'd put together a few clips of Fiona over the last year just to show how much she's come because I am seriously proud of her. So Fiona if you don't know is a 10 year old 17 hand mare. We bought her as a two year old and then someone we know broke her when she was four. I didn't break her myself because this was like six years ago so I was quite young. She then bred two foals and hasn't really done anything. Last year I brought her into work but as you can see from this video it didn't go so well. She was very difficult to ride. Please don't give me any hate or criticism I don't want it, thank you. So when she would do this I would just try and get her to go forward as much as I could that's why I'm kicking her forward. I just want her to go forward forward forward so she stops rearing. We got her checked out by a vet and a physio. Couldn't find anything physically wrong with her so I was like okay maybe she's just being a mare you know kind of sassy or whatever. That actually wasn't the case. I never really got anywhere with her this in 2017. She just would do this every single day. I hated riding her. When she would trot she would feel very stiff and awkward and so that's why I got her checked by the vet but then on the lunge she wasn't like that. She moved quite freely so I was like okay does she just not like being ridden or whatever. The saddle wasn't the best fit so this year in 2018 I did get a new saddle and it really helped. So I decided to jump her. I jumped her twice in 2017. This was her first time being jumped and you probably think I'm crazy why am I jumping a horse that I can't even ride on the flat but it was actually so funny when when I'm riding on the flat she won't go forward. I can't get her to move forward but the minute she sees jumps or pulls she's so keen and so forward going and it's just so nice to ride her. So I actually really enjoyed jumping her. It was the only time she wasn't trying to rear and kind of throw me off. So here you can see she's a little bit better with the rearing but she doesn't move very well. She's still quite stiff and she's tense. She's always thinking about what I'm doing. She would be fine unless I put any pressure on. If I put pressure on with my legs or hands she would then rear or stop and she just would have a brain explosion basically. She doesn't like it. Then you can see jumping she's so keen. She wants to go for the jumps and she absolutely loves it. It's so funny she's still like that today. So this was the last time I rode her in 2017. I came to the end of my summer holidays. I kind of hit her block with her. I just kind of gave up. I was like you know what I have two other horses I want to ride so I just rode the other two and left her. So this is the start of this year. As you can see in the lunge she moves really really well. She doesn't look lame. She's much better. So that's why I knew it was an actual physical issue. It was just when I was on her she was a different horse. She hated someone on her. I then found out it wasn't that she hated it. She was genuinely afraid which I'll talk about a bit later. So I went back to basics just always trying to get her to move forward forward forward. I did these raised trotting pulls to build up some muscle on her. She used to be terrible at them. She would knock them every single time. She had no idea where her feet were but she's so good at them now. So I did this just to build up muscle so it was easier for her to carry me and so that work didn't feel so hard for her. So here you can see she's moving a little bit better. I'm just trying to get her to go forward. Not much contact on the reins. Still not perfect. She kind of throws her head up or down or really far down like behind the vertical which I didn't like her to do either or up. It just yeah she wasn't exactly on the bit by any means but I was happy that she wasn't rearing. Although she still would rear like every day but it got less and less and less. Here I am jumping her this year. This is one first time jumping her. Again super keen. Absolutely loves jumping. We did find it really hard to canter on the right lead. This was an issue that lasted quite a while but it's now resolved. Thank god. Thank goodness. I would always correct it when I was just cantering around but because I was jumping here I didn't want to do a million circles and get her really wound up so I just went for it and she jumped that fence. Absolutely unreal and it made me very very excited and motivated to fix the issue. So this is a clip of me trying to get her onto the right lead. It takes a long time. If you can see she like almost well not that time but a few times she almost goes onto the right lead. Like you can see her almost do it and then she just goes onto the left lead and then when I asked her to come back to trot she gets a little bit like what are you doing? Why are you pulling on my mouth? But I was like no we have to trot because you have to on the right lead. This is also when I have my new saddle so it fits her a lot better. Also how I kind of fixed the whole rearing issue was literally just it sounds so you know like natural horsemanshipy but I just kind of got her to trust me. Whenever she would start rearing I would pet her which I would never usually do. Usually I would ride them out of it. I just pet her and talk to her and she would just settle down so quickly and slowly she realized that you know what having a rider on my back isn't so bad and she would get lots of attention and food after riding and she does like turn into such a happier horse. She never like rears now only very very rarely. Only if she gets really tense and worried such as at a show if horses kind of ride up behind her quite close she gets a little bit worried but I can just kind of you know talk to her and she settles down really really quickly. So here I'm jumping a course because this is because I have a show after this my first show with her. As you can see she still gets a little bit mouthy sometimes but it's a hell of a lot better. So this was her first show her first class was a 90 centimeter I think and she was actually clear in her first ever show. She was so good and she was very keen hard to slow down sometimes but she was super. This was her second round it was the next day it was also 90 and she jumped that unreal really really nice. This fence she jumped and then spooked at the wheelbarrow afterwards I nearly fell off but yeah it's all learning. I forget that she's so green she's such a brave horse but then sometimes little things happen. So here we have the right lead problem I couldn't get on the right lead for the first fence which led to a very horrible gallopy fence and then not a very nice second fence either. But we did kind of get it back for the third fence but yeah she was just very unbalanced. This is like the story of our life because she's so huge she really did find it very hard to balance. Again to that fence she was disunited where and then she couldn't come back to me for this next fence which led to us knocking it. So this was our second show this was the 90 and she was clear in this and which was very good. There I almost died I don't know if you could see but she took out a stride didn't listen to me at all just took off and I nearly fell over her head but after that she was very good. This bit here I'm very happy with her around it's very like in a nice rhythm she just jumps out of her stride. When things stay in a nice rhythm she jumps very well. Down this line I leave out a stride and you can see how easy it is for her to just leave out a stride very very casually. Obviously that's not a long-term solution because you can't just leave out strides all the time but for her second show I was happy with her just being forward and confident. So this was the meter and you can see there she kind of had a bit of a green pole it started raining she got a bit distracted and that was the only pole we had in that. This is her third show and this is the meter. Over the start of this meter she wasn't very careful. I don't know if it's a new arena she was a bit distracted it was quite a big show so there's a lot of atmosphere. Here this double she was insanely careful I was so happy with that because doubles are an issue because she's so big. This is her first 110 she jumped that fence that she knocked last time very well and the next fence. To this double though I completely mess up I have no um see a problem was that her rideability wasn't great and if the stride was coming up a bit wrong I couldn't um shorten her because she just didn't have that button and you can't exactly gallop her at a double either so I tried to shorten but it didn't work and she got in very close. This round is from Mill Street her third show um this is the meter she was a bit unlucky to have this pole down I don't even know how she knocked it doesn't look like she knocked it but this course was extremely windy did not suit her at all she got very wound up it was low to turning especially when she's not balanced it was just quite hard but she did just have the one pull down she tried her best. This is the 110 she jumped amazingly in this class it was the next day um she just had one pull down because she jumped into a double very big and knocked the second part. This fence here she jumped unreal really showed me the scope that she has which was very exciting I was delighted with that round. This was not a very good round this was the 110 the third day here she spooked at like the horses outside I believe I'm not really sure what happened she's never done that before and she's never done it since and then we had our first triple where she did one stride in the two stride part and then I don't know how she managed to get over the second the third part um so it just got very very out of control um bit of the story of our life she gets very long and I just can't get her together. So we went back to schooling we jumped loads of triples this is a 120 triple at home as you can see she's starting to improve she comes back in doubles and triples now it was just a lot of practice um going forward and collecting on the flat work that was the biggest jump we had jumped so far as a 130. Here's a clip of her trotting as you can see oh we also had a bit we changed the bit after mill street because I was just so out of control I need something a bit stronger to get her back to me so we changed to a pelham because I had one in the yard here you can see how much her trotting has improved she's tracking up she's relaxed she's round this was um her next show this was the meter class again really did not have a lot of control here she almost tried to do one stride like that was dangerous I'm really like it just wasn't good she really was just diving at fences I couldn't get her back to me so naturally I did the 110 after that round and she was like a different horse um see here's the double and she jumps it really relaxed easy two strides um we just kind of came to the conclusion that the meter was just too small for her because she has such a scopey jump if the jumps aren't big she uses all that scope to jump long I wish me she lands really far away from the fences whereas if the jumps are bigger she has to jump up here is the triple in the 110 the next day again huge improvement from mill street jumps in really quiet and comes back to me doesn't try and do one stride and kill me which was really nice and yeah it was just a really nice round there from her I was delighted so yeah we vowed from never doing one meter courses ever again because they were just too dangerous so now that um we have the control and the confidence um we started doing some grid work and jumping exercises to try and sharpen up her technique a little bit because she could be careless the odd time um especially when she got tired near the end of rounds this is because she didn't have still have a huge amount of muscle on her top line so we worked on developing that here's her jumping a 120 oxer very nicely very easily she just really improved very quickly this is a 110 at Kyleogue this is her fifth show I believe it is now um she was very good here she just had one kind of unlucky pull down as a little vertical off a corner she got distracted by the fillers against the fence and had it down but I was quite happy it's much more control as you can see and I definitely have more buttons I'm able to shorten her if I need to doubles um are less of an issue she backs off them and she stays quite careful here she fought me a little bit but I was still able to get her back and then I was still able to get her back again for the double which I was really happy about and finally to end the video is um my round from yesterday in the 120 this is her first 120 and she was double clear so that's why I'm so happy with her at the moment I'll just let you watch this round as I kind of talk a bit about what I learned I guess so she's really a kind of a special kind of horse I've never had a horse like her at all um she was genuinely nervous when she had a rider on her back and if she's confused like if you're asking her to do something that she just doesn't understand she'll just stop and maybe do a little bunny hop and go up and she just doesn't understand um so you just have to be very slow and patient with her and ask for little bits at a time because once she does get it she gets it like she's she'll do it every time um she's so soft in the mouth now whereas before if I put leg on and some contact to ask her to go into a shape she would get confused didn't understand but now she understands she just goes straight into a contact she's so soft in the hand for a big horse it's quite nice so it's just so nice to see that she genuinely wants to learn she just didn't understand like I'll say it a million times she's a bit silly she's a bit stupid bless her but um but she's such a trier like you can see with the jumping she's such a trier she she's so good another thing that really helped when she would get very sticky and wouldn't go forward is because she was so keen to poles I would put trotting poles and poles all over the arena and I would just trot over them all the time so that she was never kind of just trotting around aimlessly and she always had something to focus on and to go over like the trotting poles and so yeah that really helped as well and I hope you learned something or enjoyed watching her progress here's a clip of her trotting at the very start compared to her trotting now and I think you can all see there's a big difference in her I'm so excited to see how we keep progressing