From our stud, we have mainly selected horses for an eventing discipline that inherently have a little more courage than their peers. A different type is Vajk. With him, everything he shows on the field stems from the confidential relationship we has built with him, not from his own behavior. Vajk is a young horse who initially participated in tourist jobs where he could let himself go and moved mainly in groups. In one period last fall, he practiced short, easy-type jumping work. Then he was able to return to tourism, where he moved a lot in the cross country, but we used him also as a leading horse.
Then, in the springtime we had practiced jumping again in a period, which is when he got to know fixed obstacles too. Because of his fear of them, he spent the longest time calmly crossing unknown things and jumping no bigger than the size of the obstacle. After that his self-confidence was grown, we took him to cross country riding as a leading horse and then we tested him through an environment rich in foreign stimuli. (For us this is a major with dogs, and cars etc..)
Vajk
After that, he had a break and tourism, and in the summer instead of the scary fixed obstacles, he was able to return to easy normal jump poles and at the end of this period, we took him to his first jumping competition in August, where he managed to finish in first place.
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The next competition for him will be an eventing competition next spring. Until then, we will continue with very gradual gallop work. (After all, in the eventing the pace invigorates the horses and sometimes brings out their instinctive shyness, which can affect how they jump.) Let this story serve as a lesson for similar horses that are afraid from the ground shadows. And we are rooting for him to overcome his fears!
