Listen to Lucinda Green’s live appearance on the Eventing Radio Show yesterday, where she answers questions from listeners.
Read some of Lucinda’s responses to listeners questions:
Can a horse learn to jump?
A horse jumps and he has to learn where to put his feet and you can’t teach him that – he has to teach himself.
As a youngster I would present him with all sorts of different obstacles and they wouldn’t be big and as difficult to knock down as possible.
He’s got to learn and I will show him lots of different variations. But first of all I’ve got to get him to understand that stop means stop and go means go and I’ve got to be able to steer him.
I don’t want him to learn to run out, I’ve got to have him schooled enough to keep the fence in front of him.
I go for repetition if they don’t understand, provided I’m making myself clear. But they don’t need endless repetition because horses jump naturally.
If you’ve come across a horse that doesn’t jump naturally that’s very bad luck because they usually do.
I have just returned to the sport I used to event to Intermediate but now I have a Novice horse. I am much more nervous than I used to be, how can I get my confidence back?
I really feel for you – after pregnancy I didn’t have any balance and the most difficult thing was my reactions got so slow. It can unnerve a lot of people.
Don’t over face yourself and wait until you are really enjoying it and want to jump another fence and another fence.
And if find you don’t want to jump and stick to dressage, just do that.
The whole levels have gone up so much and the showjumping is so big, they can rattle around the cross-country, but in the showjumping there’s not the room for error.
