Every event horse must be confident and comfortable jumping into water; it’s a non-negotiable part of every cross country course. As Rohan Luxmoore explains, training your horse to be reliable through water jumps all comes back to confidence-building in their formative years.

Most event riders have had an incident involving a young horse and a water jump. Whether it’s a horse that doesn’t see the sense in getting their feet wet, or the one that believes leaping blindly into murky water is utter madness, we’ve all been there. When it comes to young horses and water, taking your time early on, fostering confidence from the get-go, and not taking a leap of faith too soon are critical to success. 

FEI eventer and veterinarian Rohan Luxmoore has trained countless young horses. He took Bells N Whistles from his first puddle to jumping through the water complex at Adelaide five-star, and his current young horse LH Valentino is now starting to show the confidence needed to excel up the levels.

“It’s a big part of eventing because if your horse won’t go into the water at an event, you’re not going to have a great day,” says Rohan. However, he has found that it’s not unusual for a young horse to baulk at water early on in their training, and you shouldn’t feel disheartened.

“It’s all about building their confidence.”

“I find that most horses are a bit reluctant to go into water when they’ve never seen it before. It’s all about building their confidence with water as you train them along.” Rohan has often found the off the track Thoroughbreds he’s had over the years are a bit easier to begin with, as they’ve experienced water walkers and beaches during their race training. “Some of those OTTs are quite easy to school into water, but your purpose-bred horse that is likely seeing water for the first time is often naturally a little shy of it.”

FOLLOW THE LEADER

For that first training session through water, Rohan likes to enlist the help of an experienced older horse – such as Bells N Whistles. “I like to pair them up with an older experienced horse that’s happy to walk into water. To begin with I try and find water that has a gentle edge, a nice firm base, and that is relatively shallow in depth.

“I then get them to follow the more experienced horse in… if they don’t follow straight away, you might need the more experienced horse to stand and wait in the water while you persuade the young horse to go in.

“When they first go in, they often like to have a bit of a play; they might paw or splash around in the water. I let them do that a little bit until they’re happy and confident… just being careful they don’t want to sit down and have a roll!”

PATIENCE IS KEY

Rohan says that training the water is a little bit like training the horse to go on the float. “You’ve just got to have lots of patience, and you can’t be in a hurry at all when you’re starting out. Some of them will go in quickly and some of them will take quite a bit of time. You’ve just got to make sure you don’t frighten them or make them too worried. You might need a little bit of negative reinforcement, you might tap them and make them a little bit uncomfortable when they are out of the water and then the minute they put a step in there, you stop the pressure and praise them, give them a big pat and make them feel happy about going in. You never want to frighten them or make it a negative experience.”

RINSE & REPEAT

For the horse that’s a bit tricky to get to enter the water, Rohan says repetition is particularly important. “You get them in one day, and then you need to get them in again the next day and the next day. You can’t just do it once and then stop. Going in and out of water frequently is really good for those horses.”

Of course, the big challenge for most people is that they don’t have a water jump in their backyard – but neither does Rohan. “I’ve become a little inventive there. On my driveway at home, I’ll make up a big puddle by scraping back some of the gravel and laying some show jumping poles around the edges; it’s not very deep and has a very firm base, which is important. I get the hose and just put a little bit of water in there and then I get the young horse to just walk through that puddle every day. I find that is a really good way to get the nervous horse used to going through the water with repetition.”

Rohan also takes every opportunity when out with young horses to walk through puddles to continue building their confidence. So next time you’re cursing the rain at an event, take it as a training opportunity!

THE DROP INTO WATER

Once the horse is walking happily into the water and staying in front of your leg as you enter, you can graduate to trotting and cantering through. When that’s established and in front of your leg, the next step is to pop down a little bank.

“If the horse is otherwise jumping little banks and drops confidently without water, and if they’re cantering confidently through water, then I introduce the drop into water,” explains Rohan. “Once we’ve got the drop into water, I’ll then look towards a little jump into the water. Sometimes you can’t always find an appropriate small log into the water, but you can always make up a little show jump. I’ve done it at home with a little show jump and the puddle on my driveway, just to get them used to jumping confidently in.“

“Once you’ve got those two things established, you can graduate to the next stage for the young horse – being the jump with the drop. And then later comes incorporating a jump in the water, which the horse will do as they go up the grades.”

SCHOOLING THE WATER

If the time has come to get out and start competing with your horse, it’s important to remember the horse’s confidence and future progression should always come ahead of immediate competition success.

“Often, I’ve found with my horses that the first year or two of competition, I might be doing EvA80s and maybe some EA95s. I will always show them the water before going back to jump through the flags into the water jump. You are permitted to do that; you might end up incurring some time faults because you’re taking your time… but it’s really important that they have a good, happy experience doing it. I think it’s absolutely the way to go to show an inexperienced horse the water first,” says Rohan.

As Rohan explains, schooling the water on course is permitted without penalty (other than the time it takes), however, you must be careful not to present at all to any of the fences prior to schooling through.

“If you plan to school through the water before attempting the jump, you need to come on a line that’s not suggestive that you’re approaching the fence initially. You can go across the track that you will end up jumping into the water from, but you can’t come in and present to the fence, feel the horse back off and then abort mission and re-route. It must be clear that your plan is to school through the water and then present to the fence.” Rohan adds that it’s a bit different when there are combination fences involved, however they don’t tend to come in until the higher levels – and by then, you shouldn’t need to be schooling.

So how do you know when to take the plunge and jump in without schooling at a competition? Rohan says it all comes down to knowing your horse and feeling when they begin to tackle the water jump with absolutely no hesitation.

“We’re also really lucky these days in that lot of the courses we now have two water jumps,” he says. “I often go from maybe at the first water jump, showing the horse the water and then popping in… and then as the horses are getting more experienced, I might go straight into the second water without schooling. It often takes one or two years to have a horse that’s really confident and in front of your leg jumping into water.”

Despite the best intentions, we as riders can make mistakes – and horses don’t always go according to plan! So, when an issue does pop up at the water, how do you handle it? “If you’re in training, it’s easy. If your horse has a stop at the water, you can quietly just turn away and go back and do some other schooling and then come back to things.”

“However, if something goes wrong at a competition, you have to make a judgment call at that time. You might have to walk away that day… walk away from the fence and just walk through the water and retire and talk to the organisers about having a school at some stage. It’s really important that you never get too wound up with your horse in the heat of the moment when something goes wrong. You don’t want them to have a bad experience and have them get nervous at all. You’ve just got to go back and do some more schooling. Come back another day.”

UNFAMILIAR WATER

“It’s important to understand that once you’ve schooled a water jump, usually the horse is really happy with that water jump, but you’ll take them to a different course and the young horses will find a different water jump a bit tough again,” warns Rohan.

In that training situation, it’s important to start back at a lower level. “Just walk them through and then trot them through, and go through the same process [as you did with initial water jump training] at the new water jump.”

Rohan says that with young or inexperienced horses, it’s also important to be mindful of the water jump following a break. “If you do a competition season and the horse is going really well and you’re really happy with everything and then you have a little break, you’ve got to be careful with the water. I think it’s important to go back and school water again before you head out for your next competition season.”

“It’s the sort of thing that will catch you out at that first event back, where the horse hasn’t seen the water for a while and then suddenly you could have a refusal or something. It’s really important for the young horse to go back a couple of steps to make sure they’re confident again.”

EACH HORSE IS AN INDIVIDUAL

“They’re all different. Some are much bolder than others,” says Rohan. “The bold horse, you can progress a bit more quickly; you’ll feel it in the horse. The horse that’s a bit nervous and a bit careful, you’ve just got to take your time with.”

Rohan’s current up-and-coming event horse, LH Valentino, is generally bold but is also quite a careful horse. “He will over-jump a bit into the water, which makes for a spectacular photo, but it’s not ideal when you’re going up the grades; as the jumps get bigger and you have combinations with a jump out in the water, you don’t want that spectacular jump in. You actually want them just to pop in with a more normal jump, so sometimes your schooling might be focused on getting them more familiar to reduce the over jump.”

Rohan believes than even horses that are quite nervous in the beginning will eventually come around with time and patience.

“Some take longer than others, but as long as you’re patient with them and keep the repetition up, I think you can certainly train the horse that’s initially quite frightened of the water to be really happy with it.

“Not every horse is going to be a top-level eventer, there’s always the odd one that maybe won’t be quite bold enough and may not cope with the bigger water jumps in the higher grades. But I certainly think nearly every horse can cope with doing water jumps at the lower levels.”

Ultimately, when it comes to training any horse in the water, Rohan says it just all comes back to building up and maintaining confidence. “You have to be really careful in your training to just keep the horse’s confidence. It’s just a case of doing a little bit frequently and being really mindful that the horse is confident and going boldly before you take the next step.

“It’s all about confidence, which is really hard to gain but also really easy to lose. Keeping that confidence is so important.” EQ

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE TO READ:

Simple Change is Never Simple – Equestrian Life, October 2023

LH Valentino Steps Up for Rohan Luxmoore – Equestrian Life, June 2023