"I bought my ISH some three years ago with the firm intention of taking him eventing. He was then quite green, and very laid back. To cut a very long story short, he is now pretty fit and has made a lot of progress on the flat (working comfortably at novice and early elementary) and seems to be finally cracking his showjumping. By this, I mean being physically able and wanting to jump bigger courses/fences rather than stick at the 1m level. He is now quite forward with his showjumping.

I have spent a lot of time schooling him over various cross country courses but he is not "keen". He will jump but obviously doesn't have confidence in me as he slows right down and then show jumps them. I have tried another rider and we have the same issue. He will follow another horse over anything! I am not keen to carry on as I will either a: have an accident because he will try to show jump something of the height of a novice cross country fence or b: he will lose his bottle completely and then not want to show jump either. Neither are fair on a horse that does normally try for me. He is not particuarly brave on hacks where he doesn't know where he is going either. I can't hunt him because he has kicked out when I made the mistake of hacking out with someone who really whizzed up her horse and crashed into his back end. To be fair, he is normally so good he babysits nervous horses now.

Any bright ideas would be welcome! As he such a big character and is exceeding my expectations with the flatwork and showjumping, selling him is not an option but I miss my eventing. At the moment, I am looking at sharing another horse with a friend to event but would prefer to have one and do this with him. I am not ambitious - would just like to get back to eventing at novice level again! And finally - teeth, back done regularly as a matter of course, saddles rechecked every six months and I also have regular lessons." Lucinda Langstone-Bolt

H&C blogger and Olympic eventer Sharon Hunt replies: "I would suggest that you follow someone cross country as much as possible over as many different jumps as possible, large or small. This is to make him more confident hopefully when he goes on his own. What I would do if he was mine would be once he's following boldly and at a reasonable speed, then go over the same fences on my own hopefully in the same style, i.e. not spooking or slowing down. I would do this as many times as necessary to achieve the result of him confidently jumping the fences on his own. I would keep to the same fences so he gets out of the habit of spooking. I would also ride him strongly away from the fences rather than chase him at them this can make things worse. I would maybe even go back to the same place the next day and then maybe start on my own hoping to achieve the same braveness straight away. If he remains spooky ,this could take a long time to eliminate but the most important things are consistant riding and not over facing him.

Hope this helps!

Sharon."