A naughty horse?

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RunToEarth

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So this week at NSSC in the lap of honour, a horse maliciously kicked out at fellow team members horse and instantly lamed it. Very unfortunate and matters made worse by the fact the horse had big studs in from the JO. Now of course the one riding the kicker was utterly demoralised and hopped off to assist other horse before vet came. But what I noticed is the horse was never scolded, there was no punishment and therefore how could the horse acknowledge it had done anything wrong. Now the girl obviously knows her horse better than I do, and it may have just been a "one off" so I am not going to question her, but it just got me thinking, how do you react to bad behavoir?
Im not trying to imply I beat my horses to within a heartbeat of their life, of course I dont, but where 'naughty' behavior is concerned they do get disiplined.
 
I would of most likely growled and give it a smack with my whip not beaten it up you understand,but then again i personally would of been more concerned my horse had kicked another one and lamed it so maybe in the heat of the moment i would of been more interested in apologising to the girl who's horse mine had just kicked.
But its never happened to me before so im not sure how i would react to it i doubt it is something it does all the time as she would of had red tape on its tail more likely just excitment in the lap of hounour a bunch of heard animals ''running'' together.
 
As with disciplining all animals it needs to be done the second the bad behaviour occurs. If your horse kicks out or throws you off, etc and you can't respond instantly then there is no point, you can't chase after the horse and have a go later as it simply won't understand. I would give a sharp "NO" and possibly a slap on the shoulder (or whichever part I could reach) but never the head.
 
The thing is for punishment to be effective it needs to be instant. If the kicking caused a bit of a commotion by the time the rider had settled her horse the punishment would have probably have been too late and the horse would not have associated it with the kicking.
Also the rider may have been more concerned about helping the other horse and rider and jumped off without thinking about punishing her horse, then it would have definately been to late to punish the kicker.
 
Yes poor girl, she was terribly upset bless. The horse went lame striaght away and I think she was just more horrified at injuring another horse more than anything else.
 
Mmmm, I would say Josie knows right from wrong, (so does the little'un to a certain extent). She knows the things I except and will not tolerate while she is in my company ie, fighting with other horses whislt I have her, kicking of ANY sort, being bargy etc.

She was terrible when she came to me, but has improved vastly now. She only got this way through being disciplined.
 
I was in a similar postion a few years ago when my horse kicked out at a show and broke someones leg (rider, not horse) I was of course mortified and went to help the person straight away, calling for the ambulance etc
It wasn't until afterwards that I thought about telling my horse off, but by then it was too late to do anything.
The most important thing at the time then was to make sure the 'victim' was ok.

Of course if he did such a thing again, I would have 'disciplined' him but in those circumstances it would have been inappropriate.

sam x
 
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Any horse of mine that thinks about kicking gets a damn good crack round the ass - hence they dont try again very quickly.
But why was the horse behind close enough to get kicked?

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Well that is my approach to it all really, I hunt through the winter and cant afford a horse who kicks. It wasnt really a straight lined kick, it was a sideways one, catching it on the back leg below his hock. the horses were all abit wound up and close together after the lap, but yes the horse was quite close.
 
Gosh i bet you wanted the ground to open up and swallow you.

Im lucky with jay general rule with him he is a wimp he dosent fight one day at the beach fi was cantering him turned round and a jack russell was attached to his tail and he didnt try kick it off or anything bless his heart.
 
It is a difficult one and depends whether it was a one off or repeat offender. But unless you respond immediately there is no point punishing or repremanding because the horse does not associate the two together. At the end of the day horses will be horses and they do kick if feeling threatened, scared etc.
I am aware that my horse does kick others under certsin circumstances and never go anywhere without my large red ribbon in his tail. When he has kicked out he has been given a good crack on the backside and told no in no uncertain circumstances...but he is a kicker and I realise that dispite been repremanded he still has the ability to repeat offend.
 
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Gosh i bet you wanted the ground to open up and swallow you.

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I did, it was horrible. The person that was kicked was riding way too close to us for ages before, and I think he actually crashed into the back of my horse. Didn't stop him from trying to sue me tho..
 
well if he was too close damn well serves him right i make a point at comps or anywhere to never get closer than a whole horses distance it annoys me at comps aswell when your warming up and people dont use the rules such as pass left to left and wonder why the collide and get kicked.
 
Well I havn't ridden a horse/pony who's ever done that so I can't say but with spooking my instructor says to ignore the horse and carry on.
As for kicking the horse would get a hard thwack around the ass probably!
 
Lexi kicks - she wears a red ribbon whenever she is in a confined space with other horses (collecting rings etc) but I am always surprised at the lack of common sense shown by other riders!

If she takes a pop at someone she gets a good hiding, but to be honest it has only happened once or twice because I know what she is like and tend to tell the other rider to get out of the way (sometimes more politely than other times).
 
As Seahorse says, perhaps rider was so shocked/upset, it just slipped her mind to tell her horse off? A few minutes later is too late of course but if this horse is a habitual kicker, then she should've been ready for it, and certainly reprimanded it in some way (i favour a crack with the whip as kicking IS serious and can have very, very damaging consequences)
 
I bet your collecting rings are bigger than ours
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People here are such f*ckwits that they converge all along the side to watch the SJing so if you want to canter round to use the practice fence you HAVE to canter past a long line of horsey bottoms... I'm very watchful and careful of bums, but if a horse even came close to kicking PF I think I might be tempted to crack it myself!!!
I've lost time of the number of times some eejit with no brakes or steering has rammed into PF's bottom...
 
I think she was probably caught with the shock of what had happened. If my horse caused injury to another, my first instinct would also be to hop off and help the other horse. I wouldnt start laying into my horse!

It depends on the circumstances, if the horse was ABLE to boot a fellow horse in the lap of honour, I would say the other horse was way too close to it! In which case I would NOT beat my horse up purely for sticking up for itself / being startled.

However, one of my youngsters went through a phase when being introduced to shows, of trying to boot anything which passed him. Yes, he was over-excited, however he did get a sharp smack and a big growl every time he even THOUGHT about it. His behaviour soon improved. In this case, it was not a one-off so I had to "kick" (get it?!) the habit ASAP.

I think people are too quick to disipline their horses. A lot of the time we seem to forget to "think like the horse" and try to see WHY it did and if it was actually malicious at all!
 
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