Advice needed please - backing

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Sophie_Bailey

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hello, looking for a bit of advice please.

Have a lovely cob who unfortunatly was a bit messed up by his old owner and now needs re backing as such. Have done all the groundwork which he is great with but he is a bit nervy when i practise getting on (standing on a stool and putting pressure on his back/ putting foot in stirrup and jumping.. that kind of thing). And if im honest i don't know what to do next! do i just get on him and ride him or is there other things i could do first? Back, saddle, teeth have been checked and okay'd .

I know i'm sounding very novicey and when it comes to backing i am but he is such a good lad i really dont want to mess anything up.

many thanks for your replies in advance
Sophie
 
my TBX mare is being broken at the mo, and I am watching it being done.Here is one tip that I think works well - She saddles her up(in the stable), puts the stirrups down pulls it away from the horses side and drops the stirrup agains the horses side. The first few times she flinches and jumps, but she keeps doing it and she gets used to it. It means that when the horse feels leg on her, she wont shoot off at a vast rate of knots!! Good luck x
 
I'm on the process of backing mine and didn;t do a lot of long reining, it came back to bite me on the ass when he freaked one day when i got on him and ran away and bucked me off. went back to basics and found that long reining really REALLY helps to build up there confidence and got him used me to being behind him and driving him forwards. With regards to getting on, i started by standing on a box in the stbale when i was grooming and when he was happy eating his hay and just getting him used to me being above him, we then progressed to me leaning over him lightly (in the stable and in the school as i was trying to teach him to stand at the mounting block) once he was happy having me above him i got my friend to stnad in the stable with me holding him and give me a leg up so i was leaningover his back but all my weight was on my friend. this then progressed to my weight being on his back (with no tack on btw) and then we began to move him to the back of the stable where i would get a leg up(but still just leaning not actually over him) and we would walk him across the stable to the door.

Next the tack went on, we went into the school (by this point he was happy for me to be above him and leaning on him) i got someone to hold him really slowly got on, and then back off again. kept my head down for a wee while as well as i think that what most babies are frightened off. Also what helped was putting a teddy on him and lunging him - that got him used to having something moving above him.

So not an easy process but it is worth it!! Good luck :)
 
aw thank you! will give that a go tomorrow , really appreciate any advice as i rent my own land so can't really ask anyone else (the chickens arent great on the advice front)
 
Sophie_Bailey said:
hello, looking for a bit of advice please.

Have a lovely cob who unfortunatly was a bit messed up by his old owner and now needs re backing as such. Have done all the groundwork which he is great with but he is a bit nervy when i practise getting on (standing on a stool and putting pressure on his back/ putting foot in stirrup and jumping.. that kind of thing). And if im honest i don't know what to do next! do i just get on him and ride him or is there other things i could do first? Back, saddle, teeth have been checked and okay'd .

I know i'm sounding very novicey and when it comes to backing i am but he is such a good lad i really dont want to mess anything up.

many thanks for your replies in advance
Sophie
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I know of a brilliant man in Leicestershire. He's done a couple for us. Very quiet with them, gets their trust and good with tricky sensitive ones.
PM me if you want his name he does get booked up though
 
As your boy has already been messed about and you are a novice it might be better for all concerned to send him away to be restarted.

However if you do want to do it yourself ALWAYS have someone with you when you are backing him. We start ours by lunging in tack with the stirrups down. I know the books say to make sure the stirrups are tied up under the horse's belly but we leave them loose so that the horse gets used to them moving and banging about (just to be clear they have already been lunged firstly without tack and then in tack).

To back them we first lunge them and then the rider will lean over the saddle from the mounting block with the experienced helper standing at the horse's head holding the lungeline. We always make sure that the helper has previously lunged the horse so the horse is used to their voice commands/body language. As long as the horse is settled we will then walk the horse on for a few steps before the rider slides off. This is repeated a couple of times.

The next bit is where experience is very helpful as the rider will then quietly slide a leg over the saddle whilst the horse is being led so that they are astride the horse but keep their upper body low over the horses's next before sitting up. They will only do this when they feel the horse is ready to accept it. With a couple of ours this has happened the first day of leaning over them but with others it has taken a few days of leaning over.
 
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