Anxious "bolting"

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KikiDee

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Has anyone ever overcome this? I'm not sure what I am looking for really - tips, positive thoughts, success stories?

I have a horse who is quite an anxious little chap by nature, though he has improved massively over the 2 years I have had him and is generally quite relaxed and happy now, he's learned to accept the leg, hacks out happily on his own without spinning and tanking off at the first leaf that moves etc. he just has a busy brain and 'big feelings' about things. I actually tracked down and spoke to his breeder who told me he has literally been that way since the day he was born, and once he was backed she sold him as he was always going to be too sharp and unpredictable for her. So I'm fairly confident there is an element of it just being the way he is rather than some deeply traumatic issue.

However when something freaks him out, his go-to is to run. I use 'bolt' in inverted commas because it's not a true bolt in the sense he's running blind with zero self preservation. But he will take off flat out in panic for about a minute until his adrenaline levels drop enough for him to start thinking straight again. The only way I've found to deal with it is just to circle him on a large circle and stay very calm and talk to him and gradually bring the circle smaller until the initial panic is over and he takes a breath and then he will come back to me. Trying to cling on, stop him or fight him just panics him more.

He will always do this through stress/anxiety/fear - he's had full vet checks and I'm pretty confident it's not a pain response as there is always a trigger. Either something pretty black & white like a bird flying out at him or he refuses a spooky filler and scares himself. Or it can sometimes be caused by trigger-stacking e.g. in a pole clinic he was already worked up as he found the work we were doing hard, then he got in a bit of a tizz over canter poles, so tanked off a bit, he then had to squeeze himself through a tight gap between a jump wing and the arena fence because he'd bombed off in the wrong direction which tipped him over into a full "leg it" mode for a few laps of the arena.

This isn't an 'every ride' thing, he can go months without doing it and 99% of the time is a lovely well-rounded horse - he hacks, jumps, goes round hunt rides, but I want to event him and with this behaviour I just don't see how he will ever be safe to do so, either for him, myself or other competitors.

Is there something I am missing or is it just 'who he is' and a case of dealing with it in the moment? I would move mountains for this horse and he is unbelievable talented and utterly wasted at the moment, so if I can do anything to help him learn to manage his emotions better and handle these situations I will do whatever it takes if that means groundwork, adopting a new system etc.
 
You need to teach him that the automatic reaction to any unwanted or worrisome stimuli is not to run, but to stay where they are and engage brain which all starts with groundwork. I don't like desensitising in its traditional term as you can desensitise them to specific things, but not everything you meet on a hack, the plan is to reprogram the tolerance and reaction, not just get them used to something - now to caveat some will always lean sharp but it's definitely worth a go.

Firstly, does he lead respectfully, stop when you stop and not enter your personal space, move his shoulders if asked, move his hindquarters and back up if asked? If he doesn't the next step is liable to get you hurt, so it's super important that you cover this one off.

Next go in the school or a safe space that is enclosed with a lunge line or 10ft line, and do something that he will find slightly worrying but not OTT. It could be having a lunge whip and just tapping it lightly off the floor (if he's not whip sensitive) or an umbrella or a bottle on a stick or a flag or whatever you have that works. Make sure he's engaged with you and is calm by practising some of the above leading skills, which he should find easy. Then start the mildly worrying thing, he may go off to run or move (this is why we go mildly worrying, as if it's worrying enough that he will wall of death then you'll lose him and reinforce the behaviour inadvertantly), just keep doing it until he stops moving his feet basically - don't escalate it, don't deescalate it, make sure you breathe and don't make stiff eye contact with him, just consistent and calm from you and eventually once running doesn't make a difference, he will stop - it's super important that you stop the stimuli the second his feet stop moving, err on the side of early if you're worried. Repeat a couple times and call it a day. Once he has that then escalate the stimuli as much as you think is necessary, whizz a lunge line like a helicopter above both of your heads if you really wish (and he can cope).

Another thing I find useful is again in hand, to find some mildly worrying things around the yard/out and about. Not the run off kind but the snort and eyeball kind - have a pocketful of treats and stop, let him process but not look away from the thing, then a step towards earns him more thinking time if needed, if it's not then a reach out with his nose or intent to engage with said item in a similar way gets a treat and you walk away and rest. Then you can repeat this a couple times again to reinforce.
 
AShetlandBitMeOnce said:
You need to teach him that the automatic reaction to any unwanted or worrisome stimuli is not to run, but to stay where they are and engage brain which all starts with groundwork. I don't like desensitising in its traditional term as you can desensitise them to specific things, but not everything you meet on a hack, the plan is to reprogram the tolerance and reaction, not just get them used to something - now to caveat some will always lean sharp but it's definitely worth a go.

Firstly, does he lead respectfully, stop when you stop and not enter your personal space, move his shoulders if asked, move his hindquarters and back up if asked? If he doesn't the next step is liable to get you hurt, so it's super important that you cover this one off.

Next go in the school or a safe space that is enclosed with a lunge line or 10ft line, and do something that he will find slightly worrying but not OTT. It could be having a lunge whip and just tapping it lightly off the floor (if he's not whip sensitive) or an umbrella or a bottle on a stick or a flag or whatever you have that works. Make sure he's engaged with you and is calm by practising some of the above leading skills, which he should find easy. Then start the mildly worrying thing, he may go off to run or move (this is why we go mildly worrying, as if it's worrying enough that he will wall of death then you'll lose him and reinforce the behaviour inadvertantly), just keep doing it until he stops moving his feet basically - don't escalate it, don't deescalate it, make sure you breathe and don't make stiff eye contact with him, just consistent and calm from you and eventually once running doesn't make a difference, he will stop - it's super important that you stop the stimuli the second his feet stop moving, err on the side of early if you're worried. Repeat a couple times and call it a day. Once he has that then escalate the stimuli as much as you think is necessary, whizz a lunge line like a helicopter above both of your heads if you really wish (and he can cope).

Another thing I find useful is again in hand, to find some mildly worrying things around the yard/out and about. Not the run off kind but the snort and eyeball kind - have a pocketful of treats and stop, let him process but not look away from the thing, then a step towards earns him more thinking time if needed, if it's not then a reach out with his nose or intent to engage with said item in a similar way gets a treat and you walk away and rest. Then you can repeat this a couple times again to reinforce.
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Thank you. Yes he is super respectful on the ground and never takes off in-hand, even when startled. I think he gets a lot more reassurance from having me on the ground than ridden, if something upsets him the worst he will do is pause and snort for a second then walk on when I ask him. He was sharp on the ground but I've always taken the approach of just being super calm and blase about how he reacts to things and rewarding him for 'being brave' with things in exactly the way you describe in the last paragraph, he now doesn't really react to much - trailing lunge lines, me waving things around etc. We also did this ridden with hacking and spooky objects in situations I could control, I would ask him to stand calmly, step towards it etc. and then reward him and this worked really well to battle his demons and the worst he will do is a little side-jump whereas previously his go-to was to spin and take off. It's the instinct to run when something truly startles him or overloads him I can't crack - for example the most recent incident he was just trotting around long & low fully relaxed when a bird spooked him and he just span and went. Once he is in panic mode I can't do anything other than de-escalate it slowly until his adrenaline drops.

When he came to me he had a lot of anxieties about his rider in general, if I shifted my weight, used my leg or adjusted my reins for example he would react and shoot off. I spent a lot of time working on this with positive reinforcement and he is now much more relaxed and I think also has just learned to trust me in general, but I think the issues is still there that he just doesn't connect his rider with the same reassurance and when his anxiety overrides his brain it becomes amplified.
 
A minute is a long time for them to spook. What is his field situation like? Does he have companions he gets on well with or is he bullied or ostracised? Horses, like humans, carry their social issues through into their work.

How old is he? Do you do a lot of hacking or other situations where he might encounter the unexpected?
 
maya2008 said:
A minute is a long time for them to spook. What is his field situation like? Does he have companions he gets on well with or is he bullied or ostracised? Horses, like humans, carry their social issues through into their work.

How old is he? Do you do a lot of hacking or other situations where he might encounter the unexpected?
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He shares a field with another horse who he gets on well with, also interacts well with the horses either side of him over the fence. He is very relaxed in the field, happy for his companion to come in and be ridden without him etc. happy to wait and be the last one in and will just wander down to the gate and wait to be caught.

He hacks out regularly alone (2-3 days a week) and other than what I would consider 'normal' spooking at unusual things takes most things in his stride. He is a sharp horse but doesn't react dramatically more than a spook and a snort. I actually consider him Mr Reliable in most situations as there isn't much he won't go past and hack him out in high winds etc. without any real concerns.

It's literally just when something tips him over the edge of the point he can self-regulate like a sudden startle (bird flying into his head) or he gets past the point he can cope emotionally through trigger stacking (which is something I try to avoid but can't always be helped in a competition for example).
 
When you feel him getting more wound up in a trigger stacking situation, can you predict when he’ll go? If you jumped off and held him on the ground would that save the situation?

How old is he?
 
maya2008 said:
When you feel him getting more wound up in a trigger stacking situation, can you predict when he’ll go? If you jumped off and held him on the ground would that save the situation?

How old is he?
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Yes and no, I generally feel him getting more wound up and then a flip switches and he's off, I can ride him through it in the sense I can sit quiet until the adrenaline drops and get him back to me - like I say, he doesn't run truly blind in a dangerous sense, but it's not "bogging off" in an intentional way - it's running through anxiety for a few moments until he starts to think rationally again. The problem is I need to try and get to a point where I can diffuse it ridden as I can't keep legging it off midway through a dressage test or showjumping round! It's not all the time I should add, otherwise he'd be unrideable, he goes out and does 'stuff' quite successfully most of the time but I feel I need to give him better coping mechanisms for situations where he spirals.
 
Pinkvboots said:
Have you ever had his eyes checked?

Sounds like how my friends horse was and she had cataracts in both eyes.
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Yep he actually had his eyes tested last year as he has a blue eye so we checked his eyesight while I had him in for a full work up anyway.

We also did a full work up and x-rayed everything just to be sure.
 
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