Argh horse suddenly objecting to the spur

[Ahrena]

Ok life really isn't on my side at the moment!

So I schooled my boy today. Or failed to really. He literially bucked or kicked out every single time I put my leg on. No idea why he's suddenly started doing this, yesterday he was fine. My boss had a sit on him as it's extremely unlike him, and typically he was fine for him. The moment I got back on, he started again.

When I took spurs off, he didn't buck but he's very behind my leg and just doesn't respect it. Riding with a whip makes him very tense so that wouldn't really help.

Its quite a big issue as I have my regional finals on Saturday so really need him to go well.

Boss suggested just not to ride him with spurs for a bit as 'he seems annoyed' but tbh, as it has been lately, his advice on the whole thing wasn't massively constructive, just a lot of 'he's taking the piss as he was fine with me,' comments which may betrue but didn't really help me deal with it.

I've ridden him with spurs for the last two years but never had a problem. Don't think it's anything else physical as was fine with my boss.

What would you do? I'm torn between seeing how he is with spurs tomorrow, or just school him hard to try and get him to work nicely without spurs, then see how he is with them on Friday or what?

 

[JustKickOn]

Surely you should be able to put your leg on, without putting the spur on?? ETA- re-read and it doesn't make much sense out of my head. As in when wearing spurs, you should be able to use your leg to ask, but have the spur there as a back up to say 'come on'. The spur isn't 'on' every time you use your leg. Does that make sense?

Personally, I'd ride without them till and during the competition. Get him listening to your leg, mean it when you use it and don't take no prisoners.

 

[Ahrena]

I know what you mean.

Well I used to think I was capable of using my leg independent of my spur but after today I'm not so sure!

Sorry I may not of explained the whole situation very well. On a normal day, if I just use leg (no spur), he gives very much just 'so', all his transitions are very sluggish and generally 'in a minute', and if I give him a sharp kick or use my spurs he tends to get a bit cross and swishes his tail ect, or he rushes off and bucks, so it's difficult to re-enforce the leg without making him tense and upset, he just ends up tanking off. Normally with spurs on he needs a fair bit of leg anyway just to generate impulsion and things, but today he was just cranky!

I'm really concerned about the jumping. We had a big knock when we went up to novice earlier in the season, I dropped him back down as I wasn't riding very well with nerves and things, and he's been fine but hard work, and I'm worried without the spurs as a back up, he'll stop.

Thanks, trying to make sense of it all by writing it down, I just don't understand why he's suddenly so unhappy about me using my spurs? I mean he was literially bucking every time I used my legs.

 

[Paint it Lucky]

I would wonder if as he is fine with boss but not with you maybe your lower leg isn't as still as you thought, or maybe you are (possibly subconsiously) feeling annoyed at him so using the spur abit stronger than prehaps someone else might, because he is your horse and you expect him to go better?

Other reasons could be his coat is changing so he may be feeling particularly sensitive. Have you cahnged his feed lately? Sometimes higher energy or particularly high protein feeds can make horses more sensitive and touchy. ALso if he is getting annoyed when asked to go forward could there be a pain reason? Have you had his saddle, back, teeth etc checked lately?

Final idea from me as this works for my old horse who can be lazy off the leg but tenses up when kicked/whip used is to try rubber roller-ball spurs, they give you that bit extra but are very mild so horses don't tend to over-react to them. Hope this helps!

 

[JustKickOn]

I've posted this before on here somewhere, but one lesson I had I was told to just sit and take leg off completely. Lift your calf away from the horses sides, and just wait for him to crawl to a halt. As soon as he halt, double kick with the leg. Be prepared to shoot forwards and repeat the exercise. It does work at getting a response to your leg. He should start to think a little bit more and it saves you nagging away if all it takes is a little kick to get a bit more oomph.

If you've rules out pain things as mentioned above, perhaps it may be something internal?? Although if everything is normal and okay, it sounds as though he is work shy. Get tough, you're the rider, what says goes.