Backing 3/4yr olds

My 2 are back in after their mini break- started by giving them a little loose jump today and I was impressed- the mule has suddenly developed some scope, and Enya looks more athletic than last time (I think she was in an awkward stage of growth last time)
I will gradually get back on them and hope to do a few little hacks before chucking them out until next Spring. I might take Enya to the Futurity next month, although it's very expensive and I'm not sure there’s much benefit.

IMG_8610.jpeg

IMG_8618.jpeg

IMG_8617.jpeg
 
ihatework said:
Enya is looking useful and PURLEEEZE take the mule to futurity just for the judges face comedy factor 😂
Click to expand...

I think he would actually put a lot of the others to shame- he's a nice mover and pretty useful over a fence! I mean, he is still quite donkey, but I still think he'd have the edge over some I've seen turn up there!
 
YourValentine said:
Slightly jealous of everyone who's sitting on their youngsters. Currently breaking in the trickiest 4yr old I've ever dealt with.
Hard to tell how much is general attitude vs trauma from past handling. He wasn't abused as such just forcefully handled/shouted into rigid submission.
He is terrified of the most random things, and his first instinct is to run away, but then doesn't blink at new things you'd think would be scary 💁‍♀️ so progress is slow and cautious, because its taking a lot of work to unpick some of his fears and flight instinct.

Will be worth it in the end, but I would like to sit on him now while the weather is nice and do some baby hacks in the sun. At this rate it'll be autumn...
Click to expand...
Just realised I posted this at the beginning of June, its the end of July and I'm still not on 🫣

He did have a 2 week break while I was super busy with work. But main challenge atm is the discover that he is terrified of legs moving/being waved in his vincinity.

Leaning on and over had been going really well, foot in a stirrup and standing up above him and patting his neck etc. Then one day when it was all going well and calm, started to quietly lift my leg over him to sit on him and went from calm to me being slung across the arena as he lept and spun very quickly 🙄🙈

I have some great bruises and we've taken 5 steps back and are having to rebuild his trust about leaning on him and once we have that will have to get very creative about desensitising to waving legs.
Minstery of funny walks and yoga on the mounting block are current plans...

We have made some progress though, farrier picked up his back feet, he fell a sleep while I brushed his tail the other day (just touching his tail was a win in Jan).
Walks round the village - cones and roadwork signs arent scary and need testing for edibleness. So hopefully, when we actually get to hacking out he'll be quite brave.
 
Small pony is doing really well with hacking.
He was just starting to get a little too onwards bound and on the verge of rushing which wasn't helpful in giving himself time to actually SEE what we were going past/approaching.
Perhaps a bit fluffy but I tried putting in little halts and then giving him a treat and a chill, wait for him to take a breath and off we go again.
It worked brilliantly! So relaxed and means rather than bustling past things at speed, he is slowing, reviewing and then moving past because he trusts himself and me.

It was tested this morning as we had our first ever car come past us. Then the second vehicle past was a 4x4 towing a mini digger in a rattly trailer 🙈 he was perfect and watched it but didn't move a muscle despite no nanny or foot leader in sight.

I also rode giant ginger yesterday. Short story I love him and can't wait for him home.
Longer story, he has been great hacking out but a little tricky to ride on the way home- oddly napping on the way back?! And showing little care to follow his nanny if he didn't want to.
They've been cajoling him along, not wanting to make a thing of it, but weren't too sure how he'd be with a new rider- no pressure on me!!
He was fine, forward going but a little 'yampy' on the way home with a bit of a lean on his shoulder and some head tossing but actually only took a second or two and then he straightened up and was away, past his nanny and heading home well. He never once had his back up or felt unsafe, just really green and a bit thick about it all!
He doesn't feel 18.1hh which is nice, he is narrow enough that he doesn't feel like a boat and is very light on his feet.
He is not as on the aids as small pony and has no mouth at all yet but I'm sure it will come- we knew he'd be the trickier of the 2 which is why he went away to school!
 
YourValentine said:
I have some great bruises and we've taken 5 steps back and are having to rebuild his trust about leaning on him and once we have that will have to get very creative about desensitising to waving legs.
Minstery of funny walks and yoga on the mounting block are current plans...
Click to expand...

I can highly recommend purchasing a life sized teddy on Marketplace for next to nothing, adding more stuffing to make it sit up better and then using the teddy for desensitisation. Ours is the size of a 10 year old child, we can add boots to his ‘feet’ and all sorts - he is very effective and cost me £20 total!
 
YourValentine said:
Just realised I posted this at the beginning of June, its the end of July and I'm still not on 🫣

He did have a 2 week break while I was super busy with work. But main challenge atm is the discover that he is terrified of legs moving/being waved in his vincinity.

Leaning on and over had been going really well, foot in a stirrup and standing up above him and patting his neck etc. Then one day when it was all going well and calm, started to quietly lift my leg over him to sit on him and went from calm to me being slung across the arena as he lept and spun very quickly 🙄🙈

I have some great bruises and we've taken 5 steps back and are having to rebuild his trust about leaning on him and once we have that will have to get very creative about desensitising to waving legs.
Minstery of funny walks and yoga on the mounting block are current plans...

We have made some progress though, farrier picked up his back feet, he fell a sleep while I brushed his tail the other day (just touching his tail was a win in Jan).
Walks round the village - cones and roadwork signs arent scary and need testing for edibleness. So hopefully, when we actually get to hacking out he'll be quite brave.
Click to expand...

Yikes. I don’t envy you at all because he sounds a very tricky one to crack. Hopefully once can get him over this then he will just be solid with everything
 
millitiger said:
Small pony is doing really well with hacking.
He was just starting to get a little too onwards bound and on the verge of rushing which wasn't helpful in giving himself time to actually SEE what we were going past/approaching.
Perhaps a bit fluffy but I tried putting in little halts and then giving him a treat and a chill, wait for him to take a breath and off we go again.
It worked brilliantly! So relaxed and means rather than bustling past things at speed, he is slowing, reviewing and then moving past because he trusts himself and me.

It was tested this morning as we had our first ever car come past us. Then the second vehicle past was a 4x4 towing a mini digger in a rattly trailer 🙈 he was perfect and watched it but didn't move a muscle despite no nanny or foot leader in sight.

I also rode giant ginger yesterday. Short story I love him and can't wait for him home.
Longer story, he has been great hacking out but a little tricky to ride on the way home- oddly napping on the way back?! And showing little care to follow his nanny if he didn't want to.
They've been cajoling him along, not wanting to make a thing of it, but weren't too sure how he'd be with a new rider- no pressure on me!!
He was fine, forward going but a little 'yampy' on the way home with a bit of a lean on his shoulder and some head tossing but actually only took a second or two and then he straightened up and was away, past his nanny and heading home well. He never once had his back up or felt unsafe, just really green and a bit thick about it all!
He doesn't feel 18.1hh which is nice, he is narrow enough that he doesn't feel like a boat and is very light on his feet.
He is not as on the aids as small pony and has no mouth at all yet but I'm sure it will come- we knew he'd be the trickier of the 2 which is why he went away to school!
Click to expand...

Pony sounds ace!
I wonder if you big guy is must getting tired and a bit sore on the second half of the hack? Would make sense with his size, but also should be a nice easy fix as he gets fitter and stronger
 
TheMule said:
Pony sounds ace!
I wonder if you big guy is must getting tired and a bit sore on the second half of the hack? Would make sense with his size, but also should be a nice easy fix as he gets fitter and stronger
Click to expand...

I'm not sure, he doesn't feel tired, his ears are pricked and he's not throwing his head like his back muscles are tight.
He seems to have decided he MUST go into a field adjacent to the drive on the way home- a field he has only been turned out in once and now doesn't know any of the horses up there 🤷
As he's safe and fine to get on now, I'm debating just bringing him home a bit early as I'm sure I can manage him at home at this stage without a floor person.
 
maya2008 said:
I can highly recommend purchasing a life sized teddy on Marketplace for next to nothing, adding more stuffing to make it sit up better and then using the teddy for desensitisation. Ours is the size of a 10 year old child, we can add boots to his ‘feet’ and all sorts - he is very effective and cost me £20 total!
Click to expand...
We have very seriously been considering something like this.

How do you attach it to the saddle? Or do you just plonk it on and off to desensitise?
 
TheMule said:
Yikes. I don’t envy you at all because he sounds a very tricky one to crack. Hopefully once can get him over this then he will just be solid with everything
Click to expand...
He is pretty and moves well, so there are reasons to persevere 😅 but it is very slow progress.

He is SO much better now on the ground than he was when we got him, so its slow but hopefully once we crack it he'll be fine. I just hope I can get on with out any more involuntary dismounts.
 
YourValentine said:
We have very seriously been considering something like this.

How do you attach it to the saddle? Or do you just plonk it on and off to desensitise?
Click to expand...
Both - he pretends to be a human. So he desensitises to mounting at first and then I plonk him on and off and he does silly things until pony no longer cares. Then we secure him to the saddle with wool (it snaps if it has to) using a toddler harness and a collar to assist with securing him and he goes riding. Depending on the pony’s needs he can have swinging legs, legs in the stirrups, I can attach wool ‘reins’ to his arms from bit to teddy to get the idea of a contact and that the reins move, I can do similar with real reins if safe. He can come on a whole hack or just walk around the field or whatever is needed.

He’s fab, if a little tricky to store. My kids like to pop him on the sofa but he takes up a whole section he’s so big!

We also have a toddler sized version and the truly special ones have Mini Ted on first then progress to Big Ted. They were sold as a job lot!

Pics of Mini Ted doing his thing. And Big Ted.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_6646.jpeg
    IMG_6646.jpeg
    149.2 KB · Views: 30
  • IMG_6647.jpeg
    IMG_6647.jpeg
    253.9 KB · Views: 32
  • IMG_6648.jpeg
    IMG_6648.jpeg
    131.7 KB · Views: 31
  • IMG_6649.jpeg
    IMG_6649.jpeg
    264.9 KB · Views: 32
Last edited:
Well I've got a saddle - and after 4 weeks not wearing one we are back to slow, gradual desensitisation. Sigh. BUT what feels very sweet is that after she gets stressed and throws shapes, she stops and comes over to me and drops her head low, appearing to be inviting me to rub her and soothe her. As if to say 'help me it's scary'. Joe said again yesterday that she is extremely dramatic about lots of different things. But does not have an ounce of malice or resistance in her. Her issues all come from a very high flight instinct. Her reactions to the saddle go from (literally) OMG it's going to kill me to 'oh actually this is fine'. Neuro-plasticity in action in real time! But we really need to get to grips with her fear of saddles. Actually isn't not even saddles. It's very specific: saddle PLUS girth PLUS movement. So the weight of the saddle is ok. Riding bareback is ok. Girthing her up is ok when stationary. And doing it up tight is totally fine once she's reacted and calmed down again. But when she first takes a step with the saddle on she has an 'OMG there's something trying to eat me' reaction.

She needs to learn to think and figure things out and not just blindly react. Before the old awful fitting saddle hurt her she really was showing so many signs of being able to do that, so I am confident (ish!) that we will be fine. Eventually!

I'm not sure how much work I can do alone, and how much help I will need. But it feels nice that she trusts me and despite the trauma she still comes over in the field whenever I go up. And I'm not the one who feeds her so it's not that! She just likes people 🥰

IMG_8985small.jpg
 
Shes so lucky to have found you AE. Hopefully with time and your patience it will all work out.

Amara is doing well. The handbrake has come off and shes found the next gear. She really enjoys her hacking, and tends to be buckle end. So im hoping to hop on her very soon. A little bit excited about that. Im going to a camp in August and did secretly hope i could take her, but i think im going to take the old legend instead. That way i wont need to a stiff drink before i get on. I did that with her uncle and her mum when they where both 4. But im being more cautious now, and so far shes been much easier than her uncle.

Rustle, her 3yo brother seems to be struggling. Hes losing muscle behind, and his tail end is starting to look like a broodmare thats due to foal. He also bit me for the first time ever yesterday. So i called the vet, they have said the muscle wastage is nothing to worry about yet, and neither is him biting me. It wasnt a lunge attack type bite. But still it was a bite. So for now, i wont let anyone else handle him. If his behaviour gets worse, then i will have to make a call earlier than planned
 
I'm so sorry Asha. I'm glad vets were reassuring but of course you must be worried by any change in behaviour - not for your sake but his. What an awful situaiton for you. Sending love x
 
Ambers Echo said:
I'm so sorry Asha. I'm glad vets were reassuring but of course you must be worried by any change in behaviour - not for your sake but his. What an awful situaiton for you. Sending love x
Click to expand...
Thanks AE . I’m just desperate to do the right thing for him . So perhaps I’m guilty of seeing things that aren’t there . I don’t know .
 
Just on the teddy thing.... I've always used a bag stuffed full of hay or straw, can feed baler twine through it so you have something to tie it to the saddle with, and if feeling really clever, you can create 'limbs'. It's boingy and a bit rustly so quite good for desensitising.

It's nice to read everyone's updates.
Not much of a Willow update here really.... she's had about a month off I think, due to travelling for work and then hurting my back in a completely non-horse related way 🤦‍♀️maybe next week I'll get back to it with her.

We did get a saddle fitted though beforehand, and she was a superstar for that. I also had a groundwork lesson with her which I found really interesting. She wasn't rude rude for the instructor, but a little 'no I'll just keep walking through you' and not really listen. And then when I had a go, the halo went back on and if I stopped, she'd stop etc, to the point the instructor even commented that for me, she was incredible and knows my aids, works with my body language. Which is very sweet but maybe better manners for other people wouldn't go amiss 🫣

Hopefully next update will be back in a bit of a work rather than getting fat in the field!!
 
Not remotely dissing use of dummy riders etc, (and I may yet get there with Myka!) but in the spirit of debate I thought I’d put my views on it.

If fear—not pain—is the root, we’re dealing with a primal brain response. You can use flooding or graded exposure to deal with this and both ideally end up achieving the same end result – the brain updates its belief that saddles/legs = danger/threat. Both flooding and GE aim to update the brain’s belief: “this isn’t dangerous.” Horses grazing near a railway eventually stop reacting to trains—same principle.

I view dummies as flooding = assuming the only reason you’d use a dummy rider is because the horse can’t get rid of it, and therefore that you strap it on and let the horse buck it out -at least at times even if you try to avoid that reaction - otherwise why do you need it?.

I prefer GE to flooding for various reasons.
  1. It’s far more adjustable—you can scale the stimulus up or down. Joe spent ages just leaning over and rubbing Myka where a leg might go, carefully modulating pressure.
  2. Flooding can be traumatic, especially for sensitive horses.
  3. GE promotes thinking—the horse stays under threshold, processes, and learns.
  4. It builds trust—because they’re never pushed past what they can handle.
  5. It generalises better—the horse learns how to feel safe, not just that one thing is safe.
  6. It likely supports longer-term confidence
It is also safer – for you, the horse and the saddle – to never trigger full panic. BUT that is very hard to achieve with a sensitive horse because it relies on a lot of skills in timing and in reading the horse correctly.

In humans, graded exposure is easy: you ask them to rate their anxiety from 0-10 repeatedly through the process and the aim is to never go above 7 and to not move to the next step until the anxiety has dropped to 2/3. Same with horses, but you have to judge for yourself how anxious they are at any given moment.

In practice GE and flooding look identical with most horses because they never go above 7 anyway, and they readily adapt to the new step and drop to 2/3. And they can tolerate fairly big steps. At each step there is a bit of a tension reaction which rapidly goes away as horse adjusts to the new sensations. So GE and flooding end up looking exactly the same. But with sensitive horses, the risks of flooding are greater—and yet ironically it becomes more tempting for safety reasons!

When Joe was here we reintroduced the saddle and Myka was never over threshold. I’m still learning to do that—most days go well, but when I misjudge, she shoots way past 7 and/or I move her on when she’s nowhere near 2/3 even if she looks okay on the outside. I’ve started paying close attention to blinking, breathing, braced ribs, etc. to gauge that better. When she does react isgnifiacntly I feel that training has gone backwards not forwards in those momnts so I go back a few steps then proceed even more slowly. It's frustrating but it feels lile time well spent. Right now, the next step after girthing up is one single step under saddle with a hind leg, at a time. Focusing on softening the ribcage as that flexion sends calming signals to the brain—a body-mind feedback loop. Myka needs those tiny steps at the moment.

I also think that if I tried dummy riders etc with Myka, she'd go into learned helplessness before she actually developed true relaxation.
 
Ambers Echo said:
Not remotely dissing use of dummy riders etc, (and I may yet get there with Myka!) but in the spirit of debate I thought I’d put my views on it.

If fear—not pain—is the root, we’re dealing with a primal brain response. You can use flooding or graded exposure to deal with this and both ideally end up achieving the same end result – the brain updates its belief that saddles/legs = danger/threat. Both flooding and GE aim to update the brain’s belief: “this isn’t dangerous.” Horses grazing near a railway eventually stop reacting to trains—same principle.

I view dummies as flooding = assuming the only reason you’d use a dummy rider is because the horse can’t get rid of it, and therefore that you strap it on and let the horse buck it out -at least at times even if you try to avoid that reaction - otherwise why do you need it?.

I prefer GE to flooding for various reasons.
  1. It’s far more adjustable—you can scale the stimulus up or down. Joe spent ages just leaning over and rubbing Myka where a leg might go, carefully modulating pressure.
  2. Flooding can be traumatic, especially for sensitive horses.
  3. GE promotes thinking—the horse stays under threshold, processes, and learns.
  4. It builds trust—because they’re never pushed past what they can handle.
  5. It generalises better—the horse learns how to feel safe, not just that one thing is safe.
  6. It likely supports longer-term confidence
It is also safer – for you, the horse and the saddle – to never trigger full panic. BUT that is very hard to achieve with a sensitive horse because it relies on a lot of skills in timing and in reading the horse correctly.

In humans, graded exposure is easy: you ask them to rate their anxiety from 0-10 repeatedly through the process and the aim is to never go above 7 and to not move to the next step until the anxiety has dropped to 2/3. Same with horses, but you have to judge for yourself how anxious they are at any given moment.

In practice GE and flooding look identical with most horses because they never go above 7 anyway, and they readily adapt to the new step and drop to 2/3. And they can tolerate fairly big steps. At each step there is a bit of a tension reaction which rapidly goes away as horse adjusts to the new sensations. So GE and flooding end up looking exactly the same. But with sensitive horses, the risks of flooding are greater—and yet ironically it becomes more tempting for safety reasons!

When Joe was here we reintroduced the saddle and Myka was never over threshold. I’m still learning to do that—most days go well, but when I misjudge, she shoots way past 7 and/or I move her on when she’s nowhere near 2/3 even if she looks okay on the outside. I’ve started paying close attention to blinking, breathing, braced ribs, etc. to gauge that better. When she does react isgnifiacntly I feel that training has gone backwards not forwards in those momnts so I go back a few steps then proceed even more slowly. It's frustrating but it feels lile time well spent. Right now, the next step after girthing up is one single step under saddle with a hind leg, at a time. Focusing on softening the ribcage as that flexion sends calming signals to the brain—a body-mind feedback loop. Myka needs those tiny steps at the moment.

I also think that if I tried dummy riders etc with Myka, she'd go into learned helplessness before she actually developed true relaxation.
Click to expand...
On the ‘dummies are flooding’ debate. Why? It’s only flooding if you do it the way the old cowboy riders backed horses - stick on with no preparation and wait for them to stop bucking.

I use my teddy dummies the same way I do everything else - nice and steady with a ton of carrots to make a nice and happy association. We desensitise gradually the same way you would to a rider, with the advantage that I can go from toddler to child size and then extend arms/legs to adult if needed. So much more gradual than you can do with a person (unless you have differently sized children you want to stick on).

But what does a dummy do that a person cannot?
- A dummy doesn’t send emotional signals that might worry a horse. Humans can expect explosions or spooks and tense, in effect creating them. Dummies cannot.
- A dummy enables the trusted ground person to STAY on the ground and keep reassuring the horse.
- A dummy is more gradual than a person because in the initial desensitisation I can pop it on for a literal second then off again, I can make it lie down and slide on the pony, a dummy is light and manoeuvrable and gradual.
- A dummy does not have that ‘snap shut’ effect when they sit down that human legs/pelvis do. It is still loose and…well…teddy like. That moment when the legs fully land on either side can be a real trigger.
- Safety. Sometimes you can desensitise to death but the problem only occurs once you are ON the horse. So you have two choices. You can risk your rider or risk Mr inanimate object. So far two mares of ours, despite every bit of desensitisation known to mankind from the ground and while led from another pony, had issues that only occurred in the saddle. Mr Ted was instrumental in removing the fear for good and moving forward so they could be happily ridden.

My joints are so loosely attached that I cannot hold on to anything that loses the plot and I have to be extremely careful to train so I do not create adverse reactions. We successfully train from feral/dangerous to sweet soppy child’s pony again and again and again. No force (I literally can’t anyway!) and no fear.

That training sticks too - before I send any pony off to a new home they spend a summer with visitors and sharers and everyone I can stick on them from beginner upwards. Then they go to a new home and continue to behave safely and kindly in their new life.

I won’t comment on other people’s training - there are many routes to Rome after all, but I do actively learn from anything that works. If it does the job, it’s good. If you are making no/backwards progress, it’s not (or you need the vet if the method works for you on other horses!).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top