Bad catchers might be the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced

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PuddingSummer

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New pony arrived almost 4 months ago and has slowly slowly become a really difficult catch. Old owner says didn’t have a problem in the year she had him (he’s only 3 and she bought him off the new forest) and I’m inclined to believe her as I watched her catch him no problem off a good 3-4 acre field with his buddy.

First week he arrived and was a bit iffy but with plenty of patience and apples we managed. A few weeks in and he was near on impossible. Managed to get him to accept being caught in a small electric fence pen by the gate for a few weeks and now he bolts out of it.

I’m not sure I’m looking for advice, I just need to vent to people I know will understand. I’ve literally NEVER had a catching issue, I’m a massive pony patter and they usually come in for a nice meal, a kiss and cuddle then sent on their way again so every horse I’ve had has ran to the gate. This one is absolutely baffling me and my poor old boy wants to come in for the night waiting at the gate.

Positive thinking, the weathers crap and he’ll love me come summer!! And he’s rather handsome despite being an absolute kn*b so at least he has that going for him!
 
I've had a pony who was extremely hard to catch. Didn't know that when I bought him. You could walk around and try for hours, in the evening when he was the only one left outside.

I never really solved that. The only sort of solution was when his loaners, a family with two experienced horse parents, decided to spend as long as it took with walking around until they caught him. First one of them walked for about 4 hours, then they changed and the other one took over. A few (4-5?) hours later, he caught the pony. After that, he who caught the pony first could catch him almost immediately. He got a little better with them and the child who rode him could catch him at least once.

The very majority of horses aren't this extreme. I've never heard of anyone like my pony. The method of walking after them can be quite useful, though.

You have my sympathy for this, it's really difficult when they say they don't want to be together at all. About any other issue I've come across, which is a decent amount, is easier than this. At least other problems still allow you to work with the horse.
 
If he's out with an older horse, he could be getting bored and seeing this as a bit of a game.

I'd be tempted to either start doing something with him to engage his brain and see being caught as a route to stimulation, or to turn him out 24/7 with a hardy little companion of a similar age and find a companion for the older horse which is more similar in management needs. I've swapped horses around with friends for similar reasons, and put my older ones with them and had their young ones here.
 
If you’re just after sympathy mine is an arse to catch sometimes. Not all the time, usually just randomly now & again in summer when he wants to stay with his grass & friends but it’s THE most frustrating thing when you’re going to a show/lesson and have no idea if you need to allow 5 minutes to get them in or 50 🙃
 
It’s very annoying and sometimes you have to think outside the box.
I’ve been lucky not to own any that are difficult to catch but I’ve worked with 3 on livery yards that stand out.
Horse 1 was turned out alone as she used to kick other horses. If you went into her field you couldn’t catch her. If you stood at the gate and called her she’d come.
Horse 2. Another mare in a mixed turnout herd. One person could catch her 3 days in a row. On the 4th day she wouldn’t want to know and someone else would have to get her. We experimented but it was conclusive - she could definitely count to 3 and after 3 days you were out.
Horse 3. Iberian gelding, turned out with one other gelding. You could catch him if you approached him walking backwards 😂. You would walk towards him normally and then the second his expression changed (I can’t really explain it). You’d have to turn around and walk backwards until you had reached his shoulder and then you could clip a lead rope on.
 
When I worked for a Welsh breeder there was one little gelding, around 3yo, that we couldn't get near. We ended up cornering him with a lunge line, luckily it worked and we caught him. He was coming in to be backed so we left him in the stable for a few weeks, only taking him out to groom and be 'worked'. He got plenty of fuss and scratches whilst in the stable, also fed 3 times a day. After a few weeks he was a different pony. He was still a nervy kind but we didn't have anymore catching issues.
 
The pony I had as a teenager missed SO MANY farrier appointments, vet appointments, lessons etc (& spent days at a time living feral when he wouldn’t let the yard staff near… he was on full livery in winter and I was forced to have days I didn’t go to the yard so that boring things like homework got done!)

He had one particular person he vibed with that could catch him consistently in under half an hour. If she wasn’t around and he didn’t want to play then I could be in for 2 hours or so of dicking around.

Walking him down was… difficult as he used to gallop from one end of the field to the other initially and then have a good 5 minutes grazing before I caught him up (over the course of several hours the gallop would drop to a trot, then a walk and the distance he’d bog off would get smaller)

I used to take a scoop of feed (hidden under my jumper) to distract him with when I got close enough (getting close enough without him running was the major problem) but he was CLEVER… For some reason I was too dumb (or too stubborn?) to just buy a fieldsafe head collar (tbf the versions available circa 2005 were probably a bit rubbish) and leave it on him and so had to put a head collar on each time I caught him. The number of times he took a mouthful of feed and then legged it was unreal… I definitely learned not to chuck the remaining feed out of the scoop until head collar was fully done up! (But also if you can leave a fieldsafe head collar on then do it to make your life easier)

I didn’t really have anyone in person to give me actual useful tips beyond “bribe it” and as it was a riding school the yard owner certainly wouldn’t have let me have an external trainer so I read what I could in books / magazines (Monty Roberts was fairly popular at the time and I did attempt some of the join up type stuff with him with limited success… advance and retreat type stuff did work a little with him but the fields he was turned out in were far too big to do any of the sending him away stuff as obviously I couldn’t come close to keeping up with him to keep pressure on) and watched videos on YouTube.

Came across some Western / NH guy in America whose name I can’t even remember (& who turned out to be a fairly terrible person towards humans, women in particular on some of his other videos). Anyhow his approach to hard to catch horses included paying attention to your angle of approach eg side on in a sort of arc, aiming to end up roughly at the shoulder as you got close to the horse I think, without making direct eye contact rather than walking straight at them and taking care not to accidentally drive them from behind. If they did start to move then the idea was to get around the front and turn them rather than driving them from behind and chasing them. I think the idea was then to draw them towards you once you had their attention (Probably some other nuances that I’ve forgotten over the years!).

This slight change in approach / really thinking about my body language and intent and trying to make it softer and more inviting / was like turning on a lightbulb and it became rare for it to take me more than 20 minutes to catch him (& usually I could get him straight away) It also helped to discover by accident that if you touched his mane before trying to put a lead rope over his neck / head collar on he considered himself “caught”… no idea why he’d decided that was a rule but it was. (Would not reccomend trying that bit on any other horse though… he was odd!)

I floundered about for years before I found something that consistently worked for me & that horse. If you aren’t getting anywhere fast & have the means to get someone who knows what they’re doing out for some in person help then would highly recommend doing so as will save you a LOT of frustration in the long run!

Some of what the hairy little bog pony taught me did seem to stick as when the orange Welshie used to try and play similar games when he felt the universe had annoyed him in some way & I needed to be informed of his displeasure I could usually make him give up after about 10 minutes as he was never quite as committed to the cause! (He himself was impossible for certain staff at a particular yard to catch if they didn’t pass his vibe check!)

Anyhow good luck & hope you have a breakthrough at some point as chasing horses around in the rain, cold and dark is pretty miserable!
 
Daughters pony thought he would pull this one when he arrived. Progressively got worse and the challenge was despite being only 13.2hh he would also ping over the gate which made my husband a bit cross.

Gates were amended to prevent such and then hubby started the process of walking him down. However, hubby is super fit and sent the pony forward at trot, then asked for him to stop so he could be caught. If he didn’t want to be caught he got sent away again at trot with hubby running beside him until he slowed down to walk. Didn’t want to be caught again, so sent off at sharp trot.

Repeated this for about 20mins and pony was getting tired and offered to be caught. Lots of pats and “good boy”.

Did it again the next day but this time only took 10mins. Next day and day after same process. 5 days in total, pony walked up to him in field. Never had an issue again.

Hubby is a professional trainer however and is very groundwork communication focussed to get results. He was at the time a tri-athlete as well, so 20mins of jogging around a field was no drama for him. Fat Pony was tired, he wasn’t.
 
I haven't had this for years, but as a teen I had firstly a pony, then a horse, who were tricky! I had them both at the same yard (different times) that had a load of liveries and there would be 20 odd turned out in huge, rocky fields, on a steep hillside.

The pony, I could catch no issue, as could the YO's daughter, who was even smaller than me. Adults, however, couldn't get near him! We simply managed that by the fact that I could catch him when I was there, and the YO's daughter had one 'job' after school - to catch my pony!

He would get tense at catching time and we both had different methods. I would not look at him and would do a curving line to him, whilst concentrating on his feet. I'd look at those feet as if they were the most interesting thing, and look at one as if it had something wrong with it. I'd stare at that foot, and go pick it up to examine it further. Once the foot had been examined, the pony thought he was caught and putting a halter on was no issue.

The YO's daughter, apparently, had a different method. She'd wander into the field, and go backwards to him, again no eye contact. Meander up to him backwards and simply halter him. I think she was about 7 at the time!

I can only presume he found adults too intimidating or that the adults came into the field with an agenda, not doing the meandering, curved line, no eye contact and with tension, as he would not be caught by them.

The horse was fine in one livery yard but when he moved to the original one I'd had my pony at, he relished the 20 odd horses and huge, rocky, steep fields and, that summer, decided that nope, he wasn't coming in. It was about 5 fields all linked with broken down walls, with tracks down a steep, just less than cliff steep, with rocky tracks, to the top.

They were out 24/7 and with between 20 and 30 on there, I couldn't have fetched them all in. Oh, I had happy times walking him down. I left it until I was on holiday with no school, so I knew I would see it through. I think the first time was around 5 hours, up and down the blasted hill. I didn't let him rest. I had help and we took turns walking him down. Eventually he was caught. I took him to just outside the gate, fed him, and put him away.

I did this every day, and each day it took around half the time of the day before. I would randomly feed just outside the gate, or take him the half mile up a steep hill to the stable to feed him. Then I would take him to the stable, feed then ride, then feed and turn back out.

Once he knew I'd see it through, the habit stopped and he was never an issue again.

I've had many horses since, and not had an issue. In fact, the issue I now have is that horses want to come in when it is afternoon, but then I no longer keep them on huge rocky hillsides with over 20 friends!!! I do not seek to do that again though, as I had 4 horses in total at that place and the injuries were frequent and sometimes serious.
 
What do you do with him when you catch him? Is he now stabled overnight?

It is common for a once feral pony to revert to previous steps in their handling on their first change of home. Just handling isn’t enough, unless ridden they tend to revert back to ‘I don’t know you! I don’t have to do what you say/I’m scared of you!’.

So we bring them home, knowing we will spend 2-8 weeks walking them down and reminding them of the rules of tame life - treats on catching, walking down if not, nothing scary but quiet insistence that these are the rules and these you must follow. Sometimes they don’t lose it at the beginning but try later - again, the solution is a week or two of walking them down.
 
Mine started not being able to catch him. I did a lot of loose groundwork with him and figured out that when I took his headcollar off he would do exactly what he wanted. With his headcollar on, no rope attached he followed me round like a dog. So I got a fieldsafe headcollar and left it on in the field. Could catch him straightaway.
 
Can you build a small pen/coral by the gate that you can send him into? Then make sure he only goes in there for something nice (a bucket feed, a good scratch, whatever is his favourite thing - usually food with a native). you need to make 'you' (and for now the pen) the best place to be in his whole world.

Another question - what is he like if you go in the field with no headcollar in your hand? a friend used to leave her head collar at the gate and just go to catch her pony with a lead rope round her neck and a carrot in you pocket. Rope round neck and then headcollar on at the gate.

Is your routine the same as the last owner?
 
I've had my shetland for 14 years and could hardly catch him for 12 of those years! so I feel your pain! I used to have to coax him into the field shelter area and quickly close the gates, before he could leg it! then get him in to his favorite corner, scratch him on the butt then he'd let me grab him!

Randomly about a year and a half ago he started letting me scratch him while he was loose, and now he won't leave me alone, he follows me around and demands scratches constantly! my dreams have all come true and its so worth the wait! but thankfully he's just a companion, so he only needs catching for vaccinations, teeth and feet really! but now he gets grooms galore
 
Oh it is the worst.

I used to have a narrow line of fencing about fifteen foot wide which then have a wider funnel at the end. If that makes any sense.

I would just drive the horse along thr funnel which would get narrower until he was in the narrow line of fencing. I could then fence him off in there and catch him.

It sucks though. I wouldnt have another like that again. It makes finding a suitable yard harder because you can't just turn out in a big field and wing it.
 
Jenko109 said:
Oh it is the worst.

I used to have a narrow line of fencing about fifteen foot wide which then have a wider funnel at the end. If that makes any sense.

I would just drive the horse along thr funnel which would get narrower until he was in the narrow line of fencing. I could then fence him off in there and catch him.

It sucks though. I wouldnt have another like that again. It makes finding a suitable yard harder because you can't just turn out in a big field and wing it.
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I did this with my pony too. Didn't solve the issue that he was hard to catch, but at least I could catch him like that. I also would not have another very hard to catch- horse. One of my current ponies was feral until I bought him at 11 months old, and he can get hard to catch if he's stressed. It's still nowhere near my former pony.
 
I had a mule that was hard to catch. When I first got her it took four hours in a stable before I was able to put a headcollar on her. In a field you could forget the whole idea of catching her. She wore a tethering collar for two years, so that nobody ever tried to grab her head, but ran a hand up her neck to the collar instead. She had to be herded with all the others either into the barn, or onto the yard, then herded into a stable to be caught.

She slowly got better and would voluntarily take herself inside when you went to catch her, but still needed to be in a stable to be caught. It was about 4 years before I could walk up to her in the field to stroke her though. She did get so that I could catch her in the barn but never in the field.
 
I completely sympathise!

My Arab has always been a little quirky to catch but 2 Summers ago he became very difficult, he would canter from one end to the other or even more annoyingly, just walk far enough away that I couldn't get him, even if I got close enough he would wheel away as I got his headcollar to his nose. It is SOOOOOOO frustrating.

I decided one day I was catching him no matter how long it took, it took over 2 hours, it was getting dark and starting to rain but I won! It has never gone on longer than a couple of minutes since then and now he's great.

I make sure I always have treats to reward him with, I give him treats as I turn him out, just before I catch and once i've caught.....lots of rewards! :D luckily he's not pushy for treats

Unfortunately, there is only one other person on the yard who can reliably catch him (he knows she's ALWAYS got treats!) which can be a pain but at least he won't get stolen!
 
Walking them down really does work, even if it takes hours the first time. Can you make the field smaller? Ideally you don't want them to be able to graze while you are crossing vast expanses to reach them. Also no eye contact, approach from the side etc all help. If they look at you, look away. You could enlist an NH trainer to help, I reckon that's an investment worth making. My first horse decided to d**k around and not be caught, I think it took 2 hours the first time, ten mins the second time, and after that he was never an issue - for me. He was always a bit of a bugger with other people though 🫣
 
My first pony was impossible to catch if I wanted him - 12.2 welshie - but brilliant if I didn't want him.
The most challenging was a 17.3 ID who would circle you, just out of reach. He'd squeal and trot if you got too near. The trick to catch him was to take a rug out. He'd let you swing a rug over his back and if you'd hidden a lead rope in the folds of the rug, you could then put it round his neck and he'd consider himself caught.
 
@spacefaer you've reminded me of a pony where I worked as a teen who was an older mare but very fit and she would just trot or walk around you at the exact same distance like perfect lunging but impossible to reach. It was Spain and hot but she could keep this up longer than I. Thankfully she didn't do it often.

I'm actually quite good at catching other people's horses, it much less frustrating when it's not your horse and you don't really need to catch them. Usually a combination of walking down, bribery, or bribing the best pal until jealousy
/ Greed kicks in.
 
Landcruiser said:
Walking them down really does work, even if it takes hours the first time. Can you make the field smaller? Ideally you don't want them to be able to graze while you are crossing vast expanses to reach them. Also no eye contact, approach from the side etc all help. If they look at you, look away. You could enlist an NH trainer to help, I reckon that's an investment worth making. My first horse decided to d**k around and not be caught, I think it took 2 hours the first time, ten mins the second time, and after that he was never an issue - for me. He was always a bit of a bugger with other people though 🫣
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2.5 hours is so far my record! In several acres.

The trick for the OP is to never let them stop - they can’t eat, they can’t drink. Just keep walking after them. Every now and then one of them gets that idea again. I start walking and they go, ‘Oh @@&& it’s her, she’ll never stop. Ok, you can have me.’
 
Cloball said:
I'm actually quite good at catching other people's horses, it much less frustrating when it's not your horse and you don't really need to catch them. Usually a combination of walking down, bribery, or bribing the best pal until jealousy
/ Greed kicks in.
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100% the less you care, the easier it goes. Been my job fairly often as I dont give a monkeys and they all know I always have treats in my pocket.
 
Sasha was a bugger. We got her ex polo pony. Where she was no bother but all horses came in from fields by being herded to a small pen by gate then took into stables.
Once at our yard, she was fine in a small turnout area. But when big fields opened up in summer it was a nightmare, how many lessons, hacks farrier appointment we missed cos we couldn’t catch her. She had field safe head collar on. , we did discover she hated being last in field. But often we would be off to evening training or lessons and she would not be caught. Food didn’t work. Impossible to factor in the time to bring a dozen in to allow her to be last out and beg to come in. By chance we discovered she would be caught if it was from horseback. Of course. So used to being excercise in a polo string ponied off another . So we used to leg up someone onto the most amiable smaller pony and catch that way.
Yard owner never had an issue. That was weird.
 
I feel your pain. Two of mine have been tricky at various points.

99% of the time Ebony was great to catch but when he decided it wasn't happening he was a total git. He definitely saw it as a game, he'd trot round me in circles, just out of reach and then b$%^&r off to the far end of the field if I took once step towards him. Repeat ad nauseum. The only way I could catch him when he did this was to walk away that first day and return the next with a chair, a tall bucket of feed and a book. Feed under chair, me on chair reading book and completely ignore him. Within 10 minutes he'd be circling me after the feed. i'd ignore him for another 20 minutes then get up and take everything away without acknowledging him. The next day, he'd be waiting at the gate. If I tried chasing him at all at any point it would continue for days. You could almost see the little git laughing at you.

Wiggy has his moments and with him I think it's genuinely not wanting to leave the field, it's usually when they've moved fields and he has fresh grass or if it's too soon (in his eyes) after going out. Compared with Eb, it's child's play. All I need to do with him is make a huge fuss of the horse closest to him and make him think they're getting all his treats (he always gets a treat when I catch him) and within 2 minutes he's there practically putting his nose into the headcollar himself. The only thing I can never do with him (in summer at least, in winter he's waiting at the gate) is approach him directly. I always do it at a 45 degree angle (preferably from behind even if this means a bit of zigzagging) never look at him and always face the same way as him when putting the headcollar on - like putting a bridle on - he hates it if I try to put in on standing in front of him and gets quite headshy.
 
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