Catching a very difficult horse

Sounds mental but go in with the intention of not catching her. Totally ignore her, don’t even look ant her and don’t think about trying to catch her just get on about your business and get the others and see what she does. We have one at the yard who is a bit like this but most of us can always get him because we go in thinking I’m not catching you, I’ll get you later when I’ve done xyz…but usually he ends up being caught by his own choice lol
 
There are ways of dealing with an Un catachable horse… but quite frankly if your on a livery yard with a fairly strict set of rules, probably virtually impossible to achieve any sucess
 
PurBee said:
A left-field suggestion worth trying.

One of mine had a behavioural response quirk, and so everytime i wanted to do X, i’d hope it would be different, but the response was the same.
We can easily go round in circles once something starts!
I would approach the job and be thinking ‘he’ll do X - i hope its better this time’.

Then i had the realisation after 10 times that im potentially:
‘projecting the behaviour via expecting the behaviour due to previous occasions of experiencing the behaviour’.

This is likely why with the behaviourist, your friends mare walked straight up to her.
Despite being told the issue, the behaviourist wasnt holding all those days and months past frustration memory/energy/emotions spending hours catching her.
The behaviourist was in a neutral mindset of ‘lets wait and see what the problem is and how it presents’.

The behaviourist wasn’t in that field with a memory energy of ‘pleeeeeze let me catch you. Dont walk away from me!!’ frustration.

I stopped approaching my gelding with the attitude of ‘he’s going to do x behaviour he’s done before”- that attitude made me also not want to do X with him.
They detect our energy like white on rice - they hear our heartbeat, literally.
My mare reads my damn mind if i picture in my mind what position i want her in!

I had to ‘mind-wipe’ myself, my memory of previous behaviours, my attitude about it, my expectations of it, be completely neutral about projecting any ideas or expectations.
I’d approach x job with a positive, looking forward to it attitude. ‘It’s going to go well’ self-talk type of mind-set.
It worked!

Sometimes this involved while doing x, just stopping, breathing in and out slowly, totally relaxing, going ‘zen-like’….absolutely change my ‘energy signature’…to more neutral.

Something that could help initially for your friend to change her energy about it just before entering the field and while in the field, if she plays a relaxing zen-like music on her phone. (I’m suggesting this due to not knowing your friend and how easy she finds it to empty her mind and relax)
Youtube meditation tracks are generally relaxing. Just stand there, breathe evenly and deeply, follow the music for 2 mins. Empty mind of thoughts and emotions.
Call mare over.

Instead of holding in her mind the notion of ‘she’ll walk away from me’ - replace it with the words and image of ‘she’ll walk up to me’.
(Everday someone has been thinking ‘she’ll walk away from me when i try to catch her’ delete that thinking, replace with behaviour wanted ‘she’ll walk up to me’.)

What piqued my curiosity that this was potentially a projection circle of behaviour via handler and mare happening, was when you said the mare seemed disappointed when you’d leave.
If we enter the field thinking “she’ll walk off from me” - the mare reads that as ‘ok, you want me to walk off from you’ - from her point of view, she’s doing as you ask!
You stop walking after her, she mimics by stopping.
Then you leave, she’s (potentially from her POV) completely confused why you come to the field to ask her to walk away from you and then leave.

This suggestion is just another angle of looking at the situation. It worked for me changing my memory/attitude/energy and expectations.
It is so easy for us to project yesterdays behaviour onto the same horse today.
We often dont realise the role we play in manifesting their behaviour.
Communication is more than just oral words with any sentient being, and especially with animals.

A bit more info on my own horses quirk:
As i became aware of the realisation that im potentially projecting the expectation of the behaviour, i asked my OH to do X with my horse, without telling him the situation of the behaviour response. I didnt want my OH to project the quirk behaviour idea onto the horse. It wasnt anything dangerous behaviour related, just a quirk.
It blew my mind that even with me casually observing, my OH did X with my boy, and he behaved fine. Perfect. Over and over, perfect behaviour!
My.mind.was.blown!
That confirmed for me that it was my ideas and expectations of my horse to behave the way he had before. I broke that cycle of thinking/feeling and the behaviour stopped.
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Thank you, that’s a really interesting idea. I’ll tell my friend about it. This sort of thing really fascinates me
 
Rubyrooo said:
Thank you everyone. Ironically, since starting this thread, she has been incredibly easy to catch, and come in every night without any problems 😂
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That's great. Maybe as there is getting less goodness in the grass she's now looking forward to her supper.
 
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