Coping with exuberance

little_critter

little_critter

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My boy is usually very well mannered, which is just as well as I’m not a brave rider.
I do however like to have some canters out on a hack. Usually T does as he’s told and keeps it polite. However today it started off polite but it gradually became harder to remind him of his manners until a shoot off / slalom combo made me decide we’re not doing this and asked him to come back to walk.
He got slower…..but was still cantering and was now feeling like a coiled spring (all that energy and nowhere to go)
It felt like airs above the ground could be next up and to be honest I wanted to get off (he’s often more chilled when I’m on the ground). But I couldn’t get him walking calmly enough that I was confident that he’d not try to bog off mid-dismount.
We did get calm walk shortly afterwards, and once we got that I felt ok staying on board. We were then happy to walk home on a loose rein.

So my question is, how to get back to a calm walk if cantering gets too exciting?
It feels like if I put the handbrake on I just get all that energy bundled up in a frustrated horse. We are moving slower but it’s no less scary.
How to bring the energy levels down?

I understand practice will be required, today may have been a particularly bad day because it was a new route.
 
I hear you. I used to be such a brave rider but I struggle with exuberant youngsters these days while being bored no anything less enthusiastic.
Lots of schooling hacks with transitions and leg yields have helped my 7yo's attention and have made him more in tune with me. However, as you say there is energy and nowhere for to go, so I also make sure I set up those opportunities for him to GOOOO in a safe place. For my own nerves, a neck strap with handle has been a game changer as it's like bridging your reins in terms of stability but anchores to the neck/saddle so no risk of pulling in the mouth. That's made me remember some of the joy of the exuberant yeeehars and I'm more up for it myself again.
 
I’d like to work up to allowing him to GOOOO! But I’m nowhere near that confident yet. I need to know that we can maintain manners. Speed will come when I feel confident that when I say ‘enough’ he listens.
I would have been happy to have a longer canter today, had he not got a bit feisty.
 
Are you sure that in your worry your not tensing up, maybe leaning forward and gripping with you leg? And so unintentionally providing a go command with you leg and seat and saying woah with your hands?
Its very easy to do. And might be why you got the coiled spring feeling.

Can you in a maybe more controlled environment practice changing gears in canter and thinking about your position etc?
 
Have you got a neckstrap? I've found if you can pop a hand on that its often easier to get them to lengthen their neck a bit and walk out.

I know exactly what you mean though. We HAD to walk up the sand track between arenas at Addington today and it felt like an explosion was imminent. Normally I'd get him trotting but that wasn't an option.

I know it needs brave pants but I have found my naughty pocket rocket does best if he's allowed a good run. The ground means we're struggling right now but his behaviour is generally better if fast work is involved.
 
YourValentine said:
so unintentionally providing a go command with you leg and seat
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I used to do this when learning to canter. However this leg aid only occurs if one is relaxed and your legs brush the sides of the horse. Pressing both legs into the side of the horse in theory slows the canter as it restricts the swing of the barrel.
I have two solutions to long canters out in the open. First I canter only 20 paces, alternating with twenty trot. If you count out loud, the horse knows exactly when the transition comes. I ride a lot of transitions.
The other method for a longer canter is to let the horse forward with your hands soft. but to keep contact with your legs.It isnt a leg cue to increase speed, bt to remind the mare that I am riding her and that she may be cantering fast but it is me who is riding her. On a wide track one can also do a bit of steering from side to side of the track.
 
Yes, I always have a neck strap (feel naked without it!)
I don’t *think* I was gripping / tensing and causing his forwardness. I tend to try to stay as soft as I can and even if I’m trying to pull him up / prevent him bogging off I try to soften the contact at any moment I can so I don’t have a death grip on him.
The first few cheeky pulls he gave me I was quite calm because usually he just needs a gentle reminder and all is well. However I could feel him escalating so took the decision that it would be best to pull up. And as I say, while he did listen in a way and slowed down he was just doing a (very impressive) very collected canter with optional leaps.

Only a minute or two earlier I had been praising his manners when a deer popped out and started him. He whipped round, I lost a stirrup and was entirely left behind. Due to the lost stirrup my left leg was inadvertently giving him “go” aids because that was pretty much all that was preventing me falling off. My jellyfish like core muscles were doing nothing to get me back into a position of control so I only had voice aids “woah” to get him to not take us both home at speed.
And he listened! He was such a good boy and got lots of pats and treats for that.

As he seemed to calm down very quickly and was walking calmly on a loose rein, I thought we’d be ok to have the canter that id planned on….and that’s where it all went wrong. So it was my poor decision, but I do need to a) find some brave pants and b) work out the best way to ‘bring him down’ when he gets over excited.
 
Also singing! 100 green bottles works for me. Have been known to start at 1000 on a particularly bad day.

If not singing then a tuneful oh arent you a good boy walking up here slowly in my baby voice can get him focused back on me
 
little_critter said:
Only a minute or two earlier I had been praising his manners when a deer popped out and started him. He whipped round, I lost a stirrup and was entirely left behind. Due to the lost stirrup my left leg was inadvertently giving him “go” aids because that was pretty much all that was preventing me falling off. My jellyfish like core muscles were doing nothing to get me back into a position of control so I only had voice aids “woah” to get him to not take us both home at speed.
And he listened! He was such a good boy and got lots of pats and treats for that.

As he seemed to calm down very quickly and was walking calmly on a loose rein, I thought we’d be ok to have the canter that id planned on….and that’s where it all went wrong. So it was my poor decision, but I do need to a) find some brave pants and b) work out the best way to ‘bring him down’ when he gets over excited.
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I wasn’t going to reply but then you mentioned the deer spook…
Out with instructor, turned a corner in the lane and was met by a car driver who warned of loose goats on the road ahead, at precisely the moment my normally rock solid horse smelt them, blew up like a balloon and started getting a bit sticky; we were stood pondering what to do when some cyclists asked permission to overtake us which they did and scared goats back into farmyard, we tagged on the back and carried on. Horse seemed back to his normal self, but when we got to the canter place he bucked twice, kicked out at the other mare and shot off like Shergar and I’m no jockey! Luckily uphill which tired him out!

Totally out of character, I think he had trigger stacked the goat incident and needed to unleash his tension. Never did it again (but then we didn’t meet the goats again).
So just wondering if your boy, after the deer fright, seemed back to normal but was actually still harbouring some tension and it came out in the canter?
 
It sounds like he already has some adrenaline in his system from the spook and then the canter just blew his mind! My youngster canters lovely when out with my friend but when I tried when alone it was a bit hair raising! We wend sideways, had a small buck and I soon pulled up! Haven't done it alone since! I am also not in the particularly brave camp but I prefer to call it self preservation as a single parent who has a physical and exhausting job which I need to keep a roof over ours and said pony's head!
 
I completely understand why this would be scary to some people, first and foremost. BUT - the type of horses who can have a canter out, be a bit hot, and then immediately go back to a chilled walk on a loose rein are few and far between.

I'd try reframe the situation -

What's so bad about going fast in canter? You were still able to pull up which is great and shows that he does listen to you.

What's the problem with him jogging for a little bit instead of walking? Use the opportunity to practice your sitting trot. If he won't settle to walk, keep him trotting until he becomes tired. Practice transitions within the trot, or do some lateral work. Keep him going from trot to canter and back again. It's just as much about keeping your mind busy as his, so that you don't get to a point of panic.

You're kind of fighting a losing battle getting a buzzy horse to forcibly relax. I think we forget that horses are born to run and the majority of them thrive on having a good blast once or twice a week!
 
IrishMilo said:
I completely understand why this would be scary to some people, first and foremost. BUT - the type of horses who can have a canter out, be a bit hot, and then immediately go back to a chilled walk on a loose rein are few and far between.

I'd try reframe the situation -

What's so bad about going fast in canter? You were still able to pull up which is great and shows that he does listen to you.

What's the problem with him jogging for a little bit instead of walking? Use the opportunity to practice your sitting trot. If he won't settle to walk, keep him trotting until he becomes tired. Practice transitions within the trot, or do some lateral work. Keep him going from trot to canter and back again. It's just as much about keeping your mind busy as his, so that you don't get to a point of panic.

You're kind of fighting a losing battle getting a buzzy horse to forcibly relax. I think we forget that horses are born to run and the majority of them thrive on having a good blast once or twice a week!
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Hmmm. I was only just able to pull up, and while we weren’t cantering fast at that time, he did feel explosive which worried me.

I don’t mind jogging, I tend to laugh at him. I had been working on our collected trot and while out hacking he decided to be ‘naughty’ by doing a lovely collected trot. I told him he could carry on if he thinks that’s naughty 😂
What we had today was a very collected canter with what felt like a real possibility of either surging forward or exploding upwards, and I didn’t like that ticking time bomb feeling.

I think the above poster is right with the trigger stacking and it was my bad decision making that caused this.
In my defence he had gone back to walking calmly on a loose rein so I thought all was well. He’s very good at hiding stress so it feels like he goes from everything is fine to “I’m not ok” with no warning.

What we need is practice. He needs to get to the point where cantering is routine and not so exciting
I need to get to a point where I can trust that I still have control.

Edited to add, fast canter / gallop is not an out and out bad thing, and I hope to work towards that. However the speed we go at needs to be mutually agreed. If we are both happy to go fast, great! If I want to keep it steady (limited space/ risk of encountering walkers/ just coz) then he needs to listen to me and keep his head. Otherwise that’s known as “being tanked off with”
 
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