Hacking Issues

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miss_wilson

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Can anyone offer me any advice???

I regularly hack my 7 year old mare, we used to be stabled right by the beach so roads were no issue, however we have now moved yards and need to do roads!!

she is good with cars, just not so good with motorbikes, and we found out today HGV`s, also some large vans!! luckily for me she doesn`t bolt, but does usually spin 180 degrees and jump sideways! then is on edge with everything for a few minutes till she calms down! she is chestnut!!!
We usually stick to the pavement and always go with another horse for support.
She used to be funny with push bikes but is now much better!!

I want to carry on hacking her and think that i just need to continue to get her used to it, I must add the route we did today was a main road for about 15 mins before reaching the park.

Thanks!

I just wondered whether anyone had been through this before and got through it???
 
Practice, practice & more practice. Hard to simulate everything you might meet, so its best to do bombproofing work somewhere safe so she gets used to looking to you for guidance. I'd also recommend not being on the pavement, will just get on the locals nerves & a lot of drivers pay less attention to what's on the pavement than what's on the road. And make sure your not focusing on what you think she might not like, if you are expecting her to spin she undoubtedly will. Try & keep her mind on you, lots of transitions, lateral work etc. Doing shoulder in past stuff she's nervous about can help too, so she's not having to face it square on & she's concentrating on you. And above all I find a cheerful chatter to who you're with helps too.
 
Haven't been through that exactly but I had an ID cross who when I tried him hacked happily down a busy A road passed lorries etc. When I got him home he became terrified of anything bigger than a transit van and was much more sensitive to diesel vehicles in general. I think it was the fact our roads were all narrow and vehicles slowed down which made them scarier. We put him in a field next to the busiest road we had (not particularly but had regular lorries and tractors going down it) and I always hacked with 2 bombproof horses so he could be sandwiched in between. After 18 months he was much much better and the worst he would do would be to run past them for a few strides and even that was only with tractors. Good luck it can be quite hairy but I think if you can get your horse fairly constant exposure to noisy big traffic she'll get there x
 
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