bugsysmum
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone
Last year at Towerlands BD my youngster got scared of all the big impressive horses in the warm-up cantering at him (he thought) and started spinning and taking off to escape them. Since then, I've managed to keep going to smallish shows or places where they have kindly let me warm up away from the others. I really thought he was getting over it as we've managed a warm up with 6 or 7 others and coped ok. But in Jan, we had to do a busy warm up, which really upset him, so I had to take him out, and then yesterday he lost the plot with only 2 others in a 20x60 arena!
I'm really worried about how to get him over it - I know I've got to the stage where I'm stopping him when other horses come towards us in case he does it again and sets them off, and I'm sure this isn't helping. I'm also getting very tense about it, which I know also doesn't help him.
Yesterday, the two other people in there very kindly let me walk round with them for a couple of circuits - it took me 3/4 of the school to get him near the first horse to walk alongside it. But then once we all went back to normal and even though they were both at the other end, he was trying to run away from them which resulted in not being able to warm up properly and a very tense test.
I have arranged to ride in the school at home with someone next weekend, and am going to try and go hire a school with someone too. I'm usually last at the yard so we're on our own schooling in the evenings.
Has anyone got any tips for helping us both get over it? We've got the Petplan finals at Hartpury in April and I'm having all sorts of nightmares about it now!
Also, how do I stop the "rude" element at shows from cutting me up (which started him off) or coming too close?
Sorry it's long - help!!
Last year at Towerlands BD my youngster got scared of all the big impressive horses in the warm-up cantering at him (he thought) and started spinning and taking off to escape them. Since then, I've managed to keep going to smallish shows or places where they have kindly let me warm up away from the others. I really thought he was getting over it as we've managed a warm up with 6 or 7 others and coped ok. But in Jan, we had to do a busy warm up, which really upset him, so I had to take him out, and then yesterday he lost the plot with only 2 others in a 20x60 arena!
I'm really worried about how to get him over it - I know I've got to the stage where I'm stopping him when other horses come towards us in case he does it again and sets them off, and I'm sure this isn't helping. I'm also getting very tense about it, which I know also doesn't help him.
Yesterday, the two other people in there very kindly let me walk round with them for a couple of circuits - it took me 3/4 of the school to get him near the first horse to walk alongside it. But then once we all went back to normal and even though they were both at the other end, he was trying to run away from them which resulted in not being able to warm up properly and a very tense test.
I have arranged to ride in the school at home with someone next weekend, and am going to try and go hire a school with someone too. I'm usually last at the yard so we're on our own schooling in the evenings.
Has anyone got any tips for helping us both get over it? We've got the Petplan finals at Hartpury in April and I'm having all sorts of nightmares about it now!
Also, how do I stop the "rude" element at shows from cutting me up (which started him off) or coming too close?
Sorry it's long - help!!