Help with anxious horse

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soloequestrian

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My mare is nearly 12 and has always been anxious. I'm not the best partner for her but we're kind of stuck with each other! We can hack alone but it's never totally chilled - she has buckle end moments but most of the time she is looking for trouble and trot tends to be either whizzing past something slightly scary or backing off something slightly scary. This week she spooked at foxgloves, songbirds, pigeons, rhododendrons, heather and logs that have been there for years but not at mountain bikes, barking dogs or huge bits of forestry machinery. She is much calmer with a buddy, to the point where she is almost dopey. In the school she spooks incessantly unless there is another horse between her and the terrifying crop field that is about 5m away from the school. I have fenced off this bit and her emotional support horse goes in there when we are in the school. This works well but seems ridiculous. There has never been anything scary in the crop field. She is on Nupafeed MAH and a mineral supplement. She is out 24/7 and a good weight. She grew up here so I know she has never been badly scared or hurt. Facebook is suggesting more supplements to me (how it knows is, as usual, a mystery) so I wondered if anyone on here has any recommendations for those or for anything else to try. I have looked at TRT (the horse is a warmblood so looks like Tristan's type!) but I can't really see what it is he does and whether it can be replicated without him being there. Thanks for reading this far.
 
I have a very anxious horse. Best advice I ever got was from a session with a good trainer where he said to me I have to stop riding defensively and start riding proactively. Basically he said I had got in the habit of 'waiting for trouble' and letting him boil over whereas I needed to be holding my horses hand and telling him what to do, essentially saying "you don't need to worry about that, this is what we are here to do, listen to me and you will be fine". So leg on, good forwarding working trot into the contact, let him use up his anxious energy in a constructive way. I keep him really busy and distracted so he doesn't have time to worry about anything else. The spookier and hotter my horse is, the more forward I ride him and the more I give him to do. It has worked wonders for us, I can feel him physically take a breath and relax when I essentially tell him he doesn't have to make the decisions to keep us safe, I'm going to tell him what he has to do. For context he used to rear vertically if another horse was working in the arena with us and left, same in a warmup arena if another competitor left to go in the ring, I now trot him away and put him to work and he doesn't even notice the other horse has left.
 
My mare is similar and we have had great success with a local equine behaviourist. We use positive reinforcement, but that's not strictly necessary. It's been more about teaching me when to reward relaxation and notice tension before it bubbles over, and how to manage my own behaviour to give the pony confidence and clear communication. I was looking at TRT for a good while but now I have a proper science-based pro on board, it really doesn't need to be dressed up and marketed as a "system".

I will also say, we had some sub-clinical, bilateral discomfort in the stifles and hocks that wasn't picked up properly until one side got worse than the other and she went actually lame, now that's been treated she is much better able to regulate herself. I will know she is due a top up if she goes back to being unreasonably spooky. Never a bad idea to check it isn't low grade pain!
 
Similar here. Good advice already. My trainer says to treat hacks a little bit more like training. First yes ride forward as much as you can (as previous poster said don’t sit there waiting for trouble.) Ride every step on imaginary train tracks.

Second have lots of things in your riding tool bag ie
Transition (make it up but say 20 trot, 10 walk or 30 trot 4 walk - useful to use trees or telegraph poles as markers)
Transitions within a pace
Shoulder in, particularly useful if running in trot also neck flexions
Small circles or teardrop as you progress, nothing says you have to go in linear line all the time
Choosing a short route and riding 5 times one direction, 5 in the other.

Scratch the wither saying something calming (keep a consistent phrase) then give a treat
Talk to your horse about where you are going and what you can see.
Sometimes just stop for a few minutes and watch, (scratch withers, say calming words and give treat if that’s what you do)

Now if anyone can give advice on how to deal with large tractors pulling large loads please help!
 
I'm in the north of Scotland so generally not many people available! She is clicker trained and I do chat to her a lot and do wither scratches. I think I have been bad for waiting for her to deal with scary things rather than helping her to deal with them, that's why we're not the greatest partnership because I tend to be nervous too! I have got better though - I know when she is likely to get overwhelmed now at least. Repeating routes is something I hadn't thought of, I might try that one! (though none short enough to do five times, that would take me all day!). I'm reasonably sure she's not in pain, she's never done anything to indicate that and she is very happy to stretch when ridden and pulls some fairly athletic stunts in the field. She's ridden bitless, Transcend in the school and 'Tom Thumb' hackamore (don't know its real name!) for hacking.
 
My gelding can be very similar, spooking at all sorts of virtually invisible things, although he’s great with tractors. I had a bad fall off him in January while hacking, and another when he spooked in the arena in April, and was starting to be really worried about how spooky he was.

He then had some time off, for various reasons, and I was really worried about how he might be when I got back on in the school, and I’d completely lost my nerve hacking.

However, several things have made a difference to us. Firstly, and it may be placebo effect, I started giving him calming cookies before schooling, and also did groundwork before getting on. I’ve now stopped this, but it really helped my nerves, which in turn helped him.

Then, along with calming cookies before hacks, I did lots of in hand hacks so he was very familiar with the routes. Then for our first hack, which we did on our own, as I know he’s actually ok to hack alone, I took him out on the same route in hand to start with, then got on and rode it.

And lastly, I’ve been riding much more forward off my leg when hacking, and focussing on riding with a contact when out and about, as well as trotting past potentially spooky parts of our routes, to keep him moving forward and thinking about what I’m asking.

It’s early days, but so far, so good. A hack out with my yard owner really helped too, as she was able to spot when he needed me to give him more confidence, and help me do what he needed to get that from me.
 
Thanks. I've done a fair bit of in hand with her - one of the bits she always finds spooky I walked for a few months and got on after it. Didn't make any difference when I started riding her up it again - she is no bother when there's another horse, no bother when we come home that way but eyes on stalks when we go out that way on our own. I will try the trick of riding it twice and see if that helps. I do try to ride with my leg on but sometimes it ends up being pony-club kicks to keep her going. It feels like I cease to exist in her head when something is a little bit scary - she doesn't tend to look to me for help, just ignores me. She is great when relaxed but the minute she feels any external pressure she forgets about me.
 
What happens if you make her stop and look at what she's spooking at? I think TRT recently posted about this marketing it as some profound new horse training technique, but pretty sure a lot of us have been doing it for years 😜

If mine is spooking at something, I won't let him rush past it as that behaviour escalates with him and he works himself up into a frenzy by the end of the ride. I will ask him to turn and look at what is worrying him. No pressure, no leg, no bullying to go closer to it, just gently and persistently I will ask him to face the direction he is spooking at and then reward him. I repeat this until he can stand relatively relaxed looking in the direction he was spooking and then we carry on. I find this helps him to think more 'rationally' about stuff rather than getting it into his head that he has to run away and react violently every time something startles him. I've always done this with my youngsters from day one and (perhaps by luck!) have always managed to produce pretty unflappable and confident horses!
 
Her response tends to be stop and look rather than run. Even if she does run she won't go far and she will calm down quickly. She is a package of contradictions!!
I do the relaxing exercise in the school a lot - in the worst corner we often stop for a rest and a treat. It seems to make very little difference once we are working again. The emotional support horse works much better in that respect.
 
frankieduck said:
What happens if you make her stop and look at what she's spooking at? I think TRT recently posted about this marketing it as some profound new horse training technique, but pretty sure a lot of us have been doing it for years 😜

If mine is spooking at something, I won't let him rush past it as that behaviour escalates with him and he works himself up into a frenzy by the end of the ride. I will ask him to turn and look at what is worrying him. No pressure, no leg, no bullying to go closer to it, just gently and persistently I will ask him to face the direction he is spooking at and then reward him. I repeat this until he can stand relatively relaxed looking in the direction he was spooking and then we carry on. I find this helps him to think more 'rationally' about stuff rather than getting it into his head that he has to run away and react violently every time something startles him. I've always done this with my youngsters from day one and (perhaps by luck!) have always managed to produce pretty unflappable and confident horses!
Click to expand...
This is some profound, newly-discovered, equestrian insight that someone is actually charging money to reveal?
Of course it might help, such a blindingly obvious thing to try.... is there anyone who hasn’t tried this?!?
Do hope the maestro isn’t marketing as a ‘cure’? Maybe check the guarantees and refund policy....
Blood and sand.
 
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