Help with naughty horse

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Mildred

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I bought a horse a couple of years ago from a local girl. I have been getting on ok with the mare, I have spent a good 18 months doing groundwork and practising parelli. However my horse is quite head shy and I am not sure what to do about it, she is very pushy on the ground and I spend a lot of time backing her up out of my space using parelli methods but I don't understand why she doesn't allow me near her head? I play loads of games with her and she obviously trusts me.

I have just started riding her, I am a bit of a nervous rider and I think my horse is very strong so my friend advised that I ride her in a gag. I can usually hold her in it but I have had some problems with her holding her head very high and taking off which means I am becoming more nervous. I have put a standing martingale on to stop her throwing her head up but this doesnt really help. She is a very highly strung mare who needs a lot of food as she loses weight, and hay at my yard is very expensive so I feed her a big tub of hard feed twice a day which works out cheaper and she seems to like it. Her coat is shiny so I think I am doing ok with the feeding.

What can I do about her head shyness and any ideas on a stronger bit?
 
Parelli doesn't work. You should buy someone elses videos - Richard Maxwell is popular this year... headshy - maybe she is blind?

I think you should ride her in draw riens. That should do it. Change the feed to something else because NAF have just brought out another fancy one with herbs in. Oh and give her more oats. That should do it.
 
Dobby said:
I went to type out a reply but actually think I'll leave it to someone else...
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i thought this.. shall we give OP a chance?

op drop the parelli.

read up on how to feed/horse management

a gag is a head raising bit

sell the horse and buy a rocking horse.
 
You should try Huggly Horsemanship. Loads of people on the forum have had masses of success with it. You'll have to buy the patented left-handed headcollar, a bananastick and the extra long lunge rein with the extra-heavy clunk-clip, but it's totally worth the £3500!!
PS: I've got tons of advice if you're interested and I'm also a horse-communicator.
 
OP, I won't laugh at you like the others are doing and will give you a sensible response.

From reading your post, I think you are doing the wrong exercises with your mare. You are doing "right brained" exercises and she is clearly "left brained". You need to buy the correct books for this and the correct tools - maybe Parelli do a reasonably priced DVD as well that you could buy. I would look into this if I were you. Also one of the best ways to get her to let you touch her head is to constantly feed her treats - she will soon start to realise that you = treats and ask you all the time for them. It's really sweet when they nip you for polos because then you know they really love you :)

As for the bit, well she is probably telling you that she doesn't really want to be ridden at all and you should listen to her. If you are determined to ignore her feelings then you ride her in a Parelli headcollar or even a Dually - then if she keeps putting her head up, why not put draw reins through the metal loops in the headcollar to keep her head down?
 
chestnut cob said:
OP, I won't laugh at you like the others are doing and will give you a sensible response.

From reading your post, I think you are doing the wrong exercises with your mare. You are doing "right brained" exercises and she is clearly "left brained". You need to buy the correct books for this and the correct tools - maybe Parelli do a reasonably priced DVD as well that you could buy. I would look into this if I were you. Also one of the best ways to get her to let you touch her head is to constantly feed her treats - she will soon start to realise that you = treats and ask you all the time for them. It's really sweet when they nip you for polos because then you know they really love you :)

As for the bit, well she is probably telling you that she doesn't really want to be ridden at all and you should listen to her. If you are determined to ignore her feelings then you ride her in a Parelli headcollar or even a Dually - then if she keeps putting her head up, why not put draw reins through the metal loops in the headcollar to keep her head down?
Click to expand...
Hey hey hey hey hey... What do you think you're doing?? :mad: Toes; stepped on!!
 
tallyho! said:
Parelli doesn't work. You should buy someone elses videos - Richard Maxwell is popular this year... headshy - maybe she is blind?

I think you should ride her in draw riens. That should do it. Change the feed to something else because NAF have just brought out another fancy one with herbs in. Oh and give her more oats. That should do it.
Click to expand...

Do you think oats are really worth a try? At the moment she has baileys no 10, Olympic feeds endurance cubes (I want to do endurance one day), sugar beet, chaff and a mix and some carrots, apples and potato peelings. I already tried draw reins but she reared up and scared me.
 
chestnut cob said:
OP, I won't laugh at you like the others are doing and will give you a sensible response.

From reading your post, I think you are doing the wrong exercises with your mare. You are doing "right brained" exercises and she is clearly "left brained". You need to buy the correct books for this and the correct tools - maybe Parelli do a reasonably priced DVD as well that you could buy. I would look into this if I were you. Also one of the best ways to get her to let you touch her head is to constantly feed her treats - she will soon start to realise that you = treats and ask you all the time for them. It's really sweet when they nip you for polos because then you know they really love you :)

As for the bit, well she is probably telling you that she doesn't really want to be ridden at all and you should listen to her. If you are determined to ignore her feelings then you ride her in a Parelli headcollar or even a Dually - then if she keeWps putting her head up, why not put draw reins through the metal loops in the headcollar to keep her head down?
Click to expand...

Oh I do give her sweets, she loves chocolate and toffees, she won't let me out of the stable if I have sweets in my pocket!

Do you think maybe she doesn't want to be ridden? I want to respect her wishes. She is a beautiful colour though and I have been told she is very pretty, I might use her as a broodmare instead if that would make her happy.
 
oh yes i think she is telling you she hates being ridden, maybe your too heavy for her??

Deffinatley breed from her the pretty horses always prouduce the best foalies :rolleyes:
 
jhoward said:
oh yes i think she is telling you she hates being ridden, maybe your too heavy for her??

Deffinatley breed from her the pretty horses always prouduce the best foalies :rolleyes:
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This is brilliant advice, follow this to the letter. She probably doesn't have the right sort of temperament for ridden work so it makes sense to breed from her. And remember that if you don't like the baby, sell it and try again :)
 
jhoward said:
oh yes i think she is telling you she hates being ridden, maybe your too heavy for her??

Deffinatley breed from her the pretty horses always prouduce the best foalies :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

No I don't think I am too heavy, the other people at my yard have never said anything. I might have a look online for a stallion, I wonder how much an Arab stallion would be, that would be amazing! A part Arab foaly. :)
 
chestnut cob said:
This is brilliant advice, follow this to the letter. She probably doesn't have the right sort of temperament for ridden work so it makes sense to breed from her. And remember that if you don't like the baby, sell it and try again :)
Click to expand...

Oh no she is a good riding horse, her last owner did pony club teams and everything. I don't think I could sell her baby, she would be devastated!
 
and if all else fails you could still send her to potters/turners or call the huntsman out, give her some more oats you will get more for her then per kg, good luck, lol
 
it hunting isnt her game then teach her to drive in front of a sculley not behind a steering wheel of course that will get her head down and with all the tack on her face she should get over her head shyness once and for all.
 
Do you think blinkers might work then? Or should I continue with the parelli groundwork and games until she is happier about me touching her face? She never used to be head shy, do you think she is playing games with me?
 
Personally, I would just do regular schooling introducing ideas such as half halting and trotting poles.

Another technique I have found that works is trotting, for example, from C to H and then walking to B and trotting to a, then repeating.

Try these!! Good luck:)
 
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