Horse catching advice needed before I ring the glue factory.

Custard Cream

Custard Cream

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 April 2011
Messages
2,506
Visit site
Every year for about 2 weeks my mare is a pain to catch. She gets the sun on her back and grass in her belly and she says naff off. Fine. I can deal with this. But today has been the final straw. In the last month I have managed to catch her 3 or 4 times and that is it. It wasn't such a pain as I was training for the GNR and not riding, but now I want to get her back into work, she needs to stop messing about! She is 13 yrs old and not daft!

The set up: She is in a field with 3 friends. The field is a 1/4 mile walk away from the yard. It's a large field, though not much grass left. The field is bordered by a stallion and a gelding that were originally electric fenced (as well as the normal fencing) away so ours couldn't talk to them over it. Now the electric fence has gone (the stallion is ring fenced) and they are all playing silly buggers over the standard fence, especially near my gate area.

What I've tried:

food - not interested because 2 of the field mates are greddier than her, so get in the way.
the softly softly approach - I've done the sitting in the field for an hour all quiet, nothing.
the chasing approach - doesn't work
taking friends away - have done this and it still takes a good couple of hours for her to be caught. I don't have the time to be going up and down bringing the other horses in (not all mine either) to then wait for 2-3 hours to catch her every morning.

I literally can't get within 10ft of her, so having a short rope attached to the headcollar is no use. I'm quickly running out of ideas!

Tonight just needed to put her rug on, so caught her friend and brought him over to the gate area, but his rug on, not a problem. Mare comes over and I'm all calm and quiet and manage to slip my hand into her headcollar and was just about the clip the rope on when the gelding from the next field gallopped right up to the gate way and spooked her and she was off again!

I sat for half an hour crying in the field - so frustrating! I need some HELP. Otherwise she is going to be herded into the glue wagon.
 
I know your pain...If she doesn't kick/charge electric fencing I'd be inclined to pen her into a section with electric tape (tied to existing fence at one end but not turned on), then section her into an area with the other end that you are holding. If you 'walk' the fence in, so that she is trapped in increasingly smaller areas, ideally in a corner, you should be able to tie the end in your hand off, get in with her and catch her. I asked about kicking because she is likely to turn her bum towards you, in which case put hand firmly on bum and use the other one to connect the rope. I had months of frustration trying to catch our little pony and eventually resorted to this. After a couple of times he gave up and stands to be caught now (or at worst turns his back until you put your hand on his bum).
 
Thanks Izzy. I'm going to fence a smaller area of the field off tomorrow. Will catch her friends and bring them in and hopefully eventually catch her. She can have a few days inside I think and then be turned out into a smaller paddock. She's really flighty rather than kicky. The smallest thing and shes off.

She has always had her moments at being caught in the last 5 years, but never been this bad. The stallion appeared in the last year.
 
Hi CC!!

Routine works with Ru- previous owner had him for two years and still couldn't catch him- I've had him two years and it's only a routine that works. He comes in every morning between 6.40 and 8, any later than that will result in ginger arse buggering off at speed, he's then bribed with carrot sticks, and I'm very slow and deliberate, and he comes in to a feed, stands in with a Haynet all day then works after 4pm then has tea and goes out. He always has a carrot when I turn him out so that the last thing I do is something nice each night. I decided long ago that I was not above bribery and corruption with him. But to start with, he did have a tiny paddock so he HAD to come in, there wasn't much grass at all! The paddock was expanded by a few feet each night, then to a section of the field, then to the whole field.

He still won't catch for anyone else. Unless he's waiting at the gate- (very rare!) then he'll come in for most people, but isn't adverse to walking halfway through the gate then sodding off back up the field once they think they have him.

His part time rider (significantly nicer to him than I am!! :D ) still can't catch him after a year and a half- she called me a few weeks ago after 60 mins in the field, I popped out of the office at lunch, ran into the field, handed him to her and disappeared- all in less than 5 mins.

He's currently away being schooled and hasn't been out for five weeks as they will never catch him so he's having a whale of a time on the horse walker!!

Bloody horses!!
 
I would fence off a small area that you can herd her in to (may need to get the others to go in first - you can always let them back out again). Once in the small area then make her work unless she comes to say hello. Have something yummy to give her when she comes over. The chasing method really does work but only if you have a small enough area that you can keep them moving and they can't get away for a rest. It sounds like she is not fit at the moment so she will get puffed out pretty quickly.
 
It is extremely frustrating , esp when other horses decide to 'help' just at the vital moment...

It sounds like she finds the other horses slightly more interesting than you at the mo, so I don't think sitting passively in the field is likely to increase her interest in you...

Click here for my recommendation...

good luck and pay special attention to the 'self talk' elements, esp as she's now really knocked your confidence...
.
 
My sister's mare used to be like this and I sectioned off a smaller area - large enough that she felt she could get away from me but not so large that I nearly knackered myself trying to catch her. We 'herded' her in then used join up technique to teach her to come to me. It took over 2hrs the first day, 30mins the next day, she came to me the following day and then she reverted back to over an hour but after that she was fine. We also played a lot of groundwork games with her to gain respect. Every spring when she was first turned out 24/7 she'd try it on a bit again, but the lessons were well engrained and we could send her away in a large field and she'd then recall that we knew the game as well as she did and she'd approach us pretty quick - never took more than a few mins after that initial training.
 
Feeling your pain, I'm on day 5( or is it 6!). My mare has just decided not to be caught, and I've done all the same things as you have tried. Have now given up, I'm poo picking, leaving her a small feed and ignoring her. Can't suggest anything else for you, but good luck, and if you have success, please let me know how you've done it!
 
I would keep her in a small elec fence area permenently. And I'd make sure the fence had plenty kick so she didn't start barging through it. I'd keep her on fairly bare ground and provide as many small feeds/hay trips in a day as you have time for. NB I dont mean starve her but her daily ration has to come from you even just intensively for a couple of days then you could give her more grass/hay at a time. Then she will see you as something good hopefully. I would make sure you catch her every time she eats during this training but don't take her out or do anything she doesn't like.
 
Firstly dont go at her with the intent of catching her, go do something else - talk to the others, poo pick if she comes up give her a nice rub then walk away. If you go everytime with the intention of hauling her out of her nice field, or RIGHT IM GONNA CATCH U U B*GGAR! she will know and be avoiding you like the plague.

Everytime you try and catch her and fail you're dropping down her respect list so if you go to do it, go with time and loooooads of it so you arent pressured. When you've done the first suggestion and hopefully she's at least come to say hello and had a rub and you've walked away she may get a bit more interested and come back, at this point try and clip a rope on , walk her around a little, moving her feet back sideways etc, give her a nice rub and let her go. Go off and do something else come back and repeat. If you cant get near her at this point I'd be running out tape and posts and shutting down her area before doing the catching and moving around bit. Re catch her over and over and over again until she is so bored of it she stands still when u approach - make sure she gets the rub for praise every time and make sure you move her feet about everytime. Dont ever ever go to catch her again and walk away having failed!
 
This^^^^^.

Then make sure you catch her every day, it MUST become part of her routine, even if you've got something else to do. I wouldn't leave her in the stable the first time you catch her, or you will make the situation worse when you do put her out again. If she doesn't come for a rug, she obviously doesn't need/want it, so don't worry about that. In fact could it be that she sees a rug and thinks 'too hot!' so that makes her worse to catch?
 
First of all, love the title..

I tend to shout "someone get me a harpoon!"

My gelding is a total monkey when it comes to being caught. It's annoying, upsetting, frustrating, sad and a pain in the @$$!

No advice as have tried everything also, just wanted to let you know I feel your pain..to make matters worse I can't even corner mine into a small space as he tells me to bogoff with his back feet.

Group hug for the long-standing sufferers?!
 
Blow dart??

:D

Been having this with my 3yo and at 8.5 months pregnant walking endlessly round a field after a sodding horse is no picnic.

OH and my better judgement told me to just give up but I'm far too bloody-minded.

I fenced off a quite small area and enticed him in with food. Before he realised he was trapped it was too late. I am then catching him twice a day every day, giving him a carrot then letting him go.

It's a pain as I have to keep moving the fence and taking hay as he's got sod all to eat now but it's worked. Yesterday I increased his space by half and still caught him. I'm just going for routine, routine, routine! (although Lord knows why as it'll all go out of the window when the baby arrives)

I know how frustrating it is though. Have you ended up throwing the headcollar at her yet, screaming 'I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!' then bursting into angry tears and stomping away?

No one will admit it, but we've all been there :D
 
One of my horses was a swine to catch. He was a lazy toad when it came to work, and he thought that by running around the field it would mean he didnt have to do any. In his case he was not nervous, just being a pig.

He always had a head collar on. He was also on a livery yard with large fields, and no option of fencing off just a small bit for him to go in. I was in the field once for three hours trying to get him.

What finally worked in the end was taking him a bucket of feed out into the field and letting him eat it. Fortunatly most of the other horses were far enough away to not see bucket or time to get rid whilst mine ate.

Then worked up to standing next to him whilst eating. Then stroking his neck. Getting hold of head collar etc; eventually we got there.

However at any point if he decided he was going to run off I chased him round the field until I caught him. He would not stand still, and if he wanted to run, I made sure he got to run.

I had one winter's day where he had been fine in the morning - gone to get another horse, gave mine a quick stroke. Came to get him in the afternoon and decided we didnt want to play. Cue running around the field for an hour or two as we didnt want to do any work. He eventually stopped in the end to let me catch him. Brought him into the stable and found out why he had stopped. He was white over with sweat underneath his heavyweight turnout. Tbh it served him right, if I had caught him to start with we would only have gone for a quick walk down the road and back.

After he got better to catch, I ended up taking out a handful of feed with me out into the field, and gave him that when I caught him. When he came in to the stable, even before work, I would give him a small amount of feed; the same when we had finished work. To him, he thought he had "won" as he was getting fed - which was his sole aim in life.
 
I have reverted to chucking carrots at a bucking ginger arse for a while and awarding myself points based on the height of the buck. I was severely peeved at that point. I returned later in the day to the angelic ginger face waiting at the gate wondering why he hadn't had his breakfast and demanded to be let in!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top