Horse napping to others in warm up

[[59668]]

Further to my other post I thought I'd set up a new thread to see how other people have dealt with this situation
Horse naps to others in the warm up....I will suddenly get head down, jumping on spot, trying to turn, head tossing.
How should I deal with this? Small circles so it's a "make the wrong thing hard" type situation? Kick on? Ignore it?

 

[Gloi]

I would work on dealing with it by taking him to some group lessons or working in a school with other horses and getting him used to working round other horses in that situation before dealing with it at a show. That way you can work on his schooling in a safe situation without the stress of a show or upsetting other competitors.
If in doubt though I think riding him forward is usually the best thing.

 

[ownedbyaconnie]

Lots of group lessons/clinics. My main thing is never stopping near other horses ie when trainer is explaining next exercise don’t stand near them. Or say a jump clinic after I have my go I will go wait opposite end of arena to the other horses.

 

[Roxylola]

More forward, I wouldn't bother with small circles as generally that gives them chance to slow down. Have them really sharp and on the aids and Going
As obac said as well in clinics etc keeping moving and not letting them stop with others helps too

 

[Leandy]

A combination of kick on and ignore! You need to establish that going forward from the leg is non-negotiable. So ideally you would ignore this behaviour completely save for applying a few pony club kicks (ie go forward NOW) when it starts. How responsive is your horse to the leg generally? This is something to work on if he is not consistently working on the aids. If you don't have this behaviour in other situations then it seems your horse mainly needs to get more used to working with others so I would take every opportunity to do that and the behaviour should wear off but you may need to be pretty determined and choose sensible others to share with who won't react to your horse's silliness whilst you work through it.

 

[milliepops]

i find low key group lessons really useful for this sort of thing. Round me I've used a few different options, riding club, freelance instructors who run evening lessons, I took my TB to RoR group lessons. Outside of the competition environment you stand a better chance of improving their behaviour because YOU don't have the additional stress of needing to leave at a particular time to do your test or jump the SJs.

I also wouldn't do small circles, main reason being with a horse that takes control of its neck and becomes awkward that way is they can sort of jackknife and you get even more stuck, so for me sit up, riding forward on big shapes is more likely to get the horse into a "working" frame of mind.