oldie48
Well-Known Member
Posted a couple of years ago about Mr B's behaviour as soon as we turned for home as it was really spoiling our hacking out and as he was particularly bad on his own, I had stopped hacking out without company. Good news is at long last I have it licked so I thought I'd post just in case it helped someone else. The improvement has come from schooling, all the suggestions I had such as turning him round, making him continue past the house etc, made him worse and I struggled more to keep control. I've worked with a good trainer for the past two years and a lot of what we've done has been about control. Is he round enough, is he in front of the leg, will he flex when I ask, will he halt from the seat and stand nicely. All very basic stuff but it has changed our relationship. I've continued to hack out in company and it has got to the point that if he starts to speed up, I can just sit up and he'll come back to me and I now hack him out in a snaffle, without a martingale and in my dressage saddle as I can use my seat so much better than in a GP. This week I decided I'd like to use the 20 minute round the block as a warm up before we went in our school. Well, what a difference! I am just so pleased with him! he was a little anxious on day one, jogged a little but settled when asked to walk, day 2 he was less anxious , didn't jog but I did have to ask him to come back to me a couple of times and he stood nicely for a few minutes by the gate before walking back up to the stables which used to be a challenge. This morning he was totally relaxed, was nicely forward without rushing and was happy to halt several times. I couldn't fault him. I do feel that taking him in the school when we get home has had a positive effect although I had tried this but it didn't deal with the problem until I had him listening to me better.
