Hot or "reactive" horses - relaxation without tiredness

[JustMe22]

Sort of a follow on from the 'riding the reactive young horse' thread further down, which I read with some interest. I have a young ex-racehorse who I would also describe as 'reactive.'

He has phases where he is very calm and takes things in his stride, but does seem to go through cycles of being very hot, tense and generally ready to explode at any given moment. Out of necessity, some days he has worked really hard, but the next day he comes out still breathing fire.

Anyway, I was chatting to a friend about him a few weeks ago and I got myself thinking. Obviously, it is not ideal to have to work a young horse very hard. It also doesn't seem to be the way to improve "rideability factor." We tried hard work for a month or so, and this tends to be everyone's go-to option, but with him still being difficult, something had to change (important to note at this point that yes, saddles/teeth/back etc have all been checked and are fine). Working harder wasn't fixing the problem, tiring the horse just made him fitter in the long run, and it also isn't necessarily a true reflection of a relaxed horse. I know I don't feel relaxed after a long run at the gym, even if I'm exhausted!

So, how exactly do you work towards relaxing a horse rather than tiring it out? You obviously want the horse to be focused and rideable, but still have enough energy to perform. And of course, nobody wants to have to do an hour of work before your horse can canter in a sensible manner.

Say you have a very buzzy youngster, a reactive horse who has just come off box rest, or a horse who can't be too tired to do its job at a more advanced dressage or jumping show but isn't a naturally relaxed type? I have changed my approach quite drastically over the last few weeks, but I would like to hear other people's opinions. Our work has largely focused on slowing things down, being very deliberate in everything we do, and really going back to super basic stuff, but I will go into more details in another post!

 

[HufflyPuffly]

Great thread idea I will be following with interest !

For my own youngster, she gets het up more if she is restricted, for her to relax she needs the hand to go forward and be allowed to travel, giving her a scratch on the wither also helps. She has had to be allowed to go forward, before I can bring her back or we get tight short steps.

Working her hard doesn't really help her, as she gets physically and mentally tired which stresses her out more. A great thing for her was to get her out hacking, she loves going out and exploring, especially on routes she knows (I long-lined her out on hacks before riding her out).

I also did the opposite of working her hard, and took her in the school and only did what she could offer in a relaxed way and then called it a day there. This meant the first few times might have been short and in walk, but we've gradually built it up and if she finds something exciting we go back to the slower calm work before asking for anything else again (she's found canter THE most exciting thing ever :lol.

She is very trainable, but almost tries too hard so slow, simple and short works great for her.

 

[be positive]

You are working along the same lines as I would, slow everything down physically but keep their brains interested by giving them plenty to think about, transitions often make a buzzy horse worse but walk to halt, leg yielding, shoulder in, working over poles and getting them straight can help them slow down, get into a steady consistent rhythm and allow them to soften, relax and breathe, for some a good canter in light seat before asking them to work can get them settled, for others it would be too much and get them lit up.
I like to mix things up in the warm up so they don't anticipate going faster as you move up the gears each time you ride, sometimes they may not canter for a few days, other times they do a lot of cantering, this is especially useful for the exracehorses who often need to learn that cantering is not exciting and that galloping does not always follow the canter.

 

[wingedhorse]

My horses aren't super hot, but occasionally they are wired for reasons outside my control. I find making the exercise easy but with lots of changes of movement helps.

e.g. in hand - forward two steps, yield quarters to left, yield quarters to right, backwards 5 steps, repeat until horse is focused.

Similar undersaddle a 5 loop serpentine or lots of easy transitions at what ever pace horse can do without a stuggle. Idea is to use the changes in pace / bend to focus horse without challenging it.

Keep changing the question until they focus. Don't hold them back.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

I agree, OP, that working a young/difficult horse hard can be counter productive. There are a few members on here who often give that advice and it makes me cringe. The first thing I would do is to look at the diet, make sure the horse isn't reacting to something it is being given, then ensure that rider and handler are relaxed. I find that hacking is the most relaxing way to introduce something new, I would go for a hack, maybe with a relaxed companion, then go into the school for a short time, if you want to take the horse in the school.

I always prefer to work with the horse, rather than having any sort of confrontation, ime, tired horses can be very confrontational. Set the horse up to succeed.

 

[JustMe22]

Great thread idea I will be following with interest !

For my own youngster, she gets het up more if she is restricted, for her to relax she needs the hand to go forward and be allowed to travel, giving her a scratch on the wither also helps. She has had to be allowed to go forward, before I can bring her back or we get tight short steps.

Working her hard doesn't really help her, as she gets physically and mentally tired which stresses her out more. A great thing for her was to get her out hacking, she loves going out and exploring, especially on routes she knows (I long-lined her out on hacks before riding her out).

I also did the opposite of working her hard, and took her in the school and only did what she could offer in a relaxed way and then called it a day there. This meant the first few times might have been short and in walk, but we've gradually built it up and if she finds something exciting we go back to the slower calm work before asking for anything else again (she's found canter THE most exciting thing ever :lol.

She is very trainable, but almost tries too hard so slow, simple and short works great for her.

I've also found that even if I do work the horse hard and he eventually stops mucking around, it hasn't done anything to help "solve" the problem the next day, next week or next month.

We've been doing similar stuff. We've in fact reverted to working under saddle on the lunge some of the time too, and we spent the first couple of sessions only in walk, asking for nothing other than to move on to a smaller and bigger circle when asked, and go between halt and walk when asked. Moved on to trot, but a teeny tiny, slow, pathetic trot - not because that's ultimately what I want, but because he wanted to run away from everything - so needed to offer a bit more a rideable attitude. A few sessions later we managed to spend 20 minutes on a circle with poles at 12 and 6, and work on changing the trot from small to big, but always keeping a rhythm.

You are working along the same lines as I would, slow everything down physically but keep their brains interested by giving them plenty to think about, transitions often make a buzzy horse worse but walk to halt, leg yielding, shoulder in, working over poles and getting them straight can help them slow down, get into a steady consistent rhythm and allow them to soften, relax and breathe, for some a good canter in light seat before asking them to work can get them settled, for others it would be too much and get them lit up.
I like to mix things up in the warm up so they don't anticipate going faster as you move up the gears each time you ride, sometimes they may not canter for a few days, other times they do a lot of cantering, this is especially useful for the exracehorses who often need to learn that cantering is not exciting and that galloping does not always follow the canter.

Pole work has helped a lot! Even on the lunge, we ask for lots of slow work over raised poles, then a steady canter with two poles on a circle etc. Enough to keep him thinking a little bit but not enough that the poles are exciting and he starts jumping them and trying to race around. The rhythm has also been important - when I first got him he wasn't at all off the leg as he literally had no idea what the leg meant. Because he's now quite forward, I have the luxury of being able to ask him for a slow rhythm without him becoming impossibly backwards.

My horses aren't super hot, but occasionally they are wired for reasons outside my control. I find making the exercise easy but with lots of changes of movement helps.

e.g. in hand - forward two steps, yield quarters to left, yield quarters to right, backwards 5 steps, repeat until horse is focused.

Similar undersaddle a 5 loop serpentine or lots of easy transitions at what ever pace horse can do without a stuggle. Idea is to use the changes in pace / bend to focus horse without challenging it.

Keep changing the question until they focus. Don't hold them back.

Lots of transitions seems to make my horse a little worse, as he starts anticipating them rather than focusing on what I'm asking, but serpentines have been useful - it seems to depend on the horse, but mine does better with repetitive exercises that don't give him a chance to "get away" from me, but don't get too exciting either. It's almost like he has to be bored into settling down.

I agree, OP, that working a young/difficult horse hard can be counter productive. There are a few members on here who often give that advice and it makes me cringe. The first thing I would do is to look at the diet, make sure the horse isn't reacting to something it is being given, then ensure that rider and handler are relaxed. I find that hacking is the most relaxing way to introduce something new, I would go for a hack, maybe with a relaxed companion, then go into the school for a short time, if you want to take the horse in the school.

I always prefer to work with the horse, rather than having any sort of confrontation, ime, tired horses can be very confrontational. Set the horse up to succeed.

I don't mind working them hard from time to time, but I do think it creates a certain level of sourness, and there's obviously the concerns of their joints as they're still growing. I've also found that generally, they seem to shut down after a certain level, so you might get the horse to obey you (or you might not!) but they don't seem to learn anything from it and transfer it over to the next ride.

Hacking on the other hand, is far from a relaxing event for us. I can see how that logic works if the horse is good to hack, but I think the ex-racer element makes this a bit harder. We only ever hack with very reliable, calm horses, but it still blows his brains when he's in a bit of a wild phase. Our hacking routes are quite busy, but he can't manage group trots or canters and the open spaces seem to just send him over the edge. It feels like you're sitting on top of a time bomb, which is very unpleasant for everyone!

 

[Lanky Loll]

It's tricky. Current ginger is highly reactive and when she's done something once has a habit of going "I know" and trying to charge off doing it, her favourite method of evasion is to shove her ears up my nose and tank off through the neck .
Had a fab dr lesson on her last week - working on keeping my hands as low as possible (aiming for the D rings on my saddle) as when my hands come up she can set her neck and it's a vicious circle - she gets strong, shorten reins, head goes up, hands follow and off she goes x(
So - hands low, 6 poles in a line 3 or 4 walk strides apart, go up the line of poles doing circles round each one, first in walk then in trot, then figures of 8 round them, then going round 2 poles at a time in canter in each direction. By the end of the session she was working beautifully and hand stopped trying to leap into canter, dropped her head and worked through her back. It's not an exercise for every day but a good one for once a week to keep her listening - the frequent changes of pace / direction kept her wondering what was coming. Now to dig out my Ingrid Klimke book for more exercises as I need to do something different every day to keep that brain engaged!

 

[paddi22]

diet was the first thing i though of too when you said he comes out like a fire breathing dragon sometimes. Is there anything in the feed/turnout routine that could be setting him off?

I love buzzy high energy horses and I have a few. With my old exracer, if he ever had a buzzy high energy day i'd let him run it out loose schooling in the arena instead of riding. Some days when they are high energy you just need to work with it instead of opposing it. I'd use him energy to loose school over grids and stuff. The rest of the time was really simple focused pole exercises in the arena with bending and flexing, making sure he has to look at what his feet are going over, so lots of twisting and walking through poles. With him my whole focus was to keep the head long and low and stretching in all paces, just everything very loose and relaxed, but we always had to use poles and stepping over stuff to keep his focus.

One of the my other ones, you get no good out of him unless he has a full blast proper gallop when he can let loose. If i do that once a week then he gets it out of his system and works better. It's like he builds tension and stress and needs to just get it out of his system.

I have gotten a few very high energy ones in, at the moment i've a sulkie racers whose natural inclincation is to go as speedy as possible. With her the key was tons and tons of walking hacks till she was so tired she just dropped her head and realised she could relax. Its handy to get stony paths up hills where they need to look down and watch the ground. it takes the focus off spooking at stuff around them and gets them concentrating on you and their footing.

Just as a discusssion point, with exracers I would consider the rider/horse relationship the issue if it is buzzy and difficult hacking. Most exracers I've ridden have been super hackers once they trust the rider. Any hacking issues I've seen with others have been rider reactions/lack of trust in the rider or confusion about what the horse is expected to do. Most exracers understand hacking as their job, and also how to be run behind and in front of others and pull up easily. If they are given a new set of commands they dont understand then the issues start

I find these kind of buzzy horses really fascinating to work with. I think it helps to break down what kind of energy they have and how best to release it and work with what you have. Some horses are buzzy cause they are worried and aren't sure of what they are being asked; some are buzzy cause they are naturally athletic and full of motion; some because they don't trust the rider; some are just very thinky horses and need a suitably stimulating exercises to focus them.

Horses don't just magically change personality from day to day (apart from mares in season!) , when you get the routine right there is a groundline then in place. There might be small variations at times, but there should be some consistency. If there isn't then something is off somewhere, and its good to step back and analyse exactly when the bad reactions happen. There is always a pattern if you tunnel down

.

 

[HufflyPuffly]

On the hacking point, our hacking is pretty poor so it is mainly walk hacking only, so getting her out in a good marching walk is great for her relaxation. Taking her out for a blast with a group of horses is not :lol:.

Another thing I didn't add before is that I've found when they are hot/buzzy/sharp, you need to get your leg on and keep it on as a constant light pressure, otherwise they tend to over-react when you do apply a leg aid and I've also found it seems to give them confidence as you are always there.

 

[JustMe22]

diet was the first thing i though of too when you said he comes out like a fire breathing dragon sometimes. Is there anything in the feed/turnout routine that could be setting him off?

No, I don't think so. He gets no lucerne/alfalfa, no grain, no maize and our grazing is quite poor at the moment as we're in the middle of dry season. He does have to be kept on a very cooling feed though!

I love buzzy high energy horses and I have a few. With my old exracer, if he ever had a buzzy high energy day i'd let him run it out loose schooling in the arena instead of riding. Some days when they are high energy you just need to work with it instead of opposing it. I'd use him energy to loose school over grids and stuff. The rest of the time was really simple focused pole exercises in the arena with bending and flexing, making sure he has to look at what his feet are going over, so lots of twisting and walking through poles. With him my whole focus was to keep the head long and low and stretching in all paces, just everything very loose and relaxed, but we always had to use poles and stepping over stuff to keep his focus.

One of the my other ones, you get no good out of him unless he has a full blast proper gallop when he can let loose. If i do that once a week then he gets it out of his system and works better. It's like he builds tension and stress and needs to just get it out of his system.

See, my previous ex-racer was largely like this and I've found it very helpful with quite a few of them. Last horse used to get a certain look and he would be allowed to gallop it out, and then he would be fine.

We are very lucky to have a dedicated free schooling arena,so I do make use of it quite regularly and put up jumps etc. When he's just fresh through a bit of lack of work or having an off day, this works fine. When he's going through one of his mad phases, he can free school until he's pouring sweat and foam, and still come back the next day acting like he hasn't been worked in a week - in fact, it's almost like the high adrenaline situation of the free schooling and jumping just worked him up and reinforced that behaviour more.

I have gotten a few very high energy ones in, at the moment i've a sulkie racers whose natural inclincation is to go as speedy as possible. With her the key was tons and tons of walking hacks till she was so tired she just dropped her head and realised she could relax. Its handy to get stony paths up hills where they need to look down and watch the ground. it takes the focus off spooking at stuff around them and gets them concentrating on you and their footing.

Just as a discusssion point, with exracers I would consider the rider/horse relationship the issue if it is buzzy and difficult hacking. Most exracers I've ridden have been super hackers once they trust the rider. Any hacking issues I've seen with others have been rider reactions/lack of trust in the rider or confusion about what the horse is expected to do. Most exracers understand hacking as their job, and also how to be run behind and in front of others and pull up easily. If they are given a new set of commands they dont understand then the issues start

I find these kind of buzzy horses really fascinating to work with. I think it helps to break down what kind of energy they have and how best to release it and work with what you have. Some horses are buzzy cause they are worried and aren't sure of what they are being asked; some are buzzy cause they are naturally athletic and full of motion; some because they don't trust the rider; some are just very thinky horses and need a suitably stimulating exercises to focus them.

Horses don't just magically change personality from day to day (apart from mares in season!) , when you get the routine right there is a groundline then in place. There might be small variations at times, but there should be some consistency. If there isn't then something is off somewhere, and its good to step back and analyse exactly when the bad reactions happen. There is always a pattern if you tunnel down

.

I am doing my best to identify the pattern, believe me His routine hasn't changed in the last few months, but his behaviour has. I'm hoping that the more we get to know each other, the easier it will be for me to figure out what sets him off. He's a funny horse because he does have a decent work ethic and not a mean bone in his body, and he is generally quite a pleasant character. I wouldn't call him anxious or describe him as a worrier, but when I bought him from the track I was told he is very sharp and from very "hot" lines. I'm not too perturbed by the behaviour because I quite enjoy working with him, but I do wish I was having more luck in figuring out exactly what it is that seems to set him off on a difficult phase - although he wouldn't be the only young horse who has ever done this

On the hacking front, with all due respect, I think this is more of a cultural thing in terms of what they're used to. I'm in South Africa. People here don't hack the way they do in the UK and seeing any racehorses hacking would be highly unusual, even to the gallops. It's not that I don't trust him to pull up, but unfortunately his job is no longer to gallop at full pelt when I'm asking for a calm trot - and the addition of tight corners, dogs, ostriches, pigs, trucks, quadbikes, horses in neighbouring arenas (next to the bridlepath), construction workers etc would also make it quite unsafe. We've been doing walking hacks with bits of trot for about a year now, but he is still edgy to hack - possibly because our hacking routes are so spooky, but partly also just because he doesn't seem to feel secure when hacking.

 

[JustMe22]

On the hacking point, our hacking is pretty poor so it is mainly walk hacking only, so getting her out in a good marching walk is great for her relaxation. Taking her out for a blast with a group of horses is not :lol:.

Another thing I didn't add before is that I've found when they are hot/buzzy/sharp, you need to get your leg on and keep it on as a constant light pressure, otherwise they tend to over-react when you do apply a leg aid and I've also found it seems to give them confidence as you are always there.

Yes, I rode an ISH mare who was exactly like this and needed a constant sort of supporting leg into a good contact otherwise she would just charge off out of a lack of security. Chester is a little different in that he isn't a horse who wants to rush everywhere, so not the traditional "fast" ex-racehorse.

 

[nikkimariet]

You need to be black and white. Your response as the rider needs to be consistent.

Horses don't mind mistakes but when you change the goal posts with no explanation, that's when you get a middle finger or foaming hysteria.

 

[JustMe22]

You need to be black and white. Your response as the rider needs to be consistent.

Horses don't mind mistakes but when you change the goal posts with no explanation, that's when you get a middle finger or foaming hysteria.

Of course, but I think being consistent is the basis for producing almost any horse.

I guess what I'm more interested in is exactly what your standard response to "hot" behaviour would be And how it would differ to that of a horse who is naturally more laid back, for example.