How do you ride in this situation?

R

rafty

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 March 2012
Messages
152
Visit site
How do you deal with this situation?

Taking my pony for a short walk after working in the arena, we went off down a country lane, that we have gone down many a time before past horses in fields etc. However today we went down and there were 2 young horses in a field, they saw us and came trotting along beside. No problem, my pony stayed calm and chilled and we just carried on. However, we had to come back. By which time the young horses had got very over excited and were galloping up and down along side us, bucking and farting as they do. Obviously my pretty chilled pony got very excited and wanted to play to. Lots of cantering on the spot type thing and trying to take off. We end up doing various things like cantering like a crab etc!!! During this I sat very deep in my saddle, while talking myself and pony through it, ie. keep your hands relaxed and low, do not pull back on reins and sit back and deep and breath.

Obviously these situations do happen and are not out of the ordinary, however, what do you do? Did I ride it correctly or should of let her trot on to get past quicker? Did want to get down and lead her at one point, but saw no possible way I could without her either taking off without me or turning round and squashing me!!
 
Try to treat it as a perfectly normal situation to be encountered when out hacking. It could also be a herd of sheep (clouds on legs) taking off for far side of field, or a herd of young bullocks.

Put her into a steady working trot on the bit on approach to it and keep her in that as you go past.

Or get her leg-yielding from one side of track to the other in walk or trot as you go past it.

Or longrein, sit back and up and long in the saddle and mooch past in walk.

Whatever works for you and her and keeps you both safe.

Aim for her eventual ignoring them completely as being just two daft young horses showing off to her.
 
Thats exactly what I do when my loan mare gets a bit excited or scared! Sit deep and keep relaxed, talking to her until we are ok again. She also wears a neck strap as I have been re-breaking her this year so if in doubt I also tuck a finger round this to make sure I dont move about in the saddle or catch the reins tight by accident. I like to be on the safe side :-)
 
I wouldnt trot, unless your feeling that you would be very much in control of the trot, going faster might give the pony the wrong idea.

I woudl do as you done, sit deep and keep calm. Id push the pony forward into a forward marching walk, make him listen to my leg, using the legs to keep him between me, keeping a nice contact and trying for as much a straight line as possible. Look up at a point to aim towards, and dont look down or at the other ponies, you focus - he is focused :)

Trying to get the pony to focus completely on what im asking him, and not whats going on around.
 
Ask them to do something worthwhile with all that extra energy. What depends on what level the horse works at normally. Anything from shoulder in, to playing with strides, to doing half-pass. And make it interesting enough with plenty of changes to what I'm asking that the horse concentrates on me, not the outside environment. And while I wouldn't recommend racing along in a manic trot, if the horse is too energetic to remain in a calm walk, but too green to make big demands of, I'd rather ask for a nice active working trot myself, with plenty of walk transistions, than have the decision taken out of my hands by the horse speeding up without me asking.
 
In unexpected situations like this I would go with your instinct, which you did and it worked for you.

You can't always remember in the heat of the moment what's been suggested by helpful H&H forumites and friends and every horse is different.

Keep Calm and Carry On!
 
You did right by sounds of it, you have to deal with it as you see fit at the particular time, I have this problem with my Pony, good as gold on our own, but easily influenced into an idiot by others.
 
I think you did the right thing and exactly what i would have done (although i would have been laughing at them a little more) :D

Sit deep, keep calm and carry on ;)
 
Really depends on the horse
I've had 2 that I would make walk. One I would also do some walk halt transitions
But one that I would have no choice but put in an active working trot and hope it was over soon. All have brought on by myself so had the same training. Just different characters
 
It depends entirely on what I am riding, where I am riding and how well I know them - if I am going to be run off with, planted, launched into orbit or just do some harmless ballet.

Some need the reassuring approach, others need distracting, others I just laugh, kick on and tell them to stop being such a bloody arse ;)

On the whole I would ride as I always do, just sit there, call them names and carry on.
 
It would depend on how busy the road was for me, round her -it would probably be the one time i would feel safer off the horse rather than on it, and would have got off and walked as best i could sort of in the middle of the road - no one round here would stop for a horse and rider having problems - but would stop for someone on the ground - they dont seam to think a horse is not made of metal !
 
rafty said:
Did I ride it correctly or should of let her trot on to get past quicker?
Click to expand...

Yes, to both.

You rode it correctly because you decided on a course of action, saw it through and got home safely.

Depending on circumstances, very often I'd push into an active, workmanlike trot before reaching the excitement for two reasons; a) it enables an excited horse to put its energy into something purposeful and is less frustrating than being held in walk.
b), by giving the horse direction, it's focus is returned away from the outside influence and back on you., so less likely to make it's own decision about joining in with the high jinks.

Often horses respond better to challenging situations by being asked to move briskly forwards rather than being held back in walk, as long as the rider rides with positivity.
That said, what you did was fine as you didn't become a passenger but rode with a plan which then transferred to your horse. Good for you.
 
Same kind of thing happened to me yesterday except we were on the road and with two others both of who didn't bat an eyelid :rolleyes:

I was infront and horses came galloping up behind a hedge on other side of the road, pony shot forwards then jumped in the air, spun and cantered sideways down the grass verge nearly taking my friend with us.

I just pulled him up, turned him back round and got him to walk on but along the verge so we weren't as near and a bit safer if he did it again. Giving him lots of praise as we went past as horses were still running about. He did try again but I managed to keep him going, he did jog a bit but there was no way he would walk so as long as he wasn't trying to run off I was happy.

Think keeping calm and riding forwards is the best thing to do and give them lots of praise when they do what you want.
 
Enfys said:
It depends entirely on what I am riding, where I am riding and how well I know them - if I am going to be run off with, planted, launched into orbit or just do some harmless ballet.

Some need the reassuring approach, others need distracting, others I just laugh, kick on and tell them to stop being such a bloody arse ;)

On the whole I would ride as I always do, just sit there, call them names and carry on.
Click to expand...

I should have put this, its covers all eventualities. Plus, I think I follow the same school of equestrianism that you do.:D
 
Enfys said:
It depends entirely on what I am riding, where I am riding and how well I know them - if I am going to be run off with, planted, launched into orbit or just do some harmless ballet.

Some need the reassuring approach, others need distracting, others I just laugh, kick on and tell them to stop being such a bloody arse ;)

On the whole I would ride as I always do, just sit there, call them names and carry on.
Click to expand...

Agree with this.

We're talking my horse here, who will do a similar canter in place, sideways, hoppy thing when she gets wound up. The best thing to do is push her forward into trot before the hoppy things start. It might end up as a passage, but hey, it's the only time I can get her to do one. If the hoppy things start, I would do exactly as the OP did and quietly ride it out. At this point, trying to get the horse down to a walk will result in larger hops getting into the realm of airs above the ground. And I swear a lot at her, which is by far the most important bit. :D
 
Enfys said:
It depends entirely on what I am riding, where I am riding and how well I know them - if I am going to be run off with, planted, launched into orbit or just do some harmless ballet.

Some need the reassuring approach, others need distracting, others I just laugh, kick on and tell them to stop being such a bloody arse ;)

On the whole I would ride as I always do, just sit there, call them names and carry on.
Click to expand...

You took the words right out of my mouth!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top