How to give my nappy mare more confidence?

[JulesRules]

Hi All,

Any advice or tips on getting my mare to stop being so nappy would really be appriciated.

She is 8 years old, but still very green as before coming to me she was only lightly hacked and spent most of her time in the field being a horse. I have had her for a year, so I guess it's still relatively early days and although I feel that we have bonded well I feel that she still doesn't trust me to take care of her when we are out.

She is fine in the school, and loves hacking out with her friends and will walk confidently ahead if there are others following but as soon as they stop she will stop and refuse to budge until they do. If I take her out alone she will go so far and then stop or walk backwards once she starts to feel nervous. If I do get her to walk on she gets very spooky which she is not normally at all. We are really lucky to have lots of fields to ride in at my yard so she is on familiar ground

Sometimes if we are just working in the field nearby the yard she will be working really nicely, and then someone leads their horse in from the field and she immediatley looses concentration and wants to go with the horse going past and starts trying to follow which can involve spinning or just bending in totally the wrong direction. I try really hard not to let it bother me but I have nearly come off a few times so I'm sure I must start to transmit nerves when she does this. She also does a good line in walking backwards and planting her feet and digging her heels in.

She recently went out and did her first walk and trot test and although she managed to come second with mostly 6s and 7s she also got a couple of 4s for napping. Yesterday we went to a local show and did ridden showing for the first time. She was an angel all through the walking, trotting and cantering part but as soon as we had to do an individual ridden show she just bent towards all the other horses, dug her heels in and refused to move (they all backed away as they thought she was going to kick them) . I did manage to show a bit of walk and trot on both reins and a bit of canter on one rein, but needless to say we came last. I'm not bothered about coming last as after all she is still very green when it comes to going out (she has only been to shows about 5 times so I don't expect too much of her) and I have all the time in the world as I plan to keep her for the rest of her life (when she is in her 20's I'll be in my fifties so we can grow old gracefully together)

I would just like some advice and ideas from people who have had experience of this so I can do something positive towards helping her to get better. Incidentially I'm sure it's just that she is nervous without other horses around as this is the only time that she does it, although she can be a little lazy so sometimes I wonder if she is just trying it on


Thanks muchly

Jules

 

[paddi22]

Have you done much groundwork with her? I got a nh guy up to work with my nappy lad and he was brilliant. Things like long lining really helped.

 

[JulesRules]

Some, but I could definitley do more....something to keep me busy on the long winter nights I suppose

 

[horsemadelsie]

Our horse used to be nappy on his own. You have to be the confident one to give them confidence- he still won't hack alone with my mum up because she isn't confident when he tenses up. I don't have many other horses to hack out with, so mum used to walk and I used to ride, and I would start to do little bits of the hack on my own, at first it involved severe backing up and a little threat to rear, but quickly he learned to walk forwards, and that mum would be waiting at the end, now he will stride out quite fast when we hack alone, to get back to the others as quickly as possible, but as he is reasonably well schooled he won't go faster than I let him!
Just do it in little stages that you know your horse can do and build on it. And have confidence!