I have a dilemma.........opinions please.

Enfys

Enfys

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Here we go, bear with me please.

Recently I bought a pony for my 11 year old daughter (who has hunted, done all PC activities, jumping 3', in the SJ and Dressage Teams etc very happily) and she seems to have lost her nerve. She hasn't had a fall or even a fright just isn't happy riding this pony. 13.2 Welsh/arab, the worst he does is a tiny bunny hop in nappiness, he doesn't even run away, he's a character, but safe.

So, my instant reaction was: If you aren't happy on him we'll find him a new home and look for another one for you, no big deal, which seems reasonable to me.

Her reaction was: Floods of tears, "You can't, I love him! and I'll try not to be scared"

Oh flaming heck
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..........so what do I do people? He's a good pony, just a bit too sharp for her, she is happy up on a 15.1 QH but doesn't love Robin the way she does Coops.

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Difficult one (have been there!). Firstly, how recently is recently? If this pony is really quite new, perhaps your daughter has expected to do too much too soon with him? If she does love him then give it more time and she may well get more confident on him and he will settle with her. It would obviously break her heart to sell him at the moment, so its best to stick with it IMHO.
 
I think a lot will depend on your daughter's personality. My son lost his nerve on a sharp 11.2 after falling off and breaking his hand.

I wavered between 2 theories - one that she was a good pony and he ought to overcome his fear (hard mother) and the second that it would be kinder to find a pony he was confident on because riding is supposed to be fun.

He never enjoyed riding her again, but like your daughter, was distraught at the idea of her returning to her owners (loan pony). Our situation resolved itself finally when her owners moved across the country and took her with them. He's now lost interest in riding completely.

To sum up, I think in the same situation again, I'd have moved the pony on and found him a more suitable partnership. He might then have kept his interest in riding.

Good luck.
 
In the short term, I would stick with him, maybe get your daughter some lessons to try and build her confidence. If things don't improve in next 6 months say (partnership sometime take a while to develope), discuss the options further with your daughter.
 
Really depends how recent is recent.

I'd try to make sure that pony has been worked before she rides him and that they do pretty much the same routine so that she and the pony are not put in a position where there may be an argument so that she builds up her confidence - take her back several stages so that she's confident again.

As a further though does she work him from the ground - and if not can you get her to work him from the ground, perhaps she could lunge him before she rides? Then he will be more confident of her voice commands and she may be more confident that if she tells him firmly to walk on that he will do it without napping?

And yet another thought (you can see this is worrying me because I'd be so unhappy for my own daughter and indeed didn't make her persevere with a very similar pony which has now got an absolutely perfect home) have you asked her what it is that's frightening her and then put it to her "well what would you do if (whatever her previous pony was called) did that to you? What do you think might happen?" If she can tell you exactly what behaviour/behaviours it is that is scaring her then you can work out coping strategies for her (singing's always a good one, not just to relax her but to alert you that she may be feeling scared wihtout her having to come out and say it) and schooling methods for the pony so that the behaviour doesn't happen. You can put it to her that he's scared too so you need to find a way of building both their confidence - that they are learning together.

Best wishes
 
I go along with all of those too but do you think it would help (or hinder) if she was to see the pony ridden, possibly by someone near her in age, and having fun together so that she would know that it can do what she wants to do, if that makes sense. I know it helped me a lot to see someone on the horse I was meant to ride when I lost my nerve after umpteen years of riding anything! I knew I was able enough, I was just having scaredy cat moments and perhaps that's how she feels too.
Good luck, a difficult decision unless you can afford to keep that one while finding another 'old hand' for her in the hope she'll come through this.
 
Does she still have the old pony, maybe she could ride both o them for a while, giving her a chance to build a bond with the new guy.
Same thing happened to me with my stepdaughter, in the end I took the pony, she rode my horse (quite happily) and we sold the pony on after I had schooled and competed her to Pre Novice BE. Funnily enough the kid who bought clicked with her instantly and they have so much fun together.
 
If the new pony is quite a recent edition try giving it a bit of time. My daughter clicked with her first pony instantly, however it took about 9 months before she got to grips with her current girl. Try getting your daughter to go back a step, perhaps smaller jumps, steady hacks etc until she feels confident (and bored to tears).

If you discuss this and agree a time period of say 4 months, mabe it will help your daughter to cope with letting go if she finds she doesn't get on with him.

Good luck
 
As a non mother, I dont really know what I would do if it was my child, but having 12 nephews and nieces, I have a clue about the mentality of those smaller than us...

Kids bounce back really quickly. If you do decide to sell the old pony will be a fond memory as soon as you find a new one...kids are fickle. Her confidence is more important - its a hard thing to gain but such as easy thing to loose!
 
well being half a child myself(14, its close enough!) , we don't really like change. yoor daughter is probably trying to adapt to her new pony and how different he may be to her previous companion. i just bought a new horse and i found it virtually impossible to love her like i did my last one. a month on and we've bonded and shes a pain but we're getting there. give yoor daughter some time with her new pony, lots of extra grooming, perhaps a few lessons but only as far as she feels happy and content with him. Often achieving harmony from the ground will help her to feel much better when she is upon him. he may not be a nappy pony but to her, he may feel totally unsafe compared to wot shes used to. her reaction when yoo suggested selling him obviously implies that the basic foundations of a good horse-rider bond are in the making, and with time i'm sure they'll be soaring round PC courses like they were made for each other
jus give her and him some time and lots of help where required
best of luck
x
 
Thankyou everyone for your replies, Gabby especially, for your point of view, I think you really made sense. That's why I like this place so much, people actually consider the problem and each and every reply has merit.

I sneaked this photo of them today.

RobinCooper10dec06045.jpg


Perhaps I should have explained a little more background.

We emigrated 3 months ago from the UK, and have only been on the farm since the beginning of November, my daughter (I left the decision to her) decided to sell her fabulous (very chunky) New Forest gelding rather than ship him out here.I was stunned at that, but she was adamant he didn't come. He was a total dream and as close to perfect as a parent could want. So, now she has chosen a much narrower pony who is also very good but, how can I put this? He responds to everything she asks without the 2 second delay that Finn had. Also, horses are trained differently here, in the UK we are taught to take a contact(and she has had some pretty heavy duty Dressage instruction) here horses all go, whether English or Western, with minimal contact, and Cooper resents the sort of contact that Evie has been taught to ride with. She has very good hands, but even they are too much for Canadian ponies. So yes, it's a question of getting used to talking a different language as it were, I get on fine with him as I am a sloppy rider who holds the rein at the buckle with one hand and does everything with my legs and weight. I have given her a neck strap again and this does seem to be helping.

We are just going to give it as much time as she wants, it's not always ideal riding weather here, pretty mild this year I'm told, but quite often with a FREEZING wind which is not rider-friendly, so we don't ride religiously. Nothing happens until Spring with the Pony Clubs or 4H here and the nearest English Instructor I have found is an hours drive down the Highway. If she wants to keep him then we'll go from there, fortunately they are all at home so I'm not paying board.

Evie has had a fairly dramatic few months, we sold 4 horses, re-homed countless animals, and moved from a village she'd spent all her life in to come out here, so all these changes may be pretty small ones for us, but huge for her.

Apologies for the lengthy reply.
 
Great picture. Sounds like you've all had an eventful time lately so I guess a settling down period will help.

Look forward to hearing how you're getting on.
 
Yes that's a good idea Thanks, we had thought about that, it's next on the (very long) list. The one I have now is way too long for him, he is a typical example of a welsh/arab and very short backed. I've changed his bit too, he was in a single jointed snaffle and the difference a french link made was incredible, his teeth were done too and they were awful so that explains the uber sensitive mouth in a way.
 
This is a problem. I had the same thing with my daughter, although it wasn't such a big deal for us as we brought her pony with us to Canada. However Meg rides all the horses here and at one point in time I had to ban her from riding my personal horses as I was not happy with the contact she was taking with them.....that's not how I want them ridden. BUT with some of the other horses she was riding, she eventually learned to loosen her rein and then slowly she started to teach them about contact. All these ones are perfectly happy now being ridden English and western, so they will now happily go on either discipline.

Perhaps you could have Evie ride without reins for a bit? This would help her to stop relying on rein pressure and then if she slowly takes up a bit more every few days the pony would eventually become acclimatised to it?
 
I'm KNACKERED!

Evie wanted to ride, I didn't (stupid of me
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) so she rode, I walked, tomorrow I'm riding. I haven't done this with her since she was about 6. We walked about 2 miles down the road, cut through the forest, battled through an overgrown track (Tia will testify that Canadian brambles are EVILness personified, my legs are like pincushions) and came out more by luck than judgement onto one of our tracks. Cooper was brilliant,didn't come out of a walk. Evie was laughing herself stupid at me fighting the brambles and we thoroughly enjoyed our couple of hours out in the sun.

Pony is now back to being a little swine as I turned him out and he decided he wanted to be with the others and not his field mate so went straight through a 4 strand, 5' high live electric cattle fence!
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