Ideas for training the traumatised, reactive horse…

[maya2008]

Daughter was exhausted from riding 3 ponies per day so insisted her brother take over today. On he got, one 30min hack with walk, first go at rising trot, steering and stopping. She likes half halts we discovered, and he puts her to sleep so much there was a fair amount of kicking!

 

[maya2008]

New reins - turns out I should have stuck with my gut feeling and got a smaller size first. Soooo scary, despite being the same pattern as the old ones! Folded the ends over and tied them up, then they were smaller so acceptable. They were still long enough for my son to get going though, so he worked on a really long lead rein, getting her listening to him and not me. Took the lead off up the drive so they could go solo - she was hesitant but she did it!

 

[Wishfilly]

Sounds like she is doing amazingly!

 

[maya2008]

Sounds like she is doing amazingly!

Thank you, I was literally bursting with pride yesterday - such a clever, brave girl!

 

[maya2008]

So today I popped my son on, got her moving and off we went. I carried the lead rein all the way round but didn’t actually need it! First off road hack with a rider, including tractors in fields, cows, discussions about which bit of the path was safe and walking through puddles.

 

[maya2008]

I probably won’t update much for a while now - putting miles on a just backed horse is just more of the same after all.

I will say though, that she is rapidly turning into everything I hoped she would be. Hack no.2 off lead today - she was as reliable and responsive as you could ever wish for. Not bad for £100 - she definitely hasn’t cost in the last year what it would cost me now to buy what she has become!

 

[maya2008]

She’s been amazing, little tricky to mount as her coat started shedding in earnest, so I found her a girth sleeve and that apparently did the trick. She hacks out every morning with my son, proving calm and kind, and they are even starting to go first for most of the hack. She’s an absolute angel to tack up too, he has to stand on a block to reach her back and she never moves, then lowers her head for the bridle so he can get that on too.

Then he started to ask for a whip. I said it might be an issue, he said fine, but let’s try. For two days, fine. Then today I had new little pony with me as I handed him the whip. Willow wasn’t paying attention (new mini creature had all her focus) then suddenly there was a blue THING on top of her! Aaaaargh! Rodeo moment. Kid dropped whip but she was lost in her mind and didn’t notice. Eventually he came off, she stopped, we went to get kid back on pony. She said, ‘No, no, no, it might happen again.’ There was a mild discussion, she agreed to try, child got on. She paused, waiting…and found that I was indeed correct, no scary blue thing appeared like magic on her back. After that, we had a lovely long hack where she was an absolute angel going somewhere new, down steep banks, through wide open fields, off roading round fallen trees in the woods, the works.

By the end of that, boy and pony were best friends again. She did sniff my little mare’s nice new fluffy girth sleeve wistfully on the way back to the field though and pointedly looked back at her boy, so he is now obediently mowing the lawn to earn enough money to buy her one !