My horse won't go forward from the leg or the whip - what can I do?

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Slk

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I have a 5yo mare, who has had a very slow start in life so far. She is a real sweetie, very good to handle and good to lunge, long rein etc., moves well, but when you get on her back she is reluctant to move in all paces and upward transitions are especially difficult. When you try to use a whip to reinforce your aids it has the opposite effect and she stops and bucks at the halt if you persist.

Her back, teeth and saddle have been checked and are all fine, but she has been growing steadily and has a tendency to stay croup high, so her saddle fit does vary (particularly with this summer's grass!). She is very regularly checked by a saddler, and I have had to change my saddle every 3 months or so over the last year as she has been growing, so there may have been periods that have been less comfortable for her than others over that time. However, her behaviour has been present to a greater or lesser degree throughout that time.

Any advice as to how I can work through this, or anyone with experiences they can share that would help me??
 
Slk said:
When you try to use a whip to reinforce your aids it has the opposite effect and she stops and bucks at the halt if you persist.
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Well im really not surprised - you'd retaliate if someone was hitting you wouldnt you?! Kicking with both legs blocks the swing of the rib cage stopping the horse being able to step under more.

Its most likely you blocking her with your seat and the saddle being tight and uncomfortable.
Suggest you try using your stick on your boot to make a noise.
 
Well if she was mine and going through a growth spurt I would turn her away for 3 months - I have had to do this twice so far with my youngster.
Or do something more 'fun' that will encourage to move forwards - maybe a nice funride....

Just a couple of suggestions but obviously I would not rule out time of year and whether her 'seasons' are making her feel uncomfortable.
 
This may sound like a silly suggestion but what are you feeding her, I had a similar thing with my youngster and she was pretty dead to my leg but ok lunging and long reining, after trying may different things. I spoke to a nutritionalist at Spillers and they we a god send. They changed her diet because she was so full of grass in the summer and not getting enough concentrated food to provided the energy I needed to use.
Just a suggestion, try emailing them and they will give you loads of free advice ( and you dont even have to buy their food)
 
Firstly you need to make sure the saddle currently fits. If moving forwards in the past has caused her pain, she will be remembering forwards= uncomfortable. The fact she's always done it & is only 5 I would also suspect some of it will be rider error so get a good instructor to have a look & see what they can spot that might be contributing. Then once you have dealt with the cause, you need to get her thinking forwards. Take her out hacking with a lively horse to wake her up a bit, fun rides etc, & teach her the correct aids.
 
What breed is she, and are you absolutely sure of her age?

Did you break her in, and how does she respond to another rider - ie your instructor?
 
If the saddle fits it could be that you tense up when you ask her to go forwards. This would block her movement. You could also, if moving a lot to kick, be accidentally moving your hands back and pulling her mouth as you kick. Try pushing your hands forwards as you ask for an upward transition. Apart from that use your voice in a very encouraging tone, not growling at her to move, and praise any forward movement at all, even one half hearted step.

If you need to use the whip use it just behind your leg not on her bum. Horses have to learn what the whip means, they're not born knowing it means move, so her bucking is a natural reaction.

As others have said take her hacking, but don't just ride along, do plenty of transitions. Use voice and physical aids and praise every time she makes a good attempt and particularly when she gets it right. She will learn but it will take time.
 
try leading her with a schooling whip, use your voice and flick of the whip where you would use it if you rode her at the same time. do this a few times and she should soon learn a flick of the whip means go foreward, so if you then use it in the same way as your voice when your on her, she should remember what it means, as someone said, she may just not know why you are hitting her with the whip, hence the bucking????
 
littlelegs said:
Firstly you need to make sure the saddle currently fits. If moving forwards in the past has caused her pain, she will be remembering forwards= uncomfortable. The fact she's always done it & is only 5 I would also suspect some of it will be rider error so get a good instructor to have a look & see what they can spot that might be contributing.
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The saddle was very recently checked and I tried several other saddles with my saddler and she was the same in all of them no matter how good the fit (albeit only tried for 10-15 minutes each). I am going to try a treeless saddle with a decent pad next week to see if that helps (again under advice from my saddler).

I am working with an instructor, sometimes we seem to get somewhere, but sometimes not. I'd never claim to be the best rider in the world, but I'm not a novice, and although I'm not perfect I don't think this is rider error.

I do however wonder whether there have been periods where forwards has = uncomfortable and this is carrying through even when she's not.
 
How are you riding her? If you are trying to ride on the bit/in an outline at this early stage you may be confusing her. If this is the case, try adopting a more relaxed style to get her moving forward. Forget style just think forward, long and loose almost cowboy style. Flap the reins, use your voice, click. Once she's got the hang of forward you can then introduce transitions.

I saw a western trained rider get on a young horse whose owner couldn't get himto move off the spot . She jumped on, flapped the reins ands shouted yee-haa and the horse just cantered off! She explained that concentrating too much on riding correctly was blocking the horse.

Ifyou have already tried this, then please ignore me!
 
how long has she been working? i have a horse that wan't broken until he was 6/7. he really struggled with going forward with someone on him, he could go backwards though!:rolleyes: he was fine longreining and i did consider getting someone to longrein him with me on him but then the thought of those lines and me getting in a tangle put me off that idea! what i did realise is that when i give the voice aid to move on or go up a gear i give a gentle wiggle on the longreins as well, so when i got on him i used voice and a little wiggle down the reins, and damn me but off he went happy as larry!! we started using leg aids with the rein aid and then dropped the rein wiggle completely and he's now pretty good off the leg. he does have a fantastic set of brakes though and we're still working on stopping him from going from canter to dead stop when he feels he's had enough!!;)
 
Kelliejoharry said:
This may sound like a silly suggestion but what are you feeding her, I had a similar thing with my youngster and she was pretty dead to my leg but ok lunging and long reining, after trying may different things. I spoke to a nutritionalist at Spillers and they we a god send. They changed her diet because she was so full of grass in the summer and not getting enough concentrated food to provided the energy I needed to use.
Just a suggestion, try emailing them and they will give you loads of free advice ( and you dont even have to buy their food)
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She is on the GWF diet (alfalfa, equilibra and fibergest) and through the winter was on tiger oats too. I don't think it is feed or energy related, but thanks, and I may email Spillers anyway to see what they say :)
 
Probably way off the mark but you mention summer grass and that you have more problems in upward transitions but no problems long reining, I'm thinking footsore.
 
Ibblebibble said:
how long has she been working? i have a horse that wan't broken until he was 6/7. he really struggled with going forward with someone on him, he could go backwards though!:rolleyes: he was fine longreining and i did consider getting someone to longrein him with me on him but then the thought of those lines and me getting in a tangle put me off that idea! what i did realise is that when i give the voice aid to move on or go up a gear i give a gentle wiggle on the longreins as well, so when i got on him i used voice and a little wiggle down the reins, and damn me but off he went happy as larry!! we started using leg aids with the rein aid and then dropped the rein wiggle completely and he's now pretty good off the leg. he does have a fantastic set of brakes though and we're still working on stopping him from going from canter to dead stop when he feels he's had enough!!;)
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She was broken at about 3.5 yrs, turned away and brought back into work at about 4. All this was with her previous owner. Since I bought her, she has been worked consistently for about 6 months or so through late summer last year and over the winter, but through the early part of this year I have had to cut back what I do for other unrelated reasons and have mainly been working from the ground. I am just starting to bring her back into ridden work again now, so want to make sure I am doing the right things to get through this issue.

I will certainly try the rein thing, I know that I do the same as you when I am long reining, so you never know :)
 
Are you are absolutely sure you aren't blocking her (and not just with your reins- so many people block with their seat and thighs)?

Does she hack at all? It can be very hard to get youngsters enthusiastic about going forward when you are going in a circle.

I am not into Parelli or anything, but a wip *** can really help instead of a whip- particularly with a mare as they are more inclined to tell you to bog off if you hit them!

I used a leadrope with the clip cut off and it worked very, very well on my mare who could be a bit mardy about the leg when she was first under saddle.
 
So you're effectively starting her again. Get a 100% equine companion and get her out hacking. You're going to need to ride her every day - not in the school. And once she's more responsive and forward you can employ the services of a good instructor who has experience with young horses to bring her on.

The horse is simply inexperienced, and failing to understamd what you want, so using a stick is both incorrect and unfair.
 
pixiebee said:
try leading her with a schooling whip, use your voice and flick of the whip where you would use it if you rode her at the same time. do this a few times and she should soon learn a flick of the whip means go foreward, so if you then use it in the same way as your voice when your on her, she should remember what it means, as someone said, she may just not know why you are hitting her with the whip, hence the bucking????
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I have been varying the ground work I do between long reining, "proper" lunging and leading on a long rein with a whip using it as you suggest above and am certainly hoping that this will help. It didn't seem to when I tried the different saddles last week, but I am going to try doing this immediately before I get on next week to see if that helps.

I think there is a mixture of not understanding and also as per one of the other posts above thinking it is going to be uncomfortable where her shape and hence the saddle fit has been varying... but I would like to see what other people think and particularly if someone else has first hand experience of this type of behaviour. I've been lucky enough not to come across this before :)
 
I try not to take offence at some of the comments back, after all I have asked for your help, and you obviously can't tell everything from a short post, but please don't get me wrong... when I say she stops and bucks when I reinforce the leg with the whip, it does not mean I am a novice rider doing pony club kicks and whacking her hard with the whip if she doesn't listen, on her bum or otherwise!!

At no point have I hit her with any force - I try to be a reasonably sympathetic rider (sometimes probably too soft!) and have been riding for a good number of years and have owned and competed horses for a long time. That said, this type of problem is a new one to me.

I am using progressive aids (light squeeze, harder squeeze, short sharp kick) and giving her chance to respond each time. I have tried various options with a whip - shoulder, just behind the leg, on the barrel behind my calf, and have tried a variety of dressage and jump whips to vary the noise or flick.

I actually get a better response when I carry a dressage whip and hold it out at 90 degrees so she can see it out of the corner of her eye rather than using it... but this only works once or twice before she starts to ignore it :)
 
Tammytoo said:
How are you riding her? If you are trying to ride on the bit/in an outline at this early stage you may be confusing her. If this is the case, try adopting a more relaxed style to get her moving forward. Forget style just think forward, long and loose almost cowboy style. Flap the reins, use your voice, click. Once she's got the hang of forward you can then introduce transitions.

I saw a western trained rider get on a young horse whose owner couldn't get himto move off the spot . She jumped on, flapped the reins ands shouted yee-haa and the horse just cantered off! She explained that concentrating too much on riding correctly was blocking the horse.

Ifyou have already tried this, then please ignore me!
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That's an interesting one, thanks :) not too disimilar to the long rein "wiggle" idea in one of the other posts.

I have from time to time and when she is going well, and I (or my instructor) felt she was ready, gathered her up. However, in general, she is ridden on a light elastic contact with no pressure for an outline.
 
I actually get a better response when I carry a dressage whip and hold it out at 90 degrees so she can see it out of the corner of her eye rather than using it... but this only works once or twice before she starts to ignore it
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Try riding with two schooling whips (one in each hand) and rotate your wrists to make them flap up and down. You can do this without pulling on her mouth. The movement should send her forwards (I use this method with my nappy mare who will rear if you push her too hard, but this sends her forwards nicely).

ETA. You don't need to touch the horse at all - it's the movement behind their head that sends then forwards. Obviously try slight movement first as you don't want to worry her.
 
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I have one the same only I know he has been ridden very badly in the past niggles nagged and blocked by the rider.

If I dare use a whip he broncs like stink.

Hacking has been amazing for him he is forward 90% of the time now. I praised big time any forward effort form him. Smacking a whip on my boot rather than him. I kept it low preasure and low stress but once a certain level of forwardness had been establised I then upped the preasure again. I am not schooling at all untill forwadness has been established 99% of the time. Although I am now introducing working into a contact flexing and legyielding whilst hacking.

Hacking making it fun has been the key
 
My mare becomes reluctant to go forwards when in season, we think she has some ovary pain which makes her tight behind the saddle, she feels like she has a handbrake on when you ride her, for want of a better description. Is she like it all the time? Or could it be hormone related? Just an idea?
 
But as the horse is being restarted the whip at this stage has no meaning for them.- other than a punishment to react against - no matter how its employed. You also never use a stick on the shoulder to get a horse to move forward, even more so when backing something.

Aids should be clear, definitive and constant. With a young horse such as yours I would aim to give the aid clearly and firmly. Once the horse is moving off from this aid, you can then look at employing a more subtle aid - not the other way around.
 
Have I dealt with this a few times with horses I bought in .
I dealt with it by not using the whip refusing to work harder than the horse .
If she where mine I would stop going in the school.
I would hack out with a good companion making it fun I would teach her to lead from another horse you will need a friend with you the first few times you go out and about in fact the bigger group the better it is a good way for a youngster to see the world with out the added stress of behind ridden.praise any good behaviour excessively try to ignore the bad as much as possible.
When you have established good forward hacking like this then I would indroduce the whip again I always used two Long schooling whips and rode with them for some time never using them when I wanted to start again I gave one leg aid backed up by the voice if the horse did not go I would use the whip lightly but insistently just behind the leg i would not kick kick with the legs until you get a forward reaction as I started to use the whip my groom would walk quicker or trot off in front of me as soon as the horse goes lots of praise even though they are just following just a thought it worked for me as a system.
 
Thanks everyone for your thoughts, I'm glad to hear this is probably a youngster thing and will certainly try to hack as much as I can. She is a good hack in company, but understandably insecure on her own, nothing nasty, just babyish. Until she is a bit more confident and responsive and can go out on her own we won't be able to hack every day as I am on a yard on my own so need to get someone over to ride my old mare out with us... I've not got anyone who can come every day, but can probably get out a couple of times a week.

If there are any suggestions of what I can do with her on non hacking days to keep her entertained and thinking forward, please fire away :)
 
if she is responsive to the voice on the lunge i would pop a rider on just to sit there and do NOTHING whilst she is lunged so she learns to go forward with a rider on board, when she is happy and confident with this start to introduce rider aids-combine this with hacking out to get her more forward thinking-this is how i have always done it in the past.
however i am currently in the process of backing my 5yr old bitless in the hope that without a bit in the early days whilst she is finding her balance with a rider will mean she ends up more forward thinking and with a softer mouth (due to no unintentional balancing via the reins) when i do introduce a bit
 
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