Natural Horsemanship

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vicm2509

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My horse can nap, he seems to have confidence issues when leaving a known teritory or horse. If there are no horses on the yard I can generally walk him off, if there are however I battle and end up going off backwards. I have to sing to him for the whole hack, and even then he may have a big paddy which results in me having to get off (for safety reasons) lead him for a while and get back on. He can also do this at competitions, if I warm up with other horses, especially ones he knows then he panics when I take him away and into the ring and has a massive napping fit. He used to be terrible, bucks and rears but we have come a long way in the last two years and I seem to understand him a lot more now and know when he is going to nap.

He will try and do this inhand aswell if I try leading him off the yard. We have come a long way and I am alsmost sorted but I am running out of ideas.

I would like to try natural horsemanship to get him to trust me more, and try and understand his reasons for doing this. The reason is I want to try everything possible, as if I can not get him sorted out by April time I am sending him to a proffessional to finish off as I have totally run out of ideas. I try leading him out and just taking him somewhere for grass and we are creating a nice bond, its just getting him to have confidence in himself.

I agree and dissagree with many aspects of natural horsemanship, but I am after reccomendations really. I am not wanting to work through all aspects of natural horsemanship, just concentrate on creating a sort of understanding between us and getting him to go where I want him to go, when I want him to go but feeling confident within himself to do this without having to use and agressive methods as using a whip winds him up more and you have no chance of getting him through it.
 
The major issue your horse seems to have, stemming from being nappy, is a reluctance to go forward. You can address this even within the yard by training in hand with a rope and headcollar by walking and halting and teaching the horse that when you step off and say walk on, that he must go forward with you. You can practise this going to the field and back, every time you ride - whenever really. He should move forward with no hesitation.
If necessary get a longer leadrope so that you have enough length to cross it in front of your body and flick it behind you as an encouragement to start with, and then as your horse learns you can stop flicking, and allow yourself to get further and further away from the horse and play out the rope, so that you could be 3-6 feet away, but as soon as you walk off and tell your horse to do so, it will instantly walk with you.

This is the MOST basic training but will stand you in good stead for EVERYTHING you do afterwards, whether it is long reining, riding or even loading.

you can call it natural horsemanship if you like - in reality it is just basic training and every horse should have this
 
I have done this already. He is fine being lead everywhere, he walks beside me and will be lead anywhere, but he will get to a certain point on the yard (right by the last stable before we leave the yard) and he naps. If there are horses tied up before this point he will nap there. He will stop if I stop, and walk if I walk and is generally really well behaved and laid back.

When he does his in hand he tries to go backwards, I immediatly walk backwards with him, staying next to his shoulder and this promts him to stop, then he walks on. If I walk infront of him he is fine but I do not like to do this as I am not teaching him what I want.

I tried long reining and he is again fine, until I reach that point on the yard.

He is a really well behaved horse but he has confidence issues. He loads well, perfect gentleman with great manners, its just I battle to get him off the yard. I take him across the road inhand for some grass so he associates leaving the yard with pleasure. That is helping but I am afraid that soon he will start napping when we reach the grass as I dont take him any further inhand
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I would only disagree on a small point - I expect my horses to follow me so am always slightly ahead of them, in fact they know that if their head comes past my shoulder they will be corrected - causes some challenges in the show ring when I have to ask them to do something completely different I can tell you.

Maybe if you have already done the ground work the next step could be long reining, or going out in company but forcing your horse to take the lead
 
I understand where you are coming from but I have tried almost everything and this is my last hope.

I hack in company, my horse will take the lead at times, and always on the way home. In the summer I did lots of hacking with one other horse, we tried riding side by side with my horse slightly infront, but once he realises hes gets scared and tries to get behind. I know how to deal with the nap, circles, walking backwards etc and I can get him through it. But I want to try and stop him doing it and none of the menthods have worked.

He will follow me anywhere qite happily but I struggle to get him to take the lead as he just doesnt have the confidence.

I am now starting to take him out in the box to get him away from know teritory and deal with his issues without any familiar surrounding so he has to learn to trust me.

We do a lot of groundwork and long reining which is not helping him
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I did have a lady come out to him, she got on and thought he just needed to be put in his place. She tried the whip and he saw red and she said it wasnt the way to go and couldnt help me. She seems to think something has damaged his confidence in the past.
 
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Ultimately, he needs to learn respect for you and that what you say goes.
To me, he sounds like he's just taking the ppppppppppppp big time, sorry.

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This is exactly what I thought at first and can see why you think that. He gets very tense, can sweat up, will hold his head very high and is genuinly very very nervous. If I talk and sing to him it calms him. He can take the p sometimes, as can all horses, but I dont think this is the reason behind it. It is definatly a confidence issue. If I get angry with him it makes it worse, however if I am calm and understanding he is much better.
 
Another fan of Kelly Marks and Richard Maxwell here. I am definately going to incorporate their methods in training my yearling...I personally believe it helps avert these problems later on, just my opinion on it though.
 
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I use a lot of Richard Maxwell's methods and have had him out to two of my horses to give me some advice... he is doing some demos all over the country which you might find interesting. The dates will be going on his website soon: www.richard-maxwell.co.uk

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Thank you, I will definatly look into that.
 
I'm not in general a big fan of NH but your horse sounds like an ideal candidate. I'd do some join up as it looks to me that he needs to learn to look to you for security/instruction when he is stressed. I did some loose schooling with my v independent youngster in the summer in which we played and ran about a bit, with me directing her over poles and things. This on its own was enough to teach her to observe my body language for the slightest signal. I believe this level of interaction was the point at which she started to understand me better and trust me.
 
OK, just try leading with the long rope as I described earlier, you don't have to touch him with it, just flick it towards his quarters to send him forward - at the moment he is dictating what happens, whether that is through being difficult or genuine fear, and he has to realise that when you tell him to do something he must do it, and trust you enough to know that you will not lead him into harm.

If you start with using it in the school or field you can then move on to getting him past those horses - but be determined.

You say you have seen a real improvement in the time you have had him, but that is not clear to me (or possibly not to you) whether the confrontation has reduced because you have merely learned to recognise when he is going to argue and found another way around it, which isn't really a cure.

...and if you don't have him on one now, experiment with some calmers to reduce overall stress - Magic or other magnesium based calmers work in many cases
 
It is a mixture of both really. He is learning that is is wrong and that I can get him past it. He is also a bit more relaxed and does not do it as often as I think he has learnt to trust me a bit more.

He is definatly a follower type of horse, I can see this by observing his behaviour with other horses. If I turn him and another out in the meange for a play, he will always follow the other horse, the same in the field. If they are waiting to come in he will stand at the back rather than the front. And he will go anywhere if a person is walking infront of him.

I will try the long rope menthod and see how we get on.
 
I really like Kelly Marks' approach and think she talks a lot of sense.

I also borrowed a book from the library '101 horsemanship exercises' it has a section at the back covering different problems including napping/planting and suggests which exercises in the book will be most beneficial. I have been following these since George planted himself and I came off - whilst I suspect this was a one off out of character incident doing the exercises has given me confidence that I'm doing something and George and I have been getting on better than ever :-) mind you I need the patience of a saint because it doesn take him a while to catch on!!
 
one little trick i found was to ensure they take the first steps if they plant themselves whislt leading. This is because if you take the first step and ask them to follow they think they are in control of you - the same if you lead with the horse behind you. If you look at a dominent horse in the field they will shimmy the horse along with their head, much the same if they are behind you with you leading them in front. Make sure you lead from the side and ask them to walk on first and plant your own feet until they move. It works...after a little while!!
 
With a horse who lacks confidence it is sometimes tempting to get a bit too "softly, softly". Reassurance and praise is vitally important but often the horse desparately wants leadership from you. Personally I'd try trotting out of the yard determind to keep going, pony club kicking all the way. I know it wouldn't work with all horses but its amazing how many gain confidence from having someone very positive on board.
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I have seen a horseman that has just come back from New Zealand. He gets horses to do what he wants them to do, when he wants. He deals with all sorts of problems. Loading, nervous and nappy. I think he lives in the Milton Keynes area. I will look his number out if you are interested.
 
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