Need serious colt handling tips

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Rebels

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Will call horse G for ease. G is a 2 yr old racehorse, stunning colt, out of the box your granny could gallop him and he is a lovely lad.
Inside the box he is the biggest *%*# ever! He won't move from the door, bites over the door, eats his head collar. Once you get past him and have the head collar on he doesn't want to be tied up, will flick a leg when you muck out and squashes you against the wall when being groomed (dangerously so) whilst trying to bite whenever you get near.
So my question is how to handle and improve this horse. I have a head collar and a length of plastic covered chain. Plus a piece of wood which is what most people arm themselves with to go in with him.
I have taught him to walk forwards on command in return for an itch which has stopped him pulling back all of the time. Asking him to go back generally makes him strike out but we did get a step back today.
I have 10 minutes a day with this horse, I have been refused permission to do more. It must be quiet and easy to do, non violent preferably.
He nearly took someone's face off yesterday with a truly evil lunge over the door and she quite rightly wrapped the head collar over his nose, if he had contacted it would have been hospital and plastic surgery. However he does not seem nasty, can be very affectionate, more ignorant rude colt.
Any ideas?
 
Personally if he were mine I would be having him gelded asap. This usually has the effect of calming them down. Unless of course you have plans for the offending appendages.
 
get bars put up on his stable, and try and suggest limited people handle him.. then talk to them all and ensure your all working the same way.

hitting colts wont always work, they see it as play and if its a rh then its properly box mad and hyperactive.

if your entering the box cross tie it. and ignore it. when you go to remove head collar etc dont give praise. exact time colt will try and nip ... same as when putting a headcollar on..

oh and try and wear un fragrance deodorants etc ..
 
He only comes out for exercise, he doesn't turn out. Hr behaves once out of the stable. Complete sod to tack up but once a jockey is on board he is fine. I don't want to debate the life style of a racehorse, its not great, gelding and turnout is the real cure, I'd just like to be a bit safer in with him. I'm tasked to him more as I don't whack him for biting.
 
A firm hand then is the only cure, without violence. No is no and mean it.

Put the lead through the ring and do tie but hold the end so he gets used to the fact it is being held in one place, then after a few days make it smaller until you can hang it, drop it, and he doesnt move from it, then start tying up.

I work on a racing yard so i know here you are coming from.
 
I found the opposite. I got on with the nasty ones, its hot air and they can be nasty cos the lads can be rough with them and they get defensive. Friendly scratch when there attempting to kick you out the door can bring surprising results. Not sure if that was more though that they would be that shocked that they were scared I was crazy. Same when they are trying to eat you alive... go into a major scratching withers session(while holding head collar with other hand so your not eaten)It does work if the timing is there, its takes a mean horse to keep the attitude when you know his itchy spot lol I think ulcers is a big cause of aggression in racehorses too....
 
Mia&Vin said:
I found the opposite. I got on with the nasty ones, its hot air and they can be nasty cos the lads can be rough with them and they get defensive. Friendly scratch when there attempting to kick you out the door can bring surprising results. Not sure if that was more though that they would be that shocked that they were scared I was crazy. Same when they are trying to eat you alive... go into a major scratching withers session(while holding head collar with other hand so your not eaten)It does work if the timing is there, its takes a mean horse to keep the attitude when you know his itchy spot lol I think ulcers is a big cause of aggression in racehorses too....
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Very interesting. I've had similar thoughts from a girl who worked here for a while and had worked in racing. She seemed to have a way with the difficult ones by applying this reverse psychology.

My own approach would be to take a short stick with me with a blunt point on the end. If the horse lunged to bite or crowd, to offer this so any unpleasantness is self inflicted. Smacking/hitting is definitely a no-no here as it tends to make an animal nervous/hand shy, even encourage aggression, though I am in no way a softee either.
 
Firm where firm is needed, reward e.g. Where reward is needed, so a firm no to biting when horse stops then a nice scratch as a reward, not hard really. I totally disagree with the kicking it in the belly, jerking it in the mouth and threatening it with an object to cause fear, sadly this happens too frequently.
 
Thanks, I will see where we get tomorrow. He does a fairly good rock impression as in blanks you, won't move or react but keeps trying to grab you/head collar/door and I reckon I could do the hokey kokey before he twigged he needed to stop! The lads are decent and I was impressed when one was sacked for roughing up the horses (some places would be empty if they all did this) but this horse is really disliked unless out of the box when I think I could jump on a dressage test, he is that laid back!
 
poor chap! Good for you Rebels for trying to make his life a bit better. It will be very difficult in the circumstances but I think your itching technique is really sensible. I had a lot easier conditions but when my (former!) colt (ie he is now gelded) kept biting me I resorted to protective clothing so that I could ignore it. (I made myself some arm protectors out of a wiry door mat!!).
 
It sounds like he is attacking before he gets attacked . He's scared and fighting his corner . I've had them out of training like this and I ignore them . I never look directly at them , go about my business in the box but am always aware where they are and watch for the attack ( which sometimes come super , super quick ) but don't lash out . Set firm boundaries , calmly and consistently and remember to breath ! I can't tell you the amount of people I have seen trying to deal with a horse like this while they themselves are hyperventilating , it doesn't help . One of the things I don't like about racing , this macho beat crap out of something to make themselves look better . It's much better than it was but could still do with improving .
 
I was discussing colts with a fellow breeder today. I mentioned how much better behaved this year's colts were -- no nipping, no ears back, no presenting a backside. I put this down to them being kept in the same field as our stallion who stood for no nonsense and had no hesitation in putting them in their place!:D
 
I used to work with a TB stallion who stood at stud. He was a complete @*se to 99% of humans, especially if they were male. You had to develop a finely timed lunge to get a headcollar on him before he attacked.. and I don't use the word 'attack' lightly, he meant it.

The day came when my boss refused to let me go in his stable unless I took a weapon for self-defence so I sadly armed myself with a length of blue pipe, went in timed the headcollar game well and tied him up, proppped the pipe against the wall and turned to get grooming kit. When I turned back he had the pipe in his mouth and was chewing it. From that day on he was given the pipe to chew as soon as he was caught and, believe it or not, he was a different horse. Not saying for one minute it would work with this colt, but as a distraction therapy for Stan it was far preferable to dealing with his teeth, feet and rearing onto me!

I do think the OPs colt is using aggression as a defence and has possibly had something very bad happen whilst stabled. Shame she can't be give more time to help him work it out as she obviously has the empathy to work with this colt.
 
Rebels said:
Will call horse G for ease. G is a 2 yr old racehorse, stunning colt, out of the box your granny could gallop him and he is a lovely lad.
Inside the box he is the biggest *%*# ever! He won't move from the door, bites over the door, eats his head collar. Once you get past him and have the head collar on he doesn't want to be tied up, will flick a leg when you muck out and squashes you against the wall when being groomed (dangerously so) whilst trying to bite whenever you get near.
So my question is how to handle and improve this horse. I have a head collar and a length of plastic covered chain. Plus a piece of wood which is what most people arm themselves with to go in with him.
I have taught him to walk forwards on command in return for an itch which has stopped him pulling back all of the time. Asking him to go back generally makes him strike out but we did get a step back today.
I have 10 minutes a day with this horse, I have been refused permission to do more. It must be quiet and easy to do, non violent preferably.
He nearly took someone's face off yesterday with a truly evil lunge over the door and she quite rightly wrapped the head collar over his nose, if he had contacted it would have been hospital and plastic surgery. However he does not seem nasty, can be very affectionate, more ignorant rude colt.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...


The answer is to work on yourself.

G is still only 2 so won't be 'studly' yet. Someone mentioned gelding him. He is perfectly workable at the moment and even if you gelded him, this behaviour would almost probably be the same at this current time with his berries or without.

Work on your understanding of pressure and release and this will be fixable.

I'm also guessing people flinch from him when he bites which just reinforces his 'bad' behaviour. You need to choose wisely other people who interact with him, as you could be making progress and others will be undoing it.

Horses aren't 'bad' 'mean' or 'rude' - it's the handler's that create it through their own faults.
Good luck.
 
The colt does not sound out of the ordinary for a colt kept in such conditions tbh. He's a young boy who needs to be out and doing things; playing, running etc. Were he to be kept outside having fun you would see oodles of improvement. You don't have that luxury with him unfortunately. It's very difficult to advise concisely with situations like this as it's always far easier when you are actually in the situation and can try to alleviate the "suffering" to put it bluntly. The horse is living an unnatural life however this is his life and we have to think of ways to make it a better life for him. Personally I'm not a threatening person, nor an aggressive person and although yes I do expect horses to sing to the same song sheet as me, it's difficult when you have a horse that you don't have free rein with. In your crappy situation, I would always always aim for killing him with kindness (this is not my usual stance as I always have other tools at my disposal ie turnout, exercise, other horses as my allies etc). I think any possible threatening move to a horse cooped up like this, would definitely been seen by him as a major problem. It's mega unfortunate that you can only spend 10 minutes daily with him as I have encountered a horse kept in similar circumstances who I did make massive headway with but I had to spend half an hour with her daily to make this headway. Is there any way you could take some of your personal time to handle him? I realise you may not be paid for it but would it be worth doing for the sake of the horse? The filly I use as my example above was cooped up all day, every day, apart from her hour exercise per day. She had a grill on her stable door as she dislocated someones arm; their crime, they walked past her stable to collect a bale of hay! What I did was spend time in her stable. Groom her, chatter away to her; absolutely NO edible treats, but loads of physical treats. To this day, I'm not convinced the physical scratching, itching etc was the way I got to her heart, I do believe it was the chattering away about rubbish that really got her to finally cave in. Honestly she was a ghastly horse who no-one had any time for. She lived in a stable with a grill on the front of it so couldn't see a whole lot of anything and certainly couldn't interact with anyone. I eventually took the grill down and got her to a stage that pretty much anyone could walk past without her lunging at them. Long story short, I ended up buying her and I totally changed the way she lived, and boy did she blossom after that :)
 
Spring Feather, I've asked to work with the horse in my own time, I asked if I could do 20 minutes a day before evening stables as he has little concept of pressure and release and I feel that would make him a lot more manoeuvrable but I was told no and that he would grow out of it which in time he will. Its just that within the period he will end up getting beaten up for his behaviour. I'm going to try a few ideas tonight, I don't know why I'm drawn to him, possibly as he is by the same sire as my stroppy yearling and they are very similar.
Ladyinred - I got in trouble the other day for letting him chew the stick they keep to threaten him with! That and putting hay in his feeder to distract him. apparently its spoiling him so I've resolved to be more subtle about it.
 
I knew of a rh colt like this who would lunge over the door so much you couldn't even open the bolts! we used to use water to get him to back off, just putting your fingers in water then flicking it towards him made him back away from the door so you could safely enter. If he went to bite or strike once you were in with him, we would flick water again and he would stand quietly! still had to watch him as the correction didn't last long but made handling him much easier. It got to the point where you could just flick your fingers in his direction and he would behave :)
 
I feel sorry for him.
He sounds very frustrated.
IMO it's totally unacceptable for horses to have no turn out. Having worked on racing yards where the horses have at least 3 hours in the paddock each day, I know it is possible.
It's no wonder this poor horse is p1ssed off with his life.

Good for you OP for trying to help him, but IMO without a bit of free time and liberty for the poor sod he's going to carry on being like this.
 
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