Please explain to me about rigs.... or what is going on here!

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LegOn

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So my horse is 21, he was in a riding school all his life & never got turnout. I have him 7 years & I wanted him to have turnout, for the first 6 years we were at a yard where there was only summer turnout, so in winter there was only sand arena turnout for about 1/2 hours a day.

He has always been a very anti-social horse, with other horses, probably due to the fact he spent most of his life stabled & not socialised. He kicks and bites and chases other horses when he has no grass left, otherwise its head down & eating & he wants to be left alone. He doesnt mind having horses to talk to over a fence - and I have seen him groom & be groomed by others but very much on his terms. He has always been in his own little paddock. Worse part about him, always has been - he is impossible to catch when he decides he doesnt want to come in. And it has no pattern either - and seemingly no reason for coming in like a good boy or being a **** & running through you & everything around to get in.

I heard rumours from his life in a riding school that he would have been beaten & chased alot to be caught, so he probably has a phobia of it & then they just stabled him full time to avoid having to catch him. Some days he really wants to come in but he actually doesnt want you to catch him.

I moved yards around this time last year & he was on grass turnout during the day. He started off on his own but then seemed to buddy up with another gelding, who was then put out with him & they got on great - delighted! 4/5 months went past with no incidents apart from his usual difficulty to catch but it was on/off, again as usual. Then as soon as the grass started to go around Oct/Nov time, he got VERY aggressive with this other gelding. Very stallion like behaviour - going for his sheath & the crest of his neck so obviously they were separated.

The yard has been very accommodating with his winter turnout & built him a separate area on hardcore with some scrubby grass which suited him perfect cause his legs werent coping well with muddy field conditions but the winter has been a nightmare of him breaking out of his area but this time into a field with mares - he has turned very riggish & even mounted one of the mares over the fence when he couldnt get into her. He has been destroying fences, wooden & electrical to get to them & then prancing & screaming like a stallion & then obviously - not being caught which is a nightmare! I had never once heard my horse squeel before I moved to his yard - he was like a love struck teenager!!

This is very new behaviour for him - nothing else has really changed about his behaviour, he is a still a gent in the stable & to handle/clip/shoe/load as he always has been. He still has a very active ridden life & no one every guesses his age - we compete RC, 90cm SJ, XC & a bit of low level dressage. I regularly get lessons & go on fun outtings as we have always done. In fact since I moved to the new yard last year he feels like he has totally come into his prime! He is shining out of his skin & generally in great form. The yard is much quieter & more professional in terms of their business is adult liveries only & competition horses rather than alot of kids in my last yard so he seems much more relaxed in himself aswell - actually seen him lying down in his stable for the first time EVER!

So everything is wonderful with him & pointing toward a very happy & content horse apart from his new riggy behaviour and the problem is now the yard are nervous of what to do with him for summer turnout because of his bad behaviour over the winter, they dont want him out with other horse - totally agree aswell, I dont want him or another horse injured.

Whats odd is that the rig behaviour STARTED in the winter... surely if he was a true rig, it would have started in the summer when the mares were in season?? I'm not sure if its the change in his life in terms of the feel of yard & also that he got alot more turnout his winter, which he wouldnt be used to, but I'm nervous myself of what he will be like now this summer.

They are happy to re-enforce his winter turnout area & let him out there for the summer but then it means he doesnt have access to much/any grass for the summer which would break my heart :( They have said he can stay out at night instead of being out during the day when there wouldnt be other horses around which is an option but the first time I tried to leave him out at night (many years ago in fairness) he jumped a 6 bar gate from standing to come in & got very stressed about being left out.

So can anyone shed any light on his new behaviour & is there anything I can do about it? Should I try him on a supplement maybe, do they only work for confirmed rigs? I'm anxious to do anything that might change his ridden behaviour aswell - cause he is going better than he ever has done!! Or should I just wait & see what happens? Am just not sure what to do to help him and the situation. The yard are very approachable & we have been discussing options but I do appreciate they have a whole yard of horses to consider where as I'm only thinking of my own horse!!

Seriously well done to anyone who has gotten this far!!!
 
I was thinking that... do you think the behaviour says rig?? Or is it a bit weird that it started in winter?
 
my horse would be about 21 when we moved to what I hope is his forever home. He displayed most of the 'riggish' behaviour you describe. Previous to this I had to keep him on his own. Luckily for us both a neighbouring farmer with a field full of Clydesdales took pity on him and suggested putting him out with his horses. We have never looked back. He tried it on for a while and , he bit a couple of them, nothing serious but they all seemed to send him to Coventry, although he could dominate them he couldn t socialise with them. Over a period of time he calmed down, for a while trying to mount a mare but eventually he learnt from them how to behave. Three years on he is out 24/7 with his mates with absolutely no problems. He is a different horse. The mare he had the fling with was top dog and she did nt take his crap.My horse adored her.shes moved on now leaving mine as the top dog....but he handles the role without bullying. Its been a god send because its awfull owning a horse with no social skills in the field.
 
Thats really interesting luckyoldme... thanks for telling me your story! There is hope :) Your set up sounds lovely!

That makes me wonder if he displaying the behaviour of a horse who doesnt know how to socialise more than a rig? He doesnt just know the rules cause he has never been out with other horses or spent time in a group where he learned how to live & let live... only child syndrome maybe ;)
 
I really don't know my horses history, I bought him off a very dodgy dealer!!! I have come to the conclusion that my horse was an only horse! It took about six months before I did nt feel a knot in my stomachwhen I went to see him wondering what chaos he had caused while I was away. I was lucky to meet the right person at the right time....but for me a well established herd with a dominant mare and an owner who turned a blind eye to the mounting were the answer. He does nt mount now , maybe at 24/25 he is past it!
 
What you describe sounds far more like resource guarding than riggish behaviour. Horses exhibit dominant behaviour over resources. If the resources that matter to them (sexual partners in ungelded horses and mares, but food, water, equine company, freedom to move about and personal space in all horses) are not plentiful, you see the horse acting to acquire or defend the resource that's scarce or that they've learned can be scarce. If a horse never experiences scarcity, they tend not to exhibit the behaviour.

Your horse has come from an environment where, for most of his life, personal space, freedom to move about and equine company were not available to him (stabled). In addition, depending on how good his owners were, he may or may not have experienced running out of forage.

What you describe is a horse who is very motivated to seek out equine company, and who will act to make sure it is available to him, but who has a conflict when situations arise that food is scarce. So for him, there's a scale of importance - when forage is plentiful, he seeks out company. When it's not, he tries to defend access to food. Geldings will also defend mares if they've never had access to them - they are still male horses, with a full range of male instincts and behaviours which are related to brain development and are independent of testosterone (which, in the end, only really drives mating behaviour).

In addition, horses who have experienced lack of forage, in particular in situations where they are already experiencing chronic stress (i.e. stabled all the time with no turnout and no access to equine company), tend to be prime candidates in terms of the development of gastric ulceration. If this is the case, pain decreases the horse's threshold for reacting to potential threats, so may make the horse more volatile.

It sounds very likely that this particular horse would respond well to turnout in a quiet, stable group in a large area, with access to good grazing and hay provided adlib in times when the grass is less good. However, before doing this, it would probably be worth teaching him that being haltered is a good thing. This is quite easy to do (possibly google Connection Training's video "I can't catch my horse" - you teach the horse (initially inside and then outside) to touch and then put their own nose into a headcollar for a reward. At the end of the process, you should be able to stand at the gate of the field, hold out the headcollar and the horse will come over - all you've done is shown the horse first a thing they can do to earn a reward and second shown them that headcollars, rather than predicting unpleasant things, actually predict good things happening.
 
Wow thank you brightbay - that is an amazing insight and makes so so much sense considering my horses history known & possibly unknown.

I need a bit of time to digest it all and I'm going to read over it again a few times. My initial thought kinda makes me a bit sad cause I'm not sure I provide what he would need in order to attempt to remedy the situation...however I need some more time to think it over. And of course, my yard have other horses and clients horses to think about so obviously their highest priority is to keep all the horses safe and they cannot trust him now :(

Have you written a blog on this subject or any links to any more articles I could read on it??
 
my horse is only hard to catch in the summer! Im a fair weather happy hacker and if he thinks he has to work he is reluctant to be caught. All winter he comes in daily for a feed and rug check and he is no bother to catch. As soon as the saddle comes out he clicks that he is going in to work. Ive found it helps to bring him in on days im not riding just for a fuss and a brush...its funny though because you can see the dilemma he is facing when you go out with the head collar....Do I leg it or not that is the question :-)
 
'dodgy dealer' and 'stabled' are two things that shone out for me from your post OP. I wouldn't mind putting money on him acting like this before your got him, hence being stabled all the time and then ending up for sale with a dealer.

H is a rig, he's not often displayed behaviour like you've described, but he was cut late in life and had a pretty rough tough life before being sold to the people I got him from. I kind of knew what I was getting into though, and am pretty unflappable so we just got on with things, but he scared his previous owners witless and has been on every single yard local to me. I've lost count of the times people have said things like 'my god is that . . . . I thought he'd have been put down years ago'

I'm sorry that I don't have an answer for you OP, but I think you should bear in mind Brightbay's post and have him tested too to find out one way or another what you are dealing with. Once you know it's easier to manage the situation effectively, and it sounds from what your yard have done already that you are in a good place to be able to do so.
 
I like what bright bay wrote it really makes sense...but in practice at a normal livery yard its really hard to find that type of environment. In the initial days you can expect a wee bit of trouble and its at this stage that people usually want the horse as far away as possible from their own horse...its a bloody hard situation to be in.
 
sorry 3oldponies, it was me who was stupid enough to go to a dodgy dealer, not the op! If I had googled his name first I would nt have gone, but there again I would nt have met my lovely horse and we are happy now so alls well that ends well!
 
For symptoms to start showing at 21 I think I'd get the vet out just to check nothing untoward is going on in the endocrine system :)
 
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