Seperation anxiety at shows! Please help

[djb]

I have a lovely 5 yr old ID x TB gelding - at home he is turned out with a mare (there are 2 other horses who are turned out together - 4 horses in total).
At home he is fine to school and hack, either on his own or with any other. Also if you take him away from home to dressage or jumping he is fine.
The problem is, when we go to events with the other mare - we both compete at the same level dressage and jumping and tend to share the transport. My horse will warm up for his dressage absolutely fine, in fact yesterday he felt great - but when I take him in for the test and he is separated from his friend he spends the whole time screaming for her and not paying attention for me which is such a shame as he is going so well in the warm up.
We were so fed up with it yesterday that we have decided that we can't go to the same competitions as it is pointless when they behave so badly. This would take away the fun as it's much better going with someone else than on your own.
We are going to seperate their grazing and see if that helps.

It's so frustrating as he behave really well in all other situations!

Any ideas?

 

[hannah87]

i have exactly the same problem, i have 2 horses, who constantly scream for one another wen sepearted. if i take one to a comp then fine - the other screams it head off at home but the one at comp is fine, but if u take em both to comp they r constantly wittering, screaming and even napping to each other. ive never been able to solve it, only thing that works is if u only take one to comp, or seperate them at home and try to wean them off eachother

 

[Alimac19]

I had exactly the same problem with my young gelding. I kept him on a yard with one other mare and a shetland gelding. Whenever I seperated him from the mare they screamed for each other and it was quite dangerous as when he was in the manage, she would stand at the side of the fence sreaming to him for a whole hour! He was dangerously panicy without her. Anyway I have since moved yards (for other reasons) and there are about 15 horses on this yard. The mares and geldings are separated in the fields. He is now so calm and hardly ever suffers from separation anxiity. Just falls asleep when I bring him in for grooming instead of the old rearing fits. Only sometimes if the "others" are playing he will want to be with them or if they bring the others in he sometimes jumps the fence to chatch up with them! Moving him was the best thing I did.