small pony issues, please help!!

scheherazade

scheherazade

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Hi all
I have an older (18 year old) section A for my daughter who is a very small 6 year old. She is brilliant in every way but just recently she has started pulling her head down in canter, ostensibly to scratch her front leg but I don't think that she is really itchy, it just seems to be an evasion. Unfortunately when she does this my daughter is too small to keep her head up and keeps falling off, which has dented her confidence considerably. Luckily I am quite little so I got on said pony but she didn't put a foot wrong. Someone has suggested daisy reins but I was wondering if anyone has any other ideas before I have to resort to "gadgets". She has had her teeth and back / tack checked and there are no issues there but I am at my wits end - I don't want my daughter losing all her confidence as she is a good little jockey for her age / size but I also don't want to let the pony (which is a super pony in every way and worth her weight in gold) getting into bad habits just because she thinks she can get away with it. She has regular lessons from a very good instructor but the pony behaves much better when he is there! I just don't know what to do. I am sorry for the slightly long post but would be very grateful to draw on the collective expertise of H&H readership. Thanks for reading xx
 
Unfortuately this is a commen pony trick. We had a lovely first pony who would do it out hunting, stop abruptly and then put his head down to eat, daughter falls off, then he stood on her plaits.
I am afraid a couple of side reins attached to the D rings at the front of the saddle are the simplest way until your daughter gets more strength. I had them made in leather and adjustable so they only came in to action when he poked his nose ready to lunge. If the pony is clever and she gives him a good strong leg aide to send him forward he will soon get the message.
 
Could pony be trying to rub her mouth on her leg to relieve bit pressure, is your daughter putting too much pressure on the bit in canter, something she may not do to the same extent when in a lesson as the instructor would correct her before it happened. May just be something to be aware of and to watch for subtle changes in your daughter's riding when the pony goes into canter. The riding school ponies often did this with certain riders for that reason and it was a case of watching carefully and sussing out at what point their riding changed and trying to correct it before it happened.
 
my 26 year old sec A still does this!! normally because small jockey is using her hands to balance on the reins. lessons helped enormously and jockey now lets reins slide through so she is not unseated and leg on! does the trick! then again, my pony isnt the type to p*ss off! ( mostly)
 
should definitely check that she's not pulling but if it is a genuine evasion i would recommend daisy rains, i had a pony who would put his head down, bolt and buck, i had no chance (being 9 at very small!) of staying on. once i had the rains he stopped ducking which meant i was able to sit his bucks and he eventually stopped trying and we took them off :)
 
The Daisy rein just reinforces what the rider would do if strong enough. Thus when the pony's head starts to go down, the further it goes the more the elastic of the Daisy rein resists the pull.

We used one on a Sec A that constantly looked for opportunities to drop head/rider off over head, with excellent results, and after a couple of months we were able to take it off again.
 
Ditto the others. A daisy rein gives the little rider the edge, without being detrimental to the pony. It only comes into play when the pony puts his/her head down too far, then it acts in the same way a stronger rider would, i.e. encourages the pony to stop doing that :)

Typical that the pony will not do it when a strong rider is on board, i.e. someone able to say No! effectively. Little Lad was just the same, until he lost the plot completely, but that was a pony that probably should have had a daisy rein on earlier in his life and not learnt to do what he did, thereby ending up down the food chain :(. Luckily he now has a home for life and we've retired him, even though he's still reasonably fit and sound.
 
Thank you all for your help, will be trotting off to the nearest tack shop shortly. Rider is very small for her age (her legs only just reach the bottom of the saddle) and she just doesn't seem to have the strength to prevent pony doing what it likes, and unfortunately the power of prayer isn't quite strong enough!! will let you know how it goes. If only there was a magic gadget to make my horse go beautifully then my life would be complete!!!
 
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