So would you have dismounted?

in a word no...
although i wonder if i would have done the test with a stiff right stifle. but that is by the by.
what has been interesting in this thread is the amount of people with horses that bolt or have major spooking issues and are not looking to help the horses cope with these reactions. now i would expect pretty much any horse to react to a gazebo blowing down the arena but equally i would train them so once they have been surprised by something they will carm down too. i find it bonkers that people spend months to get their piaffe right and come test day it all goes to hell on a hand cart because someone rustled a carrier bag. now i mean no disrespect to people but i see no point in riding a horse that is waiting to explode and dump me on the ground when in 99% of the time it is eminently fixable with a bit of time.
the horse in this video seems like it got itself under control quite quickly as with a bit of work would have been far less explosive in its reaction.
 
prodigal2 said:
what has been interesting in this thread is the amount of people with horses that bolt or have major spooking issues and are not looking to help the horses cope with these reactions.
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I'm not sure how you've come to this conclusion from the responses here?

I have one that will spook and bog off without thinking but she's only 6 months into training so still being exposed to new things. If something came completely out of the blue (how many people launch gazebos at their horses as part of their training regime...?) then she will still be unpredictable. She's a hot head, it takes time to teach her about new things. In the meantime she is learning about concentrating on her rider and developing her balance and way of going so we do a show now and then to continue the process... I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
 
milliepops said:
I'm not sure how you've come to this conclusion from the responses here?
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Fools Motto said:
Most of my old TB's would have left me in the dirt...
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TheHairyOne said:
On one of mine 99.9% yes, but it would not have been voluntarily and I would need a GPS tracker to find thr horse!!!
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SEL said:
The Ardennes would be 1/2 way to the next county leaving Ardennes sized holes in every fence and hedgerow along the way. I'd still be on board because my legs have to stretch so far around him that getting off is a bit of an effort.
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mule said:
I don't trust horses' self preservation instincts anyway. In my experience mine are better. ( Experiences with the blind panic bolter have reinforced this)
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i could include some posts from yourself, I mean no harm but having experienced some scary bolts as a child heading towards trucks on a trunk road, and having to bring the horse down it has made me think there is a better way and getting your horse to control itself and cope with the unexpected, the same is with my wife who got dragged on her back for half a mile when her horse panicked when she was a kid. Coping with stressful situations should be part of the basic training, even before we think about transitions or lateral movement. I was at the portuguese school of equestrian art yesterday and what I found illuminating was every Stallion from the age of 3 up was relaxed and able to cope with so much and its obvious that they train this before they even worry about the art itself.
 
my point is, that's a process that takes time. and it's doing everyone on this (previously) lighthearted thread a disservice to suggest that none of us are doing anything to equip our horses with the learning needed to deal with things in a more manageable way, but just merrily accepting that we are all riding nutters.
I don't think that learning can be done entirely at home in a controlled environment. I'll say it again, who throws gazebos at their horse?! with all the best prep in the world you can still come across something *completely* out of the ordinary. Mine are traffic proof, livestock proof, good to handle on the ground and the one who remains fairly unpredictable has been restarted aged 7 - I don't know her history, which is relevant if you're going to compare to 3yo stallions who have been started in the optimal way - and is improving all the time, but I can only show her new things by taking her out and about :)
 
prodigal2 said:
i could include some posts from yourself, I mean no harm but having experienced some scary bolts as a child heading towards trucks on a trunk road, and having to bring the horse down it has made me think there is a better way and getting your horse to control itself and cope with the unexpected, the same is with my wife who got dragged on her back for half a mile when her horse panicked when she was a kid. Coping with stressful situations should be part of the basic training, even before we think about transitions or lateral movement. I was at the portuguese school of equestrian art yesterday and what I found illuminating was every Stallion from the age of 3 up was relaxed and able to cope with so much and its obvious that they train this before they even worry about the art itself.
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Goodness me, I also don't see that you can say the rider is not training the horse to be prepared for unexpected events. I am one of the posters on this thread, and my horse had an issue with hail on a tin roof. So, I presume you lump me into the group of people who should do more work before "thinking about transitions or lateral movements."

I, until recently, trained Police Horses and riders, and I can tell you now that we trained transitions and lateral moves both before and alongside what we called nuisance training.

How on earth are you expecting to train the horse with those things if you can't control the 'go' and 'slow' - as in transitions, and where the shoulders are to prevent spins - as in lateral work????

IME teaching the horse to ignore scary things is more to do with telling the horse that 'stuff' is not his business when you are riding him, when you are on board the only thing they have to be concerned with is your signals and responding to them. How you propose to teach that without having transitions and lateral work in the bag is beyond me!

Yes, my current horse is not there yet. Yes, I still work on transitions and lateral work. Yes I am also introducing 'stuff' into our sessions. Until we are 'there' I still say that now I am older and compromised, I would still dismount.
 
ester said:
I've seen enough injuries from emergency dismounts to consider it not always a foolproof damage control method.

I'd have stayed on mine, but that's because I know that would have been ok (we'd have spun and run away but not got far).
To me it also depends a bit on the set up where it is happening, if it is secure leaping off is a bit different to if it isn't.
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Yes, I've been fairly heavily influenced by seeing very life limiting repercussions of landing hard on your heel and smashing that bally bit in your ankle. If I come off a horse I do my very best not to land on my feet.

On my current eejit I did once have a sort of involuntary dismount - galloping round fields with friend's horse off in front he managed to lose a back leg in the mud as we went round a bend, he righted himself and barely broke stride but I was too far out the side door to get back in the saddle, so I pulled him up and then slithered the rest of the way down. Friend had not heard me hollering and by this point had disappeared into the next field, so getting back on the large bouncy 5yo was a bit of a leap of faith - if there had been any way for me to stay on top then I would've done :D
 
prodigal2 said:
I was at the portuguese school of equestrian art yesterday and what I found illuminating was every Stallion from the age of 3 up was relaxed and able to cope with so much and its obvious that they train this before they even worry about the art itself.
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Ooh did they have a gazebo attack too?
 
ycbm said:
:)

Or did they just selectively breed and choose the ones with the temperament to cope with being used as exhibition horses from three years old?
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the Alter Real is a hot horse. of course the stallions they use for riding have the right handling and riding from the offset-and these guys are incredible riders with seats to die for and they take no ****-but the horses are hot.

Love the way people make all kinds of assumptions about posters on a fairly light hearted thread :D

saying that, there were no gazebo attacks at the Portuguese School at any time I've been to watch. there is a kind of giant one at the Alter Stud though-maybe that does the trick?
 
Red-1 said:
Goodness me, I also don't see that you can say the rider is not training the horse to be prepared for unexpected events. I am one of the posters on this thread, and my horse had an issue with hail on a tin roof. So, I presume you lump me into the group of people who should do more work before "thinking about transitions or lateral movements."

I, until recently, trained Police Horses and riders, and I can tell you now that we trained transitions and lateral moves both before and alongside what we called nuisance training.

How on earth are you expecting to train the horse with those things if you can't control the 'go' and 'slow' - as in transitions, and where the shoulders are to prevent spins - as in lateral work????

IME teaching the horse to ignore scary things is more to do with telling the horse that 'stuff' is not his business when you are riding him, when you are on board the only thing they have to be concerned with is your signals and responding to them. How you propose to teach that without having transitions and lateral work in the bag is beyond me!

Yes, my current horse is not there yet. Yes, I still work on transitions and lateral work. Yes I am also introducing 'stuff' into our sessions. Until we are 'there' I still say that now I am older and compromised, I would still dismount.
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Great response Red. I wouldn’t judge anyone getting off (or staying on) in that situation. Its not exactly a normal ‘spooky’ situation and the chance of a very serious accident is rather high. I would assume that the action the rider took was based on their knowledge of their own horse and whether the animal was at the stage of training, or has the right temperament, to accept a flying gazebo...!
 
My Current horse wouldnt have batted an eyelid at it! When we were breaking him we had a roof panel on the stables catch the wind, rip off and fly directly at him! It was only his 3rd time under saddle and his 1st time off the lead but all he did was take a few sideways steps, snort at it and then continue!
Mind you he is also the horse that at his first re-enactment lay down and had a sleep whilst cannon were firing less than 100m from him!
 
prodigal2 said:
in a word no...
although i wonder if i would have done the test with a stiff right stifle. but that is by the by.
what has been interesting in this thread is the amount of people with horses that bolt or have major spooking issues and are not looking to help the horses cope with these reactions. now i would expect pretty much any horse to react to a gazebo blowing down the arena but equally i would train them so once they have been surprised by something they will carm down too. i find it bonkers that people spend months to get their piaffe right and come test day it all goes to hell on a hand cart because someone rustled a carrier bag. now i mean no disrespect to people but i see no point in riding a horse that is waiting to explode and dump me on the ground when in 99% of the time it is eminently fixable with a bit of time.
the horse in this video seems like it got itself under control quite quickly as with a bit of work would have been far less explosive in its reaction.
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I did a lot of work to improve that mare, including getting help from a very experienced person. She did become a lot better but was always unpredictable. The bolting was of the dangerous variety, so she was never safe but she became ok in an enclosed area.

The professionals verdict was that she was dangerous, which I was in full agreement with;) Ithink there might have been something wrong with her brain or her mind.

Anyway she got navicular symptoms and after trying a barefoot rehab I retired her. She lived a life of leisure until she had to be pts last year from cushings complications. I was very fond of her despite everything, but I have a horror of bolters ever since..

I did do lots of despooking and groundwork with her, which made her very docile on the ground. But, to ride sometimes a switch would flick and she'd lose her mind. It was a learning experience anyway.
 
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I was one of the posters who said my mare would have spun, bucked and ran before I'd have time to dismount. I can drag a tarp behind that mare, pull it over her bum, rattle plastic bags around her and she'll just yawn (or try and eat them) - but I have yet to train her for a fast moving gazebo coming at high speed.

My old boy was pretty bombproof, but the worst fall we ever had was when we met a fun run of about 100 people in matching blue tops. To him it must have looked like one big blue monster coming towards him and in his panic he went over on the road with me. You can't train away the flight instinct from every horse no matter how hard you try - even the Calvary horses at the Royal Wedding had a few on their toes and those horses are probably are trained for flying gazebos.
 
I'm bemused that anyone who has been around horses more than five minutes thinks that it's possible to desensitize every horse to every possible situation.

Have you never heard of horses, chosen for their phlegmatic temperaments when first purchased, who fail the police training and are sold on?
 
scats said:
Great response Red. I wouldn’t judge anyone getting off (or staying on) in that situation. Its not exactly a normal ‘spooky’ situation and the chance of a very serious accident is rather high. I would assume that the action the rider took was based on their knowledge of their own horse and whether the animal was at the stage of training, or has the right temperament, to accept a flying gazebo...!
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Haha well said!
 
ycbm said:
I'm bemused that anyone who has been around horses more than five minutes thinks that it's possible to desensitize every horse to every possible situation.

Have you never heard of horses, chosen for their phlegmatic temperaments when first purchased, who fail the police training and are sold on?
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And all the desentising in the world doesn't prevent a horse having a funny five minutes either! I was riding an absolute gentleman the other week, never puts a hoof out of place type, yet that morning in the peeing rain having someone stop by the arena meant we ended up having a spook, a spin and a sodding off.
 
ycbm said:
.

Have you never heard of horses, chosen for their phlegmatic temperaments when first purchased, who fail the police training and are sold on?
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I rode one at a riding school who had failed the bit of police horse training that deals with crowds and things. Lovely horse, very nicely schooled but pretty spooky. I think there was an expectation that every time he went in the indoor school, a group of demonstrators with placards were going to jump out at him. He wasn't there long as a client fell for him and bought him.

Prodigal2 only one of the people you quoted said they would willingly bail, most jokingly questioned whether they would still be on board which is what I did.

I have 2 tbs, one retired one still in work. I'm fairly sure in that scenario they would in a heartbeat be facing the other way, based on previous situations, one would they probably turn back to reassess, the other would let me stop them taking off at full speed if I was still on board. However their ability to flip 180 degrees in a split second means there is no guarantee I would still be there, I usually am but not always.
 
I think in this situation it's really hard to say what you'd do until you see a gazebo flying towards you!

The nearest I've come to it, that I can think off is a cyclist who fell off his bike at speed on a corner and the bike flew towards me and my horse really quickly - luckily, I have had the horse since he was 2 and have a good idea on what his reaction would be - he's very smart and can often make a good decision in a situation but he froze, so I jumped off and dragged him out the way... it all happened very fast! Luckily the bike didn't hit us and no one was too hurt. I waited with the cyclist until his wife came and collected him and the bike.

With the gazebo - I think I'd have turned to the right and kicked on to get out the way, that horse looked like it'd stay ride-able in that situation if she stayed with it so I think that's what I'd have done... but as post said it was her first dressage test so maybe rider hadn't been riding for a long time and had to deal with a spook like that.

Horse behaved very well I thought :)
 
ycbm said:
I'm bemused that anyone who has been around horses more than five minutes thinks that it's possible to desensitize every horse to every possible situation.

Have you never heard of horses, chosen for their phlegmatic temperaments when first purchased, who fail the police training and are sold on?
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Yes the police used to take some to Reading auction if they failed the training, I completely fell in love with one of their horses at the auction, it's downfall was he couldn't cope with crowds
 
prodigal2 said:
i could include some posts from yourself, I mean no harm but having experienced some scary bolts as a child heading towards trucks on a trunk road, and having to bring the horse down it has made me think there is a better way and getting your horse to control itself and cope with the unexpected, the same is with my wife who got dragged on her back for half a mile when her horse panicked when she was a kid. Coping with stressful situations should be part of the basic training, even before we think about transitions or lateral movement. I was at the portuguese school of equestrian art yesterday and what I found illuminating was every Stallion from the age of 3 up was relaxed and able to cope with so much and its obvious that they train this before they even worry about the art itself.
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Half a mile????
 
We're funny creatures aren't we see or hear about an accident or incident and immediately start figuring out how either A) we'd have avoided it happening in the first place or B) how we'd have handled it better. I guess its the survival instinct kicking in.
The thing about accidents is they're out of our control so neither of the above is actually going to work :)
So I think however people handle an accident is the right way for them to have handled it.
Me I'd have stayed on as in my older years I suck at dismounting at the best of times. I would have been wishing I could get off though!
 
apercrumbie said:
Two of my horses would be far more confident with someone on the ground. The other would break free. As is often the case, horses for courses!
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Oh 100%, depending on the Horse. Mine will follow me anywhere and walk passed anything if I am next to her. Ridden is a different story, I am not the most confident of riders and something like that would make me panic, which in turn would make the Horse even worse if they looked to me for confidence and I had none.
 
LaurenBay said:
Oh 100%, depending on the Horse. Mine will follow me anywhere and walk passed anything if I am next to her. Ridden is a different story, I am not the most confident of riders and something like that would make me panic, which in turn would make the Horse even worse if they looked to me for confidence and I had none.
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Just realised how my post could be interpreted - I was and am 100% agreeing with you.
 
I'd say, the same as some others, probably wouldn't of been able to react quick enough to get off so would of clung on. Not sure unless you are in that situation I guess.
 
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