stubborn horse - tips to ride through temper tantrums?

[ThePony]

Hope you can help!!

My mare is generally a legend, safe as hack and can (v important word!!) when it pleases her work very nicely on the flat. However, if her majesty doesn't choose to then she is a total 3yo spoilt brat!! It is making me v frustrated and a bit gutted as she can be such an arse and is so stubborn it is untrue!!! This morning we had a nice hack out (we never school two days in a row), for some reason half way round she decided that if tossing her head around got her a smack (she does head toss if the wind does in her ears but you can tell from how she moves her ears when it is genuine and when it is an evasion - today was def an evasion!) then she would put her head on her chest and lean for britain. Normally a 'get on with you' kick, a few transitions or a bit of shoulder in sort this and get her mind back on her job and on we go, she is never ridden very up together while hacking, but is expected to work correctly (no nose in the air!), with regular longer rein breaks to stretch down, all at a good workman like walk pace. But nothing would work today and she went head tossing/leaning shoulder in and spooking around our hack, rubbish ride! I do a mental check to ensure that I am not tensing, elbows are free and loose and I'm not gripping with my legs.

Her feed is the same (basic and no sugar!), her turnout is the same (out 24/7 on minimal grass) and her work is consistent (6 days a week, 2 schooling sessions, one of which is a lesson, 3 hacks and one lunge). No back/tack/teeth/feet etc probs as she has recently had her spring mot and no probs!

ARGHHH, it would be fab to know how those with stubborn horses work through this and get them to accept that if they are asked something reasnoble that they just get on and do it without a bloody fight!!!

Thank you, would love some help on this!

 

[henryhorn]

Well before we took any action we would first get her saddle/teeth/bridle fit checked.
Then if she persists in taking the p she would get draw reins on for hacking only to be used when necessary. You do have to know how to use them for them to work, but for disobedient horses who you are positive have no other cause for mucking about, they work..

 

[ThePony]

she is fully checked, so I can be confident that she is just spitting the dummy if her deciding to work doesn't co-incide with me diciding it is time to work!!
Afraid I consider draw reins a bit of a no no, not to mention that my instructor would skin me alive!!! Unfortunatly I just need more ideas of ways to work through this for my box of tricks, rather than her having more evasions than I have ideas to work through them!

 

[Kelpie]

how old is your mare?/ how much experience does she have?.... that might have quite a bearing on how you approach things.

You may get varying tips on how to just basically ride out any tantrums, and to be fair sometimes this is what is required, but IMHO actually mostly there's another angle. OK, so youngsters may get to a stage where they really are testing out boundaries (hence interested in age?) but other than that I normally think that horses, if treated genuinely, are genuine theirselves. Maybe look around for other possible causes, therefore? Like does this happen just out hacking or also schooling?/ are there any common threads that run through when this happens (e.g. when you ask for an outline/ when horse has been in an outline for a certain period of time, etc, etc).

My take on most of these sorts of issues is to try and stop them before they've started, not by having to tell the horse off as such but by getting really quick at reading when the horse is about to do something unwanted and asking the horse to do something else instead at that given point in time. e.g. so if the horse is putting his head up, don't wait until the head is all the way up, ask for a soft bend to the left or to the right as soon as you feel the horses' muscles tense ready to raise her head. However, it can really help to figure out what the horse's patterns are/ when they are likely to act out the undesired behaviours first, in order to helps see this coming.

Also, don't forget that even if the horse is well in terms of back/ teeth/ saddle, etc, particularly if the horse is young, it may be that she finds it too hard work to hold her head in a given position for extended time periods so you need to take the horse's physical (and mental) development state into account in the equation, it's not enough just to assume the horse is OK to do as asked just because there are no obvious back/ teeth, etc problems. (not saying you are doing this, but it is something lots of people tend to do so just chucking a few ideas out there to see if any ring true with you).

Last but not least, it may be worth thinking about what you do (or don't do) when you're getting behaviours the horse doesn't want and whether you're inadvertently teaching her that it's OK. So, for example, you mentioned about her putting her head on her chest and leaning. Well, putting it crudely, a horse needs something to lean against if they're leaning (i.e. you), so unless you do something about that you could be teaching the horse to lean.... so you need to get a bit clever about breaking that cycle. Hard to say without seeing what she's doing but possible things to try might include giving with the reins while pushing her on, or raising your hands up to bring her head up away from her chest (but doing it quickly enough that the horse isn't still leaning), etc.

Hope you get some ideas there and best of luck.

 

[PoppyAnderson]

Is she really 3 or are you just describing her behaviour as being like a 3 year old?

 

[black_horse]

My mare is like this, first i would check her back/teeth/general health. Have you tried a ear fly fringe on her to see if this helps with the head shaking? Delicia is a alpha mare and can have temper tantrums for england, but they are related to tension and stress. My mare is being a bit marish lately but i would be gentle in how you discipline her, i know if delicia thinks i have been too harsh she chucks the pram at me!


Have you had her hormone levels checked? is she on a calmer? may i ask why you do not school 2 days in a row? Delicia loves consistency. If i take her out of her routine she cannot handle it.

 

[ThePony]

Sorry, turn of phrase, she isn't acutally three, she is 9 though is very green for her age. She is established in working into a correct contact otherwise I would never expect it of her during some of a hack.
Shall run through your questions, thanks for helping guys!
She is on magnesium, though mainly to keep her feet in good nick rather than because I felt like she needed a calmer.
I haven't had her hormone levels checked, this is her first big tantrum of the year and she is in season so I'm going to keep a close eye on how she works the next week or so and then I will consider a hormone check. She doesn't generally come into season strongly or experience any back sensitivity which is why I'm not sure if I can attribute it to her hormones.
We don't school two days in a row as if I do school without a hack break then it ensures that she is behind the leg and once she isn't going forwards it makes the idea of any schooling a complete waste of time! In all fairness schooling isn't her favorite thing at all (hence keeping it to just two days a week), but her flat work and balance was so terrible when I got her (two years ago now) that it was a case of just needing to get on with it.
We are trying a fly fringe tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see if it helps her to concentrate!

Kelpie, I def agree with you in that horses are basically genuine and that if you approach things in a way in which they understand are are capable of then you generally get a positive response. This generally works for us well (if something doesn't happen as I have hoped then it is a 'did I ask right/did I ask at the right time/does she understand/can she do what I have asked/is she tired etc...' type check to see how we could work through each block, but this time my usual mental checks have come back negative so it is down to a mare strop - I would not usually come to that conclusion but she was 110% def being a wind up merchant today and I really struggled to get her concentration back onto me.

As well as being rather a madam she is a sensitive thing so anything other than a growl or v occassional smack on the shoulder as a repremand doesn't work for her and she just gets more wound up, it is more a case of pat and kick on, and this normally works well. She knows perfectly well that leaning is a big no (obv I have to let her do this, but also I don't just let out the reins because she snatches and insists!), usually a v gentle squeeze to move the bit a little and a squeeze with my legs and it is head back to where it should be and working properly into a contact. Today the same resulted in a 'well I'll stick my nose in the air then' response! So then I tried alternatly ignorning it and keeping my hands steady, soft and belonging to me, a smack and a kick on, shoulder in to soften her neck, giving a longer rein to stretch into etc; but unfortunatly nothing I had thought of to try brought about a change in attitude and response. Hence why I could do with more ideas on how to work through this with her.

There is no point at all in getting heavy handed in response or facing her off on a squabble as she is v stubborn and a smart cookie, so it needs to involve me getting smart and getting her working again - this is where I get stuck though!!!

 

[henryhorn]

Shame you dismiss them so roundly, in the right hands they are a useful tool. You do I agree see too many people with overbent horses but as a control aid when you haven't the safe place to train such as on the road they really can be good.
I think from looking at our horses dressage results you wouldn't guess they have been used occasionally, today for instance one led it's ODE dressage ending up 2nd and the other was 3rd eventually winning the class. We also tend to have pretty good BD results too...!
I should say if your horse is 3 no way would I have suggested them, from the tone of the post I assumed it was a much older mare.
If her head is in her chest I suggest you raise it and ride her forward at a brisk trot, eventually she will get the message. I'm afraid did misread your first post thinking you were asking how to stop the head tossing. The first thing in head tossing is to apply a half halt every time she does it and then she finds it not a comfortable thing to do.
Otherwise find a nice big hill and trot steadily up it, the majority soon realise they need their energy to get up, and stop playing silly beggars...

 

[Kelpie]

fair enough The Pony, sounds like we might be quite like minded in many ways

I know you think not at the moment but it sounds like it could well be at least in part hormonal if this is a new issue and she's 9 now. Might be a bit too soon to be making calls to the vet but if it does persist it might be worth a go to at least rule that in or out. A friend of mine has a particularly marish mare who ended up finding a solution with the vet in having a marble inserted into her womb so that she thought she was pregnant and there was a real behavioural change.

In terms of riding possibilities, I'm thinking along the lines of how you can find ways to prevent getting into arguments with your mare in the first place. Would be worth you maybe having a good think about whether there are any patterns to when she does this?

In the meantime when issues do come up, are there any ways where you can just make it too much like hard work for you to give you the wrong answer, rather than getting into a fight with her? So along the lines of what henryhorn suggests re: trotting up a steep hill when she decides head tossing is a good idea, for example.

Another angle might be to think about whether you could introduce something new schooling wise to keep your mare's attention. You don't mention whether you jump her, for example. Maybe if not you could start introducing that to give her something else to think about?

 

[ThePony]

really helpful ideas, thanks so much guys!

henryhorn, I do roundly dismiss them I'm afriad! I have never seen them used in a way I would see as helpful and I'm not experienced enough to be 110% sure that I am doing no harm with them, so they will stay a big no for us.
A nice big hill however - very useful! We do have a lovely wide grassy hill that I can hack up (and up, and up...) I think that would be a handy way to get the strop out, I must use it more tbh! A brisk trot is something that we try too, I do try to flick the reins at her while moving her on to get her to bring her head up, but as it suits this is either v effective, or totally ineffective - she is astoundlingly tallented at going along with her nose just about anywhere she choosees - so we do alot of small circles/shoulder in/leg yield and serpentines while hacking too to soften her up.

It just is v frustrating as she does have to have her say and it makes working her much harder than it should be for either of us. She was v v spoilt in her previous home and I think we are still experiencing the effects of that.

Kelpie - I'll def consider giving the vet a call if this continues, her behaviour is in character for her, just much stronger if that makes sense? Have some agnus castrum (sp?) on order as that seems to be the main ingredient in the herbal regumate type stuff so shall see if that helps at all too.
I def agree - avoiding an argument in the first place but without going slack on her is the key. I think it might just be a case of more work to diffuse the grumps! We do sometimes have poles out which she does like so I'll give more of that a go to see if the variety helps her feel more accomodating of my requests!

Would be great to get this worked through - our submission marks are crashing our dressage marks!!!