tackling napping, sharer got a fight

weesophz

weesophz

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after having a nightmare with fox for the last couple of months, weve worked really hard with him over the last few weeks and we finally have our lovely horse back. fox seems a lot happier in himself aswell, and is working great. or so i thought!

got a phonecall from second sharer yesterday saying he got a bad fright on a hack with fox. as they were coming home fox was getting very over excitied, prancing and apparently rearing. sharers words were "i thought that was me gone!" so im going up today with him see for myself what fox was up to. i have experience this myself with fox and it is pretty scary, but that hasnt happened for 2 years!

i had told both sharers he needs to be properly worked to take the freshness out of him as he has been pretty full of the beans, sharer had told me he had just went straight out a hack without working him so im pretty sure this is part of the issue. sharer said fox didnt put a foot wrong the way out and was a total star so was gutted when he started acting up.

apart from working him prior, and hacking so that we go in a circle rather than turning back on ourselves, anyone have any other tips? really dont want sharers confidence knocked!

thanks guys!
 
Sounds like your horse wanted to hurry home but your sharer didn't agree with your horse on the speed. So horse started prancing and rearing. Do I have that right?

My cure-alls for barn sourness are (1) riding what Linda Tellington-Jones calls the "star." Ride out in one direction, for as long as you want, turn around, ride back to the barn, then ride out in a different direction. Rinse, repeat. It doesn't matter how far you go. If I had a horse who had real problems leaving the barn, I might only go out five minutes at first in one direction, then five minutes in a different direction. Or (2) Hack out and then return to barn, go into arena, and school horse for 15 or 20 or 30 minutes.

I do both of these regularly with my non-barn sour horse, even though she behaves 90% of the time anyway, just to keep her on her toes and guessing. They don't rush home, anticipating their nice cozy stall and hay, if they think there's a chance they'll just be passing the barn or that they'll be doing 20 meter circles in the arena after said hack.

I don't know how well schooled Fox is, but if I end up in a situation where a horse wants to rush home, I ride lots of little circles and figures. If horse is walking quietly, it gets to keep going towards the barn. If horse is prancing about, it can turn in little circles, practice shoulder-in and leg yield, or whatever else you can think of doing.

Lastly, and along the lines of the above paragraph, when I am schooling, I work on making it quality schooling. I'd much rather hack out on a horse who is supple, soft in the hand, and on the aids (even though much of the hack will involve slopping along on the buckle), so if it does get excited or you need more control because of eejit dogs/drivers/kids on bikes/hot air balloons/cows/horse wanting to run home, it is much easier to do something about it. A horse who's hard mouthed and stiff as a board in the arena is going to be hard mouthed and stiff as a board outside of the arena, which is not a feeling I like having when out on a hack.
 
Final thought: as with all things horsey, consistency and boundaries are key. My horse knows that if she tries rushing home, I will become a right grumpy cow at her. No one wants that. I see a lot of riders who quietly resign themselves to their horses jigging and prancing back to the barn. No. We don't do that.
 
Rider needs to antipate what the horse is going to do, so at the first sign of rushing, turn circle/ask for lateral work/anything to get the horse listening to the rider again - much better than getting into fight.
We are in the fortunate postion of being able to do something similar to CI's suggestion; we have several short hacks which can be combined whilst still within sight of home and regularly do so to keep the horses guessing what we will ask for next, difficult I know if your geography doesn't allow this - we can't ride past the gate, we are at the end of a lane off a 'no-through' road, so have to improvise.
 
Caol Ila said:
Sounds like your horse wanted to hurry home but your sharer didn't agree with your horse on the speed. So horse started prancing and rearing. Do I have that right?

My cure-alls for barn sourness are (1) riding what Linda Tellington-Jones calls the "star." Ride out in one direction, for as long as you want, turn around, ride back to the barn, then ride out in a different direction. Rinse, repeat. It doesn't matter how far you go. If I had a horse who had real problems leaving the barn, I might only go out five minutes at first in one direction, then five minutes in a different direction. Or (2) Hack out and then return to barn, go into arena, and school horse for 15 or 20 or 30 minutes.

I do both of these regularly with my non-barn sour horse, even though she behaves 90% of the time anyway, just to keep her on her toes and guessing. They don't rush home, anticipating their nice cozy stall and hay, if they think there's a chance they'll just be passing the barn or that they'll be doing 20 meter circles in the arena after said hack.

I don't know how well schooled Fox is, but if I end up in a situation where a horse wants to rush home, I ride lots of little circles and figures. If horse is walking quietly, it gets to keep going towards the barn. If horse is prancing about, it can turn in little circles, practice shoulder-in and leg yield, or whatever else you can think of doing.

Lastly, and along the lines of the above paragraph, when I am schooling, I work on making it quality schooling. I'd much rather hack out on a horse who is supple, soft in the hand, and on the aids (even though much of the hack will involve slopping along on the buckle), so if it does get excited or you need more control because of eejit dogs/drivers/kids on bikes/hot air balloons/cows/horse wanting to run home, it is much easier to do something about it. A horse who's hard mouthed and stiff as a board in the arena is going to be hard mouthed and stiff as a board outside of the arena, which is not a feeling I like having when out on a hack.
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yeah pretty much! he did it with me a couple of years ago, was always after a particularly long hack, but he seemed to just grow out of it. i did notice it was always worse when another horse was with us, and particularly if that horse was in front! dont know if that was racehorse mentality or what but he calmed down once he was at the front.

that sound interesting ive never heard of that star thing before, i think i may well give that a go! so its meant to work like the horse wont be as excited to get home as going home doesnt neccessarily mean back to bed?
 
Caol Ila said:
Final thought: as with all things horsey, consistency and boundaries are key. My horse knows that if she tries rushing home, I will become a right grumpy cow at her. No one wants that. I see a lot of riders who quietly resign themselves to their horses jigging and prancing back to the barn. No. We don't do that.
Click to expand...

i used to be guilty of that :o not any more obviously as it got to a point it was dangerous! we did work on leg yeilding and other things, fox was actually quite impressive, shame he wont work like that in the school haha. i know first sharer is confident to deal with his issues, her and me and quite similar in the way we deal with fox so i know she wont struggle. hoping to get second sharer up to par as well, hes willing to learn and now knows he cannot be a soft touch!

Pearlsasinger said:
Rider needs to antipate what the horse is going to do, so at the first sign of rushing, turn circle/ask for lateral work/anything to get the horse listening to the rider again - much better than getting into fight.
We are in the fortunate postion of being able to do something similar to CI's suggestion; we have several short hacks which can be combined whilst still within sight of home and regularly do so to keep the horses guessing what we will ask for next, difficult I know if your geography doesn't allow this - we can't ride past the gate, we are at the end of a lane off a 'no-through' road, so have to improvise.
Click to expand...

yeah i have a couple of ways i can go too, so hoping this plan will work. should i still make sure hes not fresh before, or should i take him right out so i can see what the problem is?
 
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