Terrified horse shooting forward when rider on board

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KAEquestrian

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Hi all,

Thanks for taking the time to read this post! I run a backing and schooling yard and have successfully started hundreds of horses and ponies in my career, some extremely difficult however......

I rescued a 15hh 8 year old gelding about a year ago who was skin and bone, covered in mites and bites, has a tiny headcollar on for what must have been for years as in some places his skin had broken and re-grown over it. He was in a very sorry state and as a result, was completely terrified of us and wouldn't let us near him. We spent months building up his confidence and weight, got his teeth done, innoculations started, wormed etc and by this Spring he turned into a beautiful swan! During that time we were able to start lunging him and getting him used to his tack, taking him out and about and experiencing things.

It's really only recently that he's started to be quite confident and struts around the field as if he's a stallion! He obviously feels great and trots over to us in the field and loves any attention he can get. On the ground, he seems like any other horse.

Backing him however has been a completely different story. He's 100% happy with his tack, lunging and long reining. Since last December we've been lying over him, he immediately gets very tense so we just stay there until he relaxes and almost falls asleep, we reward him with treats. Once he's relaxed we'll ask for a few steps forward, he gets really tense again so we stop and let him chill out again etc etc... We worked on this over a matter of months to make sure he was completely happy at everystage and have been able to sit right up on him and walk around the arena. He'll seem really relaxed then in a tiny second, get really tense and rush forward and if you don't jump off he bronks until you're off. I don't believe he's doing this to be naughty (I've met a few of those types of horses) it's just like he all of a sudden can't cope with a rider on his back. About a month ago one of my riders fell off him and dislocated her elbow so we needed another option.

I wondered whether it was just the shifting of weight on his back that he was particularly sensitive to, or the feeling of legs around his side, or a contact on his mouth (discounted this though as he's fine being long-lined and with side reins). So we made a dummy and tried this on him. He let us put it on and will run in the arena with it on his back but he'll always stop dead rather than attempt to buck it off like he would a rider. My hope was that he'd buck but because it's strapped on it wouldn't come off (unlike a rider) and he'd realise it wasn't so bad.

Anyway, I'm out of ideas and wondered if anyone had any suggestions or similar experiences???

Thanks in advance,

Karen x
 
I would get this horses back thoroughly checked.I know it does sound more of a mentally unable to cope reason but there could also be an underlying undiagnosed issue.
 
Janet George who posts on here also does a lot of backing and starting horses - I know she recently had one in who had similar issues. Maybe you could drop her a pm?

Good luck
 
Possibly a phobia, possibly pain - most likely a combination of both. I've worked with quite a few horses whose "history" explained their extreme responses to various situations but in ALMOST every case I'd say the experiences also resulted in some form of discomfort. (Note, not necessarily permanent injury, but pain in specific situations.) In the most recent case the pain was in the poll, another had mouth pain, another neck . . . it may not be as simple as just being something under the saddle, although that's probably the first place to look. It may simply be the tension of the situation and unaccustomed physical sensations are exacerbating something he copes with the rest of the time. The good part is often that if you can get the horse relaxing and working correctly, the work actually acts as therapy.

I've used dummies successfully, although they don't work for every situation. When he stops with it on, is he "frozen" or relaxed and "through" his anxiety?

Do you know his history at all? Did the people who abused him have him all along or did he have another life before? Do you know how he's bred?

The fact that he's walking around relaxed and fine, then panicking really does point to discomfort though. What happens just before he goes? Does he look in a particular direction? Move any part of his body in a specific way? Take up/let go of/change the contact on either rein? I presume you've tried different saddles, bits etc.

Tricky to say without seeing . . . so basically, I'm no help to you at all! :D

Good luck. These situations can be so frustrating but then they're also the ones that give you the most satisfaction when you do work it out!
 
I second the suggestion to get him checked very thoroughly by someone really good.
I sat on a horse who did exactly this for a friend years ago. She didn't tell me the whole story, of course. I did all the usual stuff, he was fine (had already been backed and ridden away), I got on with her there, he was fine, mooched about for 10 mins, fine, then he suddenly shot forward and started bronking for Britain until I came off. Stupidly I got back on and 15 mins of quiet easy happy walking around, he did exactly the same thing again... this time I tore all the ligaments off my ribs at the back on one side, which put me out of action for 3 months in the middle of the event season. Great.
THEN she got him properly checked, took him to Avonvale and had the thermal imagine camera on him, apparently every part of his spine apart from the poll was red/orange instead of blue/green, and he was particularly bad at the top of the tail area. They did a lot of treatments and got him completely right eventually, he went on to be a good safe riding club horse.
iirc she said that they said that when the pain suddenly hit, it would be like having a red hot poker jammed up his bum... tbh, having sat on him when he went, that's exactly what his reaction felt like. Totally uncontrollable.
So... get him properly checked, before someone else gets hurt.
Imho if they're sweet and easy to handle from the floor, but totally, violently overreactive under saddle, there is pain somewhere, almost always.
 
Thank you all for your replies.

I did get him fully MOT'd when I got him - had the vet check him all over, the physio found muscle wastage and knots that were massaged out etc but noted extreme tension in his neck (put down to nervousness and anxiety which would hopefully ease as he relaxed in his new surroundings) and the back man re-aligned him back then. He also had a wolf tooth removed and the rest rasped.

However, I'll take your advice and do it all again as something is clearly not right.

As fate would have it, I have the vet coming out tomorrow morning to vet another horse so will get them to have a look and make the necessary referrals.

Thanks again.

Karen x
 
A mare I had used to do as you described when I got her. She had a very sore back especially on the near side. Get the horses back checked and saddle asap. We had to do lots of rehab type work and she was always funny when she had put on a little weight and needed her saddle adjusting. I can highly recomend Barry swain saddles. Can also PM a very good back person if you like - PM me if needed. Good luck and I hope you get the horse sorted as its not nice to have to get on an exploding rocket!
 
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