thouroughly clingy horse

[purdie456]

I have recently brought a new tb x irish mare, who is perfect in the field, hacks out really sensibly with other horses in front or behind, and is not usually spooky or silly. However, after taking her out to her first competition, I realised that she has become highly attatched to our other mare whom she lives with alone, and it was so bad to the point that when the other horse went into the ring, she reared bolt upright. the next day I attempted to hack her out alone, and she was reasonably good until we got near to home, where she bolted and bucked me off.
I have absolutley no idea how to deal with this and i am having to consider sending her back to the person we brought her from, but I would like to try everything that is safe to help overcome the problem before I send her back. any ideas?

 

[LaurenM]

Have you tried seperating them for short periods of time? For example, feed her by the gate - turn her back out after 5 mins and then gradually increase the seperation time.

Or hack home a different way if possible so she doesn't know how close she is.

Is the other mare in season?

 

[purdie456]

about a week ago we took seperate routes on a hack, and they were both fine. she is only 6, but my main concern is that she will pick up habits such as rearing and bucking if I don't deal with it. the problem seems to be getting worse the more I try to make it better, but I am going to try putting them in fields so they can see each other, but they can't talk to each other over the fence. the problem with hacking out was she started to bolt about 500 yards from her field gate. Also, she is not stabled atall. do you think turning her out all the time is the problem?

 

[LaurenM]

If anything having her turned out 24/7 would use up more energy than stabling, I'd have thought so anyway!

Maybe speak to the previous owners to see if this was something she did with them? Other than that, I wouldn't really know what to suggest.

A horse on our yard has started rearing when told to leave the yard and we can't think for the life of us why!

I'd suggest having her teeth/back checked etc as the saddle may be pinching but it sounds like she's only doing it to get back to the field.

 

[Petalpoos]

Sometimes it takes a long time for horses to settle after moving yards, like several months, and a lot of this behaviour may be related to that. My mare went all nappy and started rearing not long after the last move I made, but she got over it, admittedly with the help of my trainer. Last winter I had to go away for 3 weeks and when I got back she started rearing as I led her in from the filed, but I ignored it and, again, she got over it, but I think it was just that she does not like a change in routine.

She also started to resent being separated from her best mate and became very agitated, but I just took her away for increasingly long periods each day, starting off by putting her in the stable for 10 mins and then building up to riding out alone. Her mate still shouts every time we go out, but that's all. I think you maybe just need to persevere as it could all be related to the new home.