Tips for focusing a distracted horse?

H

Heartbar

New User
Joined
13 July 2014
Messages
6
Visit site
Hello! Looking for some advice/tips.

My yard has really good floodlights so I’ve been going to school my 6 year old mare after work during the winter. In the dark when the yard is quiet, she schools really well - very focused and listening to me, responsive and working well from behind and accepting the contact.

However, when I ride her during daylight hours she’s the opposite! Backwards and not listening to my aids, unresponsive. She can be very distracted at times, neighing to other horses and trying to look out over the fields at the top end of the ménage. It’s a bit frustrating as I know what she’s capable of when she focuses!

Do you think it is just that there are more distractions during the day for her or another reason for the difference in responsiveness?

Any advice on how I can help her focus and get her more consistent?

Thank you in advance!
 
The only thing I’ve found is to work with lots of distractions and give them a hard job to do (not necessarily fast but a thinking job) transitions within a pace work well - training the half halt - going sideways at what ever level horse is at ...
 
I have one of these *sigh*
she's lovely to ride indoors, or at night, but a right dingbat when it's daylight. (the other is the complete opposite... variety is the spice of life, as they say).

I'm cracking on with the training, even though it's not particularly consistent or top quality mine is learning what she can in the hope that I can make her more interested in what we're doing than what's going on outside the school. time will tell, but at least I feel like she's learning, rather than just spooking and pratting around trying to perfect the 20m circle. I'm teaching mine half pass at the moment, she seems to find travers quite interesting so hoping this will give me enough ways to keep her mind on the job.
 
I have a sight-seeing tourist aswell.
She’s the same whether we’re schooling, lunging or hacking. I generally start her off quite long and low and keep her busy. You can’t give her a loose contact to begin with as she’s prone to some sideways spooks or shoots off (she caught me out the other day- off we cantered, sideways, at speed...) so I keep as long but safe contact as I can and ask her lots of easy questions, but questions that still require an answer. The questions can get more difficult as I feel her locking on to me rather than her surroundings. I also get her into canter pretty quickly as this really seems to settle her.

If left to her own devices she will bumble around with her head higher than your average giraffe, screaming at anyone who’ll listen and then spooking like an idiot at tufts of grass.
 
Last edited:
What works for me is an immediate halt and rein back ,then holding the halt till the head drops and concentration is re established. Then steping forward into walk . If concentration goes again ,repeat.
 
I have 2 that much prefer to focus on there surroundings and can be very spooky, being Arabs they are both quite clever so I have learnt to make there work very interesting and hard, I do lots of lateral work in all 3 gaits and change things quite quickly to make them really think about what I want them to do, it really helps them focus on me and it's really improved my riding so it's win win all round.
 
It depends on the horse. If it is a pig headed and not too sensitive then I take the direct approach of flexing them one way or the other or chucking a difficult request at them when they start gawping. However, if of a more sensitive disposition I find chucking a difficult request into the mix then it just increases the stress levels (even if they do what you ask), and eventually they'll just chuck some drama back at you ;). So for this type of beast I tend to just pick something easy and keep repeating, not worrying about the quality until they zone in (something like halt-walk transitions or teardrops).
 
You have to communicate all the time through your aids with a horse like this! I have an Arab with a brain that is all over the place. Intelligent as hell but will look everywhere unless I am talking to her with legs or hands and she is responding. Took a lot of time schooling to teach her what I was asking but it works
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top