To Professionally School or not to Professionally School?

BAILEY67

BAILEY67

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In a bit of a dilemma, i'll bullet point to stop the waffle :)

  • My pony has been driven more than ridden and does not work off the leg well.
  • Have been schooling with Instructors help and he is getting better but hacking is still hard work, cannot get him in an active walk and he does take the mick! - hacking not enjoyable really.
  • Instructor has said she will take him and school him for two weeks which she is 100% sure will help with hacking issue BUT people at the yard keep saying that i should do it myself rather than asking my Instructor to school him and that doing it that way will be better for him, me, and our bond as a partnership and now im not sure what to do - to send him away or not to send him away??????

    HELP AND OPINIONS :confused:
 
BAILEY67 said:
In a bit of a dilemma, i'll bullet point to stop the waffle :)

  • My pony has been driven more than ridden and does not work off the leg well.
  • Have been schooling with Instructors help and he is getting better but hacking is still hard work, cannot get him in an active walk and he does take the mick! - hacking not enjoyable really.
  • Instructor has said she will take him and school him for two weeks which she is 100% sure will help with hacking issue BUT people at the yard keep saying that i should do it myself rather than asking my Instructor to school him and that doing it that way will be better for him, me, and our bond as a partnership and now im not sure what to do - to send him away or not to send him away??????

    HELP AND OPINIONS :confused:
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I had my horse professionally schooled/Trained, make sure you stay throughly involved, be there as much as you can then have some lessons with said instructor and your newly schooled horse and all should be well.

My one piece of advice would be to have a full frank exchange of exactly what you want your horse to be doing and what level you want him schooled to, I have a very good friend whose horse came back so light and sharp he was about 20 steps ahead of her, fantastically schooled horse but far too much for her and he needed a fair amount of knocking back to make them a suitable pair again.
 
why don't you get your instructor to accompany you on a hack and instruct to you what she would do :)
you may even be able to get her a few times a week for the same amount of £ she would charge to take him on
if he goes to her, gets sorted then comes home i'm sure it won't be long before he falls back into his old habits with you unless you know how she sorted it

although i would work on his schooling while hacking ,have you tried shapening him up a bit while you hack ie- sharp transitions -walk- trot- walk etc even canter if its save to do so and if he doesn't respond to your leg WHACK IT ;)
he will soon learn to respond when asked nicely ie soft kick (lots of praise if he doe's) to avoid a smack ,just make sure you do let him go fwd and don't hang onto him when he does go
 
I have a very good friend whose horse came back so light and sharp he was about 20 steps ahead of her, fantastically schooled horse but far too much for her and he needed a fair amount of knocking back to make them a suitable pair again.

^^^^^ is exactly what someone said to me, they had to sell their horse as they could no longer cope - this is what i am scared of and tbh makes me think i'd rather leave him be as he is perfect in every other aspect!

:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:
 
does he respond to voice commands? our little trap pony did and would respond to them just as well under saddle. Always use voice in conjunction with leg rather like you would with a youngster to start with and work towards phasing out the voice commands:)
 
angelish said:
although i would work on his schooling while hacking ,have you tried shapening him up a bit while you hack ie- sharp transitions -walk- trot- walk etc even canter if its save to do so and if he doesn't respond to your leg WHACK IT ;)
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whack 'it' ???? 'it' is a horse and whacking anything is a revolting thing to do.
 
Angelish - Believe it or not i had not thought of asking her to accompany me, i might suggest that to her when i see her this week.

Thank You for the advice re the transitions, i will definitely try that this weekend :D

Ibblebibble - Yes he does respond to voice but is very stubborn with it, he hears but ignores me - this is the battle that needs to be fought and won :)

Just not sure how :)
 
pixiebee said:
whack 'it' ???? 'it' is a horse and whacking anything is a revolting thing to do.
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:rolleyes: oh fgs go and do your nails or something more useful i would far rather hit my horse hard than have it dawdling off my leg in the middle of a busy main road



good luck with your horse bailey67 i'm sure your instructor will be able to help you out :)
 
is that your answer to everything? just whack it? wow thats really intelligent, and dawdling on a busy road, how is walking faster any safer exactly? as long as they arent in the middle of the road.
 
and i quote "in the middle of a busy main road"

actually it is not my answer to many problems ,but i have answered the OP's post by what means i would use to deal with this problem and gave her another suggestion if she did not wish to take that route

there , there horsey walk on is no good to you if there is a bus coming and in the real world i think a horse that doe's not "move of your leg" is extremely dangerous

i used the term "it" tongue in cheek in my first answer as i knew no matter how i worded my response someone like yourself would just have to have a go at me , i'm actually quite surprised your the only one :p
 
pixiebee said:
well after I first replied I did wonder whether you were joking or not, I was hoping you were!
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pleased thats cleared up then :)
i understand use of the whip is not for everyone ,fair enough
just giving my honest opinion as to what i would do ,i will try to be a little more diplomatic in future posts :)


again best of luck with your horse OP
it might also be worth looking at what your feeding and his fitness if you haven't already done so :)
 
Just a little to add to the comments about voice commands- You mentioned that your horse isn't very responsive to these but recognizes them (skim read sorry if this wasn't what was said :o ) there are various things that can make them more receptive to these, including lunging, long reining and general ground work use voice commands even when leading in from the field and very soon you notice how much more responsive they are to them. I found long-reining a very good method for this, not properly, I just did a few laps around the field with lots and lots of transitions using clear and repetitive voice commands, at first accompanied upwards transitions with a small tap on the bum to make the message clear, within a few mins the tap wasn't needed at all :D All helps to reassure when hacking/schooling, lots of the time when they spook mis-communications only complicate matters, so if he is familiar with your commands and what he is expected to do from them it makes matters simpler for the horse too! :D
 
Please don't argue guys :(

Angelish - i understood what you meant and your advice is very similar to ideas we have batted about in discussions with my instructor recently.

Funny you should mention his fitness he has been on a diet recently (vet advised he was fat at last check) so perhaps you're on to something there too, but i am already addressing this issue with a 10kg loss already :)

Thanks again, any advice is invaluable to me at the moment :)
 
Ellky said:
Just a little to add to the comments about voice commands- You mentioned that your horse isn't very responsive to these but recognizes them (skim read sorry if this wasn't what was said :o ) there are various things that can make them more receptive to these, including lunging, long reining and general ground work use voice commands even when leading in from the field and very soon you notice how much more responsive they are to them. I found long-reining a very good method for this, not properly, I just did a few laps around the field with lots and lots of transitions using clear and repetitive voice commands, at first accompanied upwards transitions with a small tap on the bum to make the message clear, within a few mins the tap wasn't needed at all :D All helps to reassure when hacking/schooling, lots of the time when they spook mis-communications only complicate matters, so if he is familiar with your commands and what he is expected to do from them it makes matters simpler for the horse too! :D[/QUOTE

Funnily enough i did half hour of long reigning during my lesson on Monday - Perhaps i am partially on the right track then :)
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