Training your horse to stay with you..

Charlie Bucket

Charlie Bucket

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Not sure if there was a thread about this not long ago, but i can't seem to find it! So sorry for repeating if I am :)

I was just wondering if, in your experience, it is possible to teach your horse to stay with you when you fall off, and what are the best ways of achieving this?

My 5yr old bolts before I have even hit the ground, and it has landed us in a few dangerous situations lately, which I hope to avoid in future!

I had heard that feeding treats from the floor can work - ie I would sit on the floor next to my horse and give him carrots? So he associates me on the floor with food! I haven't had any experience of this so all ideas / opinions welcome!

Thanks in advance! :D
 
I think the quick fix is to have a neckstrap and a finger round it at the trot, bridge the reins at the canter and hold on neckstrap, also try to hold on to the reins if you fall off, it helps to prevent injury to you and you might stop the horse panicking.
 
ooh that's a tricky one! When they are young they can get startled by their rider suddenly launching at them or disappearing over their ears! I always try to talk to them on the way down (if time and if I am not screaming at the time!).

One thing I do with all my horses, and it has meant that I have survived some moments when I was well on my way to the ground is to teach them to stop when I take both feet out of the stirrups. Start by everytime you go to get off take feet out of stirrups before halting. They very quickly associate this with you getting off and will stop automatically.

I do also have a special 'voice' to call their name for emergencies. I only ever use it to summon their attention and the requirement is to come straight back to me. I sort of introduce it into everyday use but only when it is pure benefit to them, call them to a feed (using the special tone), call them to a new field. Kind of hard to explain. I am the only one that handles my horses so easy to build up the bond thing. Very useful in emergencies such a falling off as they come straight back to you.

A rider falling off can be quite a frightening experience for a horse, sometimes I think they just launch themselves for fun and are genuinely quite surprised when the rider goes flying past :eek::cool:
 
Tricky but interesting! Highland ponies used to carry deer off the hills in Scotland are sometimes trained to ground tie. When the reins, or lead rein, are hanging down, the pony believes it is tied and doesn't try to stray. I'm told it is easy enough to teach. I suppose if you had someone who didn't mind falling off for your training sessions, something like that could be taught! I wonder if anyone has the answer to this one? I love training problems!:) They keep the little grey cells working.
 
I believe RDA teach this, it might be worth contacting them, also I seem to remember Kelly Marks teaching horses to stop when a rider falls off.
It's not ucommon, I just don't know how to do it, my lad is joined to my hip without any training, but I know it can be done
Good luck and keep us informed
 
Will be keeping my eye on this thread, it's only a matter of time til my new horse throws me off and I'm not worried about the fall itself, just catching her again!! :eek:
 
I don't have him anymore so no idea if it actually worked [When his new owner falls off for the first time i will ask her!] but i used to balance random stuff on my youngster and then walk him round and when they fell off i'd tell him to stand.

Things like flexi buckets, soft things that wouldn't catch his legs.

I also started putting an old saddle on him and pushing it off, And i walked him round with a folding up rug hung over his neck to try and simulate a rider ending up on the neck.
 
Thank you everyone for your replies! All very interesting and helpful, especially Queen of Diamonds - I will definitely give that one a try, he is quite nervous by nature so might help de-sensitize him also.

From my OP I made it sound like I'm forever falling off - I'm not (thank goodness) but when it does happen it's usually in the most unfortunate of places.

Thanks again or all the replies so far :) and I will try and keep you posted if anything is successful! :D
 
You're welcome, as I said, not sure if it will train him to stay by you if/when you fall, but at the very least it will desensitise him. Should add with the saddle start off with just a numnah and pull it off his back then move on to a saddle (an old one!) When he's comfortable with that :)
 
Mine ground ties anyway, when she was a youngster she used to panic tied up so just used to tie up a haynet & leave rope on the floor. Since then its always come in handy, for everyday stuff rather than falling. Mine always hangs about regardless of whether the reins are over or not. I do remember reading something once about it though. Apparently you start off crouching & feeding a treat so that whenever you crouch they approach you. Sure you then start doing it in the field but don't treat them immediately so they get in the habit of hanging about close by grazing waiting for the treat. Iirc the idea was to keep them nearby if you're somewhere isolated, so not sure how effective it is in the middle of a noisy fun ride or out hunting.
 
Meant to say as mine hangs around whether the reins are over her head or not I don't think that's necessarily the key to keeping them around, she just does.
 
Charlie Bucket said:
Thank you everyone for your replies! All very interesting and helpful, especially Queen of Diamonds - I will definitely give that one a try, he is quite nervous by nature so might help de-sensitize him also.

From my OP I made it sound like I'm forever falling off - I'm not (thank goodness) but when it does happen it's usually in the most unfortunate of places.

Thanks again for all the replies so far :) and I will try and keep you posted if anything is successful! :D
Click to expand...

Yes, that is an interesting one. I'm training deer ponies here and have a video up of one pony (since sold and carrying deer) showing him having a deer skin thrown over his back for the first time (don't try that at home!), then letting it slide off and fall to the ground after a couple of minutes. One stalker was very impressed with that as he said that letting a deer slide to the ground off the ponies back is the one thing most likely to spook them. As QofD has said, lots of gradual de-spooking on that would certainly help.

I suspect ground tieing is taught by tieing the horse to some immovable object at ground level, like a stake almost completely driven into the ground. You'd need several stakes at different locations as most animals are very "location conscious", if that makes sense. I've done this with working dogs to teach them to remain at the down without moving when I walk off or go out of sight and it works for them so can't see why it would not work with horses.

Combine the two things and you have a horse that stays close when you come off (hopefully!:D).
 
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