Warmup woes

m1187604

m1187604

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Can I please get some advise on warmup situations
I have a horse who is loosing confidence in warmup situations and as a result so am I
Had a bad fall after she kicked out At another horse at last competition
No reason as she has had no bad experience as ive had her from birth
 
What do you think she's losing confidence about?

I have one that has been crashed into a couple of times (not fully making contact but she obviously thought she was about to get mown down) and she completely lost her bottle about any horse coming towards her. I made a point of riding her in shared arenas but in a more organised environment - e.g. group lessons where the instructor knew about the issue and could help engineer ways to practice passing other horses, and at my trainers where there is often at least one other horse using the arena but you can ask the rider to give you extra space. That helped me to show her that it was OK again and gradually her confidence in the warm up arena came back.
 
I rode a mare who even at home would take exception to anything she deemed too close and basically go on the attack! I managed to get her to trust me to keep her safe by basically manouvering so we were never reliant on the other rider's judgment about how much space to allow - so obviously left to left I would give lots of space or pull a circle or turn to allow the other rider the track.
We never went in a warm up though as frankly she'd have been dangerous
 
She will be aggressive towards any horse that gets too close to her which I’m guessing is stemming from lack of confidence in her part. I try my best to stay out of others way in the warmup but this isn’t always possible and like u say if a horse is cantering towards her she looses her bottle and can try and spin.
 
m1187604 said:
Group lessons sound like a good plan. I need to learn to trust her again too though because I feel like I’ve lost my nerve now too
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I think that's a good observation to have made, when the horse has got a bit worried you need to be the confident one to take decisive action so that she doesn't end up in a situation where she feels vulnerable and like she needs to defend herself. Either by changing your course, giving her something to think about so she isn't fixated on the other horse or simply just giving her positive forward thinking vibes so she stays confident and happy.

I would take a step away from competition and get some clinics or lessons organised so you can both build up your trust in each other to keep each other safe, and only go back to test that trust when you feel like it's solid in other situations.
 
My previous horse was not good in a warm up but I asked a confident rider to ride him for me and it was clear that with confident riding he could cope. Unfortunately I was very nervous of riding in warm ups having had a bad experience with him and I never got through it. I also took him to places where we could ride in company but in more controlled situations but tbh I knew I was feeding his anxiety because I was nervous. So to my mind that's the first thing to tackle. I had a trainer who worked on "control", eg having him properly on the bit and through, being able to put his neck where I wanted it, that he moved sharply off my leg when asked etc. It was a bit of a relevation as I realised that I'd always been a bit of a passenger which was fine mostly but not in tricky situations when I needed to have him listening to me rather than doing his own thing! Looking around I now also know that lots of quite competent riders don't really have control either.
 
One of mine went through a period of being terrified in warmups. He got bitten on the bottom by a horse during a group lesson and from then just became terrified. He would leg it if horses got too close behind or were coming towards him. He wasn't aggressive, but just blindly panicking.

I started with a semi private lesson with my friend, and she would stand as I did 20, 15 and 10m circles around her. Then we would ride towards each other with big gaps, then reducing the gaps, introducing the canter etc. Then I moved to group lessons with everyone warned to keep their distance until we were ready, and then started passing other horses, having them cantering around us etc. Then we went back out competing. It was a fairly slow process but we have no problems now.

I must confess, I hate working ins at the best of times. That probably didn't help speed up the therapy process!
 
m1187604 said:
Can I please get some advise on warmup situations
I have a horse who is loosing confidence in warmup situations and as a result so am I
Had a bad fall after she kicked out At another horse at last competition
No reason as she has had no bad experience as ive had her from birth
Click to expand...

I know from my own experience that some venues lack decent collecting ring stewards, its horrible when horses are stood inside a small collecting ring with red ribbons in their tails only 6ft away from a wing of a practice fence and you have to negotiate not just their range of kicking distance but other horses at the same time to canter past. Other people are hand walking horses around, it can make for a dangerous situation.

There is no wonder a lot of horses will lose confidence in this situation, if you are using teenagers to act as collecting ring stewards (some of them are liveries on the yard attached to the showground) then they should have the the knowledge and ability to predict a potential dangerous situation and the authority do something about it.

A good collecting ring steward is aquainted with the rules of the collecting ring, he is constantly assessing the situation and checking for safety.
My own horse used to keep spinning around in the holding area whilst waiting to go into the main arena but once in there would be fine.
 
I had a horse who did this early on, he would try to kick others but I just made sure I really thought about the warm ups - only took him to big warm up arena's where I could give plenty of space and did lots of group lessons which helped a lot I think. He soon got the idea and never kicked out again after that. It was a worry thing with him.
 
DressageCob said:
I must confess, I hate working ins at the best of times. That probably didn't help speed up the therapy process!
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I wasn't so bad at jumping warm up rings because most of the time you are all going in the same direction. I feel totally lost riding in a menage situation at home when there is more than one horse anywhere near me, I hate it and spend my time apologising for being in the way.
 
I think the thing about a shared flatwork arena is it depends on people confidently picking a line and holding it. only then does it become predictable. if you're wobbling around dodging people at the last minute it becomes hard for everyone. Following arena conventions (left to left, walk and halt off the track etc) and then confident riding so people know where you are all going is the secret, I think.
 
Advice I have recently read from a very well respected trainer. Spend most of your warm up in walk. LY SI medium, free, collected. Then a few walk trot transitions and a quick canter each way. The idea is to warm up, not school. Keeps the horse relaxed rather than razzing round warm up
 
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