Riding wise - he's very good on the ground!
she’s still funny about new venues/arenas, but rather than spooking the whole hour she needs 5/10 minutes before she’ll crack on and get over it. i just took her out in hand to the quiet section of the roadworks and rewarded her everytime she sniffed them or touched them with her nose,,,we’ve done a bit of that, and if there’s anything that looks a bit suspicious it now gets quite a thorough boop!
That being said, we did a lot of confidence work before we figured that out that still helped a lot, just obvs couldn't fully solve things. And making her more physically comfortable didn't solve all the anxiety either, just quite a lot of it! Booping new things is one of ours too! Keeping things under threshold, knowing where her threshold was that day as it is always changing, having easy things to do to distract from hard things. Lots of rewards. With hacking (and with some school work) I do think it helped that I will always hop off or stop rather than have her go over threshold. No progress or achievement is worth having her panic or have to yell at me that she isn't coping. It's not perfect, doesn't stop a sheep hiding in a hedge suddenly going BAA in your face and causing an incident, but it's a good goal to have I think. Someone did suggest the titanium mask for her, it would have looked very funny on a fluffy little cob with hair poking out everywhere, but never got round to trying it.
Rather than " rewarding" the behaviour, you're saying, " It's ok, we've got this ", surely? As things progress, you can literally, gradually, change the reassurance to, " It's fine, lets get on with it", as soon as you feel any hesitation. As others have said, loads of groundwork, getting off to help reassure, all work towards getting a more confident horse. What does your trainer recommend instead?
Basically jumping straight to the "it's fine, let's get on with it" step - just asking him to carry on with his task and if necessary go back to a task he's really familiar and confident with. I guess it could involve getting off and working from the ground, as long as you're setting the example of not acknowledging the scary thing.
My horse sounds exactly like this! Very noise sensitive if he can hear things but not see them and can be worse in a super quiet arena for example as he's listening for every single noise! I do find it hard to relax when he feels like a coiled spring ready to explode though! Any rememdies for this as often he tenses and I get tense!!My mare is not generally a big problem but she is by far our stressiest, and very noise sensitive. She took a long time to settle into herself when I backed her and is only now getting really confident and reliable in most cases after 4-5 years. I've spent a long time slowly working with her in different environments so she learns what to do with all her energy and big feelings. The more new things she saw, heard and felt that failed to kill her, the smaller her reactions got. She is genuinely very good most of the time now and has done some massive scary events. The trick to handling and riding her is that only one of you can freak out at once and it is NEVER YOUR TURN.
Sounds are still her worst thing, especially if she doesn't know what they are. However, she wants to be with people and tries her best, and now I've had her long enough to know where her boundaries are and what the worst things she'll do are, it's WAY easier to just sit there calmly while she's feeling like a boiling pot under me because I know full well she'll get past it, and be fine in the end.
She's out 24/7, on low energy feed and exercised plenty, which i'm sure helps matters.
I think the issue with their method is that it is literally like trusting a cyclist when they wave you by them on a blind bend - you wouldn't put your life in the hands of someone you don't know, so why should the horse? You need to establish the basic trust , that bottom line of being utterly reliable. The horse needs to be able to go over an investigate the thing that's causing the anxiety, how else will they learn? But I agree with the previous comments, I think this horse has pain issue(s)
Definately not a coield spring to ride every time - most days he's absolutely fine. He's had everything checked, has regular physio x rays etc. He didn't have a good start in life so has always known to be anxious. He's very noise sensitive. get him to an arena or a new place and goes into panic mode.
Ooh this is interesting - how do you do this?
Yes mine is much worse indoors than outdoors as she can't see what's causing the noise. If she can tell what it is, almost doesn't matter WHAT it is and how loud, although a hoover on a balcony at a dressage comp this year was pretty worrying for her
strange isn't it.
It’s not the cheapest option but if it helps it’ll be worth it for me. You order a test and send it off - a bit like a worm count. It takes longer, as they run a DNA (or might be RNA, some kind of NA
) profile of all the microbes in the horses gut and what the levels are as a percentage. This is such good advise - thank you! So yes I get what you mean - we've had some pretty hairy hacks but got home (by hook or by crook) but when he's flipped in an arena he's totally gone into fright mode and I've hit the deck a few times as he leaps, bucks and then spins on a sixpence and stands and shakes so I don't have much chance! It happened last week at a clinic when he was sooo tense for the session anyway and knocked a raised pole and totally panicked and did exactly this and the instructor said "wow he's got a very quick flight mode hasn't he" Until people see it for themselves they don't always believe what he can be like! Equally we've done a few clinics now where it's goen really well! He just winds himself up and It's like riding a piece of cardboard!Yes mine is much worse indoors than outdoors as she can't see what's causing the noise. If she can tell what it is, almost doesn't matter WHAT it is and how loud, although a hoover on a balcony at a dressage comp this year was pretty worrying for her
As far as relaxing while riding goes? Well, that really is the hardest part and I don't have many good suggestions. Other than make sure you're breathing (chatting or singing helps) and do your best to keep muscles relaxed although I do know this is far easier said than done!
If I feel myself tensing up I try to take a deep breath and then when I exhale feel like I'm dropping all the tension out through the bottom of my feet. Hard to explain and I do get wound up sometimes anyway but it helps.
I also weirdly find that rides where things go a bit wrong but no one dies really boost my confidence. I had a sudden fall off a young training livery earlier this year which made me very nervous on my own youngster despite her being a completely seperate horse who'd never shown a single sign of the same behaviour. A few weeks ago I had a hack on her where traffic was crazy and cows were jumping out of bushes and her hacking companions were being prats and it actually made me feel much better
My stressy mare I've had long enough and done enough different things with that I can stay reasonably confident that even if she's being a bit wired right this second probably we'll get out of it okay because we always have so far. (Touch wood) I'm still not afraid to jump off and walk for a bit if I think it'll relieve tension for both of us though of course this isn't always suitable.
sorry should have quoted this post above....doh
I also had one I used to dread having to get on - eventually turned out to have ECVM and PSSM ...there's got to be a reason these horses react at the flick of a switch, and I regret all the time I spent not listening to the horse ( who has spent the last decade mowing the grass, listening to people tell me I should be riding her)
My new forest would stand on a carrot while eating it so it didnt move and scare her.