Young horse copied friends napping one! Help needed please

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Myhorseeatsmoney

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My young horse has been hacking out alone and with others for a couple of months now gradually building his confidence. We repeat the same short route a couple of times and then try another one. Longer hacks are always taken with other horses.

Several days ago we hacked out with a friend who has a horse that can be silly around haylage bales. Mine usually takes absolutely no notice. But this particular day her horse played up at some haylage bales at the end of a lane so mine did the same. We got past so I thought no more about it. Then yesterday I rode out with someone who's horse had been on box rest so she needed a sensible companion (usually mine) and my horse seriously napped, rearing, spinning, backing up. Even when the other horse was led past mine was still reluctant to go. I was not nervous just encouraging by not letting him back away I just kept turning him, talking to him and he did get a wallop when he reared. Eventually we were also led past.

This is so totally out of charachter for him so please make some suggestions.
 
Longline him past them. (Hat and grippy gloves a must) and be ready for a spin, chances are he will always spin the same way so don't let him and send him forward with the lines.
 
Are the bales being used?

I ask this as my helper is riding out a young pony every few days and she is usually OK with the bales of haylage. But the other day she stopped near the stack and looked...and looked...and looked.

When the girl got back she asked if I'd used any of the haylage. I said "Yes". She then replied that that accounted for the pony's behaviour. Apparently, the fact that one bale was missing (out of 40!) was enough to cause the pony to be suspicious!

The girl made no big deal about it and when the pony had had time to satisfy herself that there were no lions amongst the bales, she walked on quite happily -- so a lesson learned! I definitely would not have approved if she'd given her a smack as that would merely have confirmed to the pony that there was something to fear amongst the bales that was able to zap her at long range! She'd have associated the shock of the blow with the suspicion that there was something odd about the bales.

Yes, I know your horse got a smack for rearing, but does he know that? And if not, how do you explain the subtle difference to a horse?

Then, proceed as FF has said. Repeat, repeat, repeat -- to convince the horse that there is no harm in the bales. But go easy on the force, take plenty of time, and think about what is going on in the horse's head rather than your own.
 
Shy copied another pony that constantly shied at those boulder things you get around farmland - if he saw one in canter he'd swerve and I had to hang on for dear life. The other rider was pretty useless and let her horse do it.

Tbh, I stopped riding with her, and sometimes Shy will stare at these bloomin rocks in horror, but he goes past no problem.
 
My old pony used to spook at the grates that cover the drains at the side of the road and consequently taught 2 of our hacking buddies to do the same :rolleyes: I tried everything but he was convinced there were monsters down there. Luckily the other 2 snapped out of it when I got Kenny who couldn't care less about them.
 
Or try a different approach.

As your horse is young, take him to see the bales (either on foot on on board), praise him for smelling them and let him investigate them from all sides, hopefully then your horse will realise they are not horse eating monsters, just bales. It will also hopefully build up his trust in you when you tell him something is OK, it is and he doesn't need to worry (other horse told him to worry about bales!!).

I also think the grass is coming through slowly as my horses are a little bit more on their toes and it is just that time of year when they start to get a spring in their step.
 
Thanks for the advice!

I decided to give him practice at going out alone so we did a very short loop which was literally around the yard. Our yard is situated in a big loop of the road so we can ride out of the back gate on to the bridle path and either go left to stay on the bridle path or right past the stud and then on to the road then back along the drive and into the front gate of the yard.

I wanted to go past the stud but from the other direction so we walked down the drive with my boy puffing snorting, trying to spook so I just talked to him and gave him a slightly looser rein to calm him down and it worked till we got to the end of the drive and on to the road. He tried taking off along the road but I thought that trotting would get rid of his adrenaline so managed to keep him at a steady trot, I made sure that I did not tense up as we approached the stud. He did not nap at all just went straight past in trot until we went around a corner and then we walked the rest of the way back and I made a huge fuss of him.

Yesterday we went the same way again and he was much more relaxed so today we will repeat it again and then tomorrow we will try it in the opposite direction and I hope he will have for gotten about napping.
 
Myhorseeatsmoney said:
My young horse has been hacking out alone and with others for a couple of months now gradually building his confidence. We repeat the same short route a couple of times and then try another one. Longer hacks are always taken with other horses.

Several days ago we hacked out with a friend who has a horse that can be silly around haylage bales. Mine usually takes absolutely no notice. But this particular day her horse played up at some haylage bales at the end of a lane so mine did the same. We got past so I thought no more about it. Then yesterday I rode out with someone who's horse had been on box rest so she needed a sensible companion (usually mine) and my horse seriously napped, rearing, spinning, backing up. Even when the other horse was led past mine was still reluctant to go. I was not nervous just encouraging by not letting him back away I just kept turning him, talking to him and he did get a wallop when he reared. Eventually we were also led past.

This is so totally out of charachter for him so please make some suggestions.
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I hacked out my horse Saturday morning at half seven when the roads were quiet. Going down the lane where the piglets ran across the lane 18 months ago is a total nightmare (horse has serious pig problem). He stops, plants, you cannot physically move him to the left or the right. The only thing you can do is go backwards. So we always walk backwards past anything too scary to walk past forwards. It doesn't matter, it gets the job done. Reverse psychology if you pardon the pun!

Clever horse has got wise to this. So walks backwards up the verge. Threatens to go into the hedge. So I let him. Just pricks himself on his backside with the bare stalks and brambles. Doesn't worry me, its him that's getting the pain, not me, he is doing it to himself. Eventually he gets bored of this. Not getting him anywhere.

So we turn round. So long as we trot past the scary thing (whatever the object of his fear) we are fine. Can't walk, have to run. Fine by me. Go the speed you want. You are going forwards after all, I'm not going to argue!

Just try it with your mare. It works. Just don't pull back too hard whilst using your legs or she could go up. Don't wallop, you are just reinforcing the fear. Don't baby too much either, again this reinforces the fear. Just pat.
 
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Not really sure what you can do, your horse is still at a young impressionable age so is very likely to copy another horses behavioanimism out hacking, only thing you can do is either make sure you only go with a sensible horse or go it alone until your horse becomes unflabble in all given situations even if the next horse isn't, otherwise your undoing a lot of hard work.
 
Knobberpony used to have a fear of wrapped silage bales,when my daughters were riding her,I'd have to put myself between them and her and lead her past.[I later found out that there were pigs behind the silage bales,which explains a lot].

However,I was thinking today,about how to cure our new pony's fear of cyclists,when I realised that we no longer had any bother from Knobberpony re the silage bales.I don't know when she stopped needing to be led past,but I can't remember the last time we had a problem.We hack past them 4-5 times a week,so she must have eventually realised that they are harmless.She is 23 so you can teach an old pony new tricks.:)
 
FfionWinnie said:
Longline him past them. (Hat and grippy gloves a must) and be ready for a spin, chances are he will always spin the same way so don't let him and send him forward with the lines.
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Definitely this - I have a nappy mare and long-reining her on the roads has worked well for her as I can drive her past whatever it is that she is napping at - As FW says - they always tend to spin the same way - mine always goes right, so I learned to be a bit more wise to it.
 
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