Young horsey

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hairymolly

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My young horse is either a bit behind my leg or very sharp. She normally starts off on her toes then she settles but tends to back off your leg a bit, when I chase her a bit she goes to the other extreme and gets very sharp. Now when I say I chase her I either give her a wee kick, growl or pick up a stick(never had to use it) I dont batter her or anything. Is this normal green horse behaviour? How can I get her to listen to my leg without hotting up?
 
i think its her going OK FAST! ok tired/fed up of rushing, so gonna drop, then when you encourage her her brain goes OOO FAST AGAIN! gotcha!
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maybe try more vocal commands like "pick it up" in a slightly higher pitch than normal....... or something like that, it might just waken her up without majorly egging her on!
 
Young horses have to LEARN the aids, and develop the strength and balance to enable them to obey the aids. She is 'getting very sharp' because she is getting anxious and doesn't understand what you want.

Slow down, take it quietly - one step at a time. Stop as SOON as she does something right - and before she feels tired.

You don't say how old she is - or how long she has been under saddle. These are vital bits of information before we can give more meaningful advice.
 
I agree. I have had the exact same problem this evening. Started off sharp and running away from the leg, then got tired and very slow off the leg. I figured I'd overdone it and quit while I was ahead.

I've started to introduce some leg yielding from the 3/4 line to the track and in spiraling circles to get him used to the leg and to move into the outside hand. This had been working a treat until tonight. His rhythm is definately much improved as a result, but beware getting so involved in what you're doing you go on and on. Well I have to beware anyway and find if I don't it results in the behaviour you're describing.

Much better to keep it short and sweet with babies and if things don't go great -just put it down to one of those nights and come back to it another day.
 
Thanks folks, seems to be a reasonably commom problem with younger horses. Said horse is five, had her a year, was just backed when I got her but due to me having an arm injury she has been out of work up until about four months ago. She can get very tense and is reasonably willing to please so the confused idea sounds likely. I quite like to keep her quiet and listening to me rather than charging round the school but someone at yard commented that I was teaching her to be lazy and that I had to get her going FORWARD!!!! Now my issue with that is that her brain tends to pop and she stops listening/cant hear me anymore. maybe I should ignore the person who is not sitting on her and has never sat on her and carry on doing my own thing.

I will try the very scary (well for Jackson anyway,bless him) kissy noises. WHy, why, why did we buy baby horses?
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