Running away with the rider

[marinewife91]

Hi, I have only posted here a couple of times but I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for me .
Just to preface, I have a 6 year old Appaloosa that i bought in January. He was green broke western and used occasionally for trails, but mostly was a pasture oradement. I plan on doing lover level eventing with him. I have a trainer I am working with and take lessons 2-3 times a month.

Its only happened twice, but I am sure when I say that its very unsettling, everyone can relate to the feeling. I ride in a loose ring snaffle and my trainer is having me work on being soft.... last lesson was all about walk trot canter trot walk transitions being as soft as possible. When I canter, and he is relaxed and listening to me I say Whoa and he will literally stop on a dime.

I ride in a large arena, at the end of the pasture, but I am able to keep the other horses out by closing the gate. For some reason, they like to "horse" around from time to time. They will get all spooled up and start racing around. First time it happened , I was asking for a "big" trot and my Horse turned that into a fast canter ( not an out of control gallop)which I was neither able to turn him or stop him. I had to use the fence, praying he wasn't going to jump it! LOL!

Its happened before but I have noticed them getting amped up so I am on the ball making my horse pay attention to me, not them. ( his is mentally immature with the whole riding thing).

Yesterday it happened again. I was jumping crossrails at the canter, on a circle, and when I came around the bend, guess what I saw? all the horse running around full bort. My horse saw it too. I immediately attempted to stop him, but he was not going to stop ( or turn) before the cross rail so we FLEW over that. I DID get him to whoa, about 40 ft infront of the arena fence, so that was at least better then last time where I couldn't stop at all and had to use the fence, but still it leaves you feeling so out of control. And I had to really haul on him to get him to stop.

I immediately went into "listening" exersices my trainer has me do and things were fine after that. He really is a mellow horse. The kicker is, when he is out in the pasture and they run around, he might trot. That's it! I had to chase the other horses out of the arena before the ride, and 2 of them took of galloping he trotted 5 steps and proceeded to walk!

Right about now I want to throttle the lead mare( who is the only mare) that spools the other horses up, but on the other hand , I am glad for the distraction. I am embarrassed to tell or ask my trainer but I am thinking about riding in a stronger bit .

And wouldn't you know it went from 80* and humid to 38* and rain over night so I can't even get out there and ride today to put a GOOD ride under my belt!

Suggestions?

[City Ponies]

First of all, RELAX!! I think anyone who's been on a horse has dealt with this. You are taking all the right steps on keeping him focused, not letting him get away with it, and it sounds like even with the second go-round he's gotten better.

Unfortunately, he's 6 and he's green, two things that are working against you. Couple that in with you anticipating the bolt now, and he gets a little more antsy. Obviously he's got a good head on his shoulders, is there anyway you can take a day and just condition this out of him? Have a friend come over and rile up the other horses, but make sure he's standing and watching first, let him realize when they run out there it's just their normal stupidity, he's not alarmed by it. Proceed with your exercises and then in the middle of a trot have the friend do it again, and be prepared to be firm. Usually a growling voice will snap them out of the "huhs?"

Don't worry, it never really goes away for most horses, most won't bolt, but they'll always look to check out what their buddies are doing. A funny thing, my normally bombproof lazy-arse mare will not give a rats behind what goes on in the world when she's munching on grass/hay/food etc. Except when I take her pasturemate into the roundpen for training, then she gets riled up and has to watch the entire session from the field, and throw bucking fits that she's not in the roundpen (and she loathes it). I found out when Reno was 2 (his second time undersaddle) that no matter what Indy did over there was irrelevant to him when he had a job to do. He now returns the favor when I ride her along the pasture line, trying to do everything he can to wound her up, she just gets mad at him. Yet, when I take one of them to a show or long trail ride they are fine, I think their just fighting for my attention :)

[findeight]

Turn out or a good lunge before riding. He may just need to uncork a few once in awhile and the loose horses kick it off.

They are herd animals and react as the group does-unless they are tired. And if you are anywhere near me with that 30f degree temp drop in the last 6 hours and wicked north wind? I'd get the edge off him a bit before I got on today.

Try to keep this from happening again. They learn quick and if he figures out it scares you a little, he can turn it into a game. Let him play first, then get on.

[marinewife91]

LOL i know I need to relax! I am a worrier and a perfectionist, and after venting I feel better about it all. I know that I just need to work more on the listening, he is very much a "baby" still.

i know you won't believe this, but I lunge him before riding, and its nearly impossible to keep him moving out, much less canter. Occasionally he will canter well, the last time being I had 2 days off from riding and he just came out of this stall and it was about 20* cooler then what it had been. Normally when I ask for a canter, I have to "gallop" along with him in a circle, really enchoraging him with the whip! Its pathetic! I think it might be an evasion thing, so hopefully but working him well after he does this will also help improve the behavior.

I am in Texas, and its raining today.... its doubtful I will ride in the rain, because its 38* out. I am thinking about it though.....

[Beverley]

Ah, well, here's the upside. You are in an arena and you have a great opportunity to get your horse to understand that whatever happens outside that arena is not for him to react to!

Next time he gets into canter mode- fine, settle in for a nice long canter. Around and around the arena you go. And when he wants to slow down/ stop, you keep going for another 5 minutes. Don't even think about asking for a stop when he is in full reaction mode- the message from you to him is, ooh, you want to canter, we'll canter a lonnnngggg time, you'll get more than you bargained for. And then, several minutes after he has cried uncle, you ask for, and get, a lovely, soft stop. I don't expect you'll need to do this more than 2 or 3 times before it's clear to the horse that when he canters on his own he's going to get more work than he bargained for.

Another technique to think about is- even way before a canter breaks out, when you perceive that he is paying attention to other horses instead of you- get after him, gently but firmly, do a few tight circles in either direction until you perceive that yes, he's focusing on you as he should be.

I often ride next to, or in, fields of loose and frolicking horses. At the first inkling that the horse I'm riding is fixating on what his/her buddies are going to do, I convey a 'gee, I empathize, but you have to pay attention to ME right now' message, sternly.

[saje]

While you do want to be soft and forgiving in your normal riding, there are times when it's ok to be truly ferocious if you have to. Think of it this way - if you weren't in the ring and he was headed for the highway full of speeding trucks, you'd just about knock his teeth out to get him turned or stopped, right? Even though you're in the ring, you're right that it's habit you want to nip, and the sooner the better.

When he starts getting amped up, do indeed do as many attention-getting exercises as you can think of. Lots of halts, lots of turns. What happens if you stop him altogeher and make him stand and watch the other horses be stupid? Will he stand and watch?

If he takes off with you, do whatever it takes to get his attention back on you. Usually it takes a very sharp jerk or two (or three or four) on one rein only to remind them that there's someone up there. Snap the rein up high, up towards your ear, to put the bit in an unusual spot in his mouth, and really plan to yank his teeth out. It sounds cruel, but a one second bash in the mouth beats running through the fence with you. Plant the free hand on his neck, or stand in your stirrups for leverage. Definitely brace your feet out in front of you as that will help you in any swerves or sudden stops.

This is definitely a greenie issue, but he has to learn pronto that no matter how exciting or scary the outside world is, he MUST listen to you first. He should learn pretty quickly that trying that stunt isn't all that much fun, and the problem should go away as he gets more mileage. And summer's heat should help too :)

[magnolia73]

Also, when the mares get amped up and you feel like a canter or jump might lead to an issue, there is nothing wrong with working 10m circles or transitions. Go to a point where you feel in control and make it work. I had my mare at a crazy barn and when someone crazy was doing something, I'd keep one eye on it and when I felt attention waning on my horse's behalf, I'd do a transition or a 10 m circle. "Ride the ears" was advice I got- when they prick and you feel that head move, time to make a request for something new.

You probably will have times when they do something stupid. After you get them back under control, back to work. Like sage says, get a little mad when they are being a cow. Make it unpleasant to bolt and not stop. But the hard part is becoming soft right after that. So you take it back to the level where you can ride soft. It might mean abandoning jumping for the day and doing walk halt transitions.

FWIW, it is sometimes impossible to get anything out of my mare on a longe line. She kind of warms up into naughtiness. :lol: I have gotten on, warmed up, had her be a silly, then put her on the longe line and watched her buck, rear and play and then get it out and get back on.

It seems like the best way is to be flexible with your expectations of work, but never just let them get out of work if they are being silly.

[Gloria]

All I can say is, use your "listening" exercises "before" he gets out of control. In this situation, timing is soooo important. If you are one second late, you are history. The moment his attentions leaves you, get his attention back. Now this sounds easy but believe me, it isn't. And try to relax..

[Guilherme]

The purpose of any bit is to communicate. Do we have a failure to communicate? If so then perhaps we need to review use of the bit or type of bit. Before I "upped the ante" in power I'd ensure that I was using the current bit effectively. If I am and still have the problem then moving up in power is perfectly OK.

What the OP has is a very green horse. Very green horses do very green horse things, and that includes ignoring the rider when they don't feel like complying. Lunging before a lesson might help (not because it gets the horse tired, but because it helps focus them to the fact that it's now work time, not play time).

If the OP has the skill to stay with the horse in one of these episodes then she should continue to do so and up the lesson time to improve her communication skills. If not then some professional help might be needed. If the OP has had two incidents she's about one away from the horse forming a very bad habit. This really needs to be brought under control or serious injury could result.

Good luck to her in whatever she does.

G.

[smilton]

Had a similar experience yesterday but he has only been off the track a week and instead of a cross rail we did a 2-6 vertical (unintentional but I didn't want to make a habit of stopping him in front of a jump.) into a controlled gallop. He put his head between his knees and golly it was hard getting his head up. Luckily he is a very very good boy he just got a little excited or he would have tossed me over his head when I was trying to pull him up. Green horses will do green things. I had him in a french link and he has a very soft mouth. He collects fine with it but he is green. I'm not going to move to something harsher.
I was straightening out from doing small figure 8's a trot and had no intention of jumping or cantering yet.

[Ambrey]

I think that Clinton Anderson says that repetition is the way to replace instinct with training.

[ReSomething]

I'd say that you did well enough, he did stop the second time and sooner than the time before. Your problem is that you aren't paying any attention to the other horses and he is, so you have to be one step ahead of him all the time, which can be really hard. Especially if you are trying to stay relaxed.

I ride ASB's now, and if they go hare-ing off, which they do, I am expected to ride the gait as if I asked for it, show it off and then continue working at my previous gait once the horse figures out everything is fine.
It's been rather an interesting mindset change, even though I used it in other disciplines (but always in a negative way, stop doing that, Ok now where were we) and does change the dynamic from fear "ahhhh he's running away I must STOP him" to gosh, really a form of patience, "OK get this done, pay attention to me and we'll go back to that nice trot and KEEP WORKING" .

Eh. I don't know if that all made sense, but you say he is green, keep working with your trainer, keep using your attention focussing exercises and welcome these moments as opportunities to school through it. Keep moving, keep working, just redirect that energy the way you want it to go.

[marinewife91]

Once of the reasons I lunge is to get his focus on me. While lunging, I don't just ask him to canter canter canter.... I ask him to have nice walk trot canter transitions up and down, and to "push" at the trot and canter as well.

I did suck it up and went out this morning and rode. He was rearing to go, since the BO kept the horses in due to the temp and the rain. It had stopped by the time I got there. I lunged him and he cantered away very nicely , and I had him canter till he was good and cantered out. It was 38* so there was some nose blowing going on. I got on as it began to rain and worked for 20 mins on walk trot walk transitions in a circle. It was good for me to get out there. It felt like a positive learning experience since it was so cold out and wet , and he was doing alot of looking. I was able to redirect his attention and focus.

I do try to pay attention to what's going on around me, the first time I had no idea he would react that way... my bad. The second time I was cantering AWAY from the herd, and it was a relaxed canter until we made the turn and I saw the shenanagins, and were cantering toward said shenanagins! Since he was in the non listening mode, Once I got him to stop, I immediately went into the "listening exersices", and even went back over the jumps at a nice relaxed trot.
The herd does this almost every time I ride. The arena is "part" of the pasture, so someone always gets pissed that they can't come in when I ride or have been chased out. I normally catch his attention before it becomes a problem.

thanks for all the suggestions :) The hard part for me is just relaxing, so I am not always just waiting for him to "not listen".

[MelantheLLC]

I'm working on similar behavior with my 6 yo.

One of the things my trainer and I have done is to go back to basics and make certain that we have turns and slowing down perfectly on a light rein aid.

So we do a lot of zig-zag lines and serpentines and slowing and lengthening. A LOT. When his head goes up and he gets looky, I just instantly ask for a turn with light aid (not just to move his head, but a turn with his feet) and as we turn I ask him to go forward and maintain his rhythm.

We also try to lengthen to just the point that he is "under" the next gait--just that tempo where the next stride could be an upward but it isn't. Lengthen to that for 5-6 strides, then slow to as slow as you can go w/o dropping down a gait, for 5-6 strides, repeat until he reacts to a very light rein aid.

He has really improved and is relaxing in places where he was initially very tense. He still wants to look but as long as I know that I can get the turn with the light rein aid, and I ask lightly, he will response obediently.

Then you do have to use the light aids any time you feel tension, and not start to hang or drag him around because you are worried. This can take some guts! Keep the contact steady, and go to a bolt stop if you have to, but don't hang.