[MelantheLLC]

honestly? find a good trainer to put a solid 30 or 60 days on him.

these kinds of horses need firm leaders and clear concise direction.

as for cookie training.... be very very careful how you reward - while you think you are rewarding for forward, your horse is thinking you are rewarding for stopping.... i have a food motivated pony and found that that is a very dangerous road to travel.

OP good luck.

Good point. The way to address this when using positive reinforcement is to use a bridge signal.

You can make the same sort of mistake with pressure/release training, by NOT releasing the pressure at the moment the horse does the right thing. And that's how you train a horse to react like the OP's.

[ThreeFigs]

OP, I think you're on the right track!

Just be certain that you aim for 1000% response to your leg aids.

[leilatigress]

We have one of these, though he's not a green bean and has been around the block enough to know the tricks. He really is kick quiet and will not tolerate nagging. He goes his speed in his time and only with correct aids. We call him schoolmaster and he's fantastic for the lesson program. He can and will give a pro a run for their money though, his movement is amazing! His attitude keeps him limited to the lesson program though which he's happy in.

[morpheous]

no i didnt start riding the minute he came home i gave him 2 months off and then lunged for about a month just lightly at first and built it up to where i could ride him and now we are at ride 13 though that has been over about a month due to rain.i may notbe maki.g mysrlf as clear as i shouldor maybe people r reading what they want into my words. anyway thanks for all the suggestions.

[alto]

I'm a lazy typer so didn't want to suggest what you've already done

[EqTrainer]

Horses aren't crooked because they lazy. They're crooked because they are horses, lol.

It is not reasonable to think that a horse with only 60 rides over the course of a couple of years has the strength to be straight.

Right now the issue is forward from driving aids (not spurs, spurs are for lateral work). For a green horse driving aids are legs (and voice if you have used that in your ground schooling). You must allow the horse to move off the legs and establish some balance before you think about straightness.

This. But I would teach the response to the voice from the ground.

[morpheous]

Eq Trainer, yes I have been using the voice commands that he has learn t through our lunging sessions and they are help with the transitions, he is mainly crooked in the walk, but that is to be expected as there is not as much fwd momentum in the walk so he has the opportunity to be bendy :-)

Once I do have him fwd in the trot his straightness improves as it would, canter is still very much a work in a long process as he hasn't the fitness yet to maintain it for very long, so I mainly concentrate on getting the transition when asked, adopt a fwd jumping type seat and ask him to maintain the canter for as long as he is capable.

LOL to Alto..... my horse and are a bit like peas in a pod really, as I have not been riding much for the last 10 years or so, but he has a good soul and a kind heart so we will get there eventually, I just don't want to turn him into a horse that is being nagged (hence why I got myself videod riding him the other day) it enabled me to clearer see what I needed to change in myself and why I was having issues, all my fault of course.

onward and upward from here.

cheers

[nhwr]

reading your responses, OP. I have a couple of other thoughts.

1) The solution when a horse gets narky about your leg being somewhere is not to reposition your leg. In order for the horse to go forward from your leg, the horse must accept your leg. Being narky = not accepting your leg.

2) It sounds like what you might be describing a lateral walk, not a crooked walk. These 2 issues are a bit different. If the walk is lateral, forward isn't necessarily your friend.