My green gelding is a nice fellow, but he’s so distractable under saddle. He’ll be trotting along just fine and then he spots a bird/person/horse/car/dog/leaf/whatever, head goes up, attention is gone. In those moments, it’s like he forgets I’m there.
Anybody have advice for this sort of…er, truncated attention span?
P.S. This happens less when we’re jumping. He’s more focused then. It’s flatwork time when distraction is the worst.
P.P.S. I try NOT to do boring straight lines. I try to circle, serpentine, extend, collect, overbend, counterbend, etc to keep his mind busy. He still gets so distracted.
Is he reactive on the ground? Potentially some general desensitization might help if that’s the case. Or is does he only loose his attention when you’re riding him?
Yep. Plus add in some poles, so that he has to think about his feet AND his speed AND his direction. All at the same mind-blowing time.
This works a treat with my Constant Vigilance gelding (pronounced “Arab.”) We start with a walking tour of the arena, so that he can check out his surroundings, take notes on his neighbors, and assess the number of goblins in the corner. Then it’s time to work until I say he can relax again — but that break time ends the second I feel like he’s bored and looking to increase the entertainment value of our time together.
For a horse who’s green (rather than merely rusty), you obviously want to keep the work stints shorter and the questions easier. But you’re still trying to fill their head with concrete concepts so they have less room for nonsense.
I have a looky-loo and I am big into “make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy.” When he’s paying attention, we cruise around, do our serpentines, get our work done but keep it relaxed. If he gets distracted, I immediately do a small circle to the inside to get his attention back, or a small figure 8, or a small figure 8 with transitions, etc. If he gets BIG TIME distracted, I immediately halt and back up, then either return to how we were if his attention is back on me, or move into small circles, figure 8s, etc if he’s still staring at the dog in the driveway. He’s definitely starting to realize that life is easier when he keeps his attention on me, or at least inside the arena!
had one mare somewhat like that but it turned out she thought I was lost
We were on one of circle loop trails in the LBJ Grasslands, she kept turning to look at me… I let her have her head and off we went cross country through the trees directly to the parked truck/trailer… she gave me a look of Next Time you better keep track of where we are
I’ll second this. It’s two fold - the small circle requires quite a bit of inside bend which will naturally bring his head down. It also is an abrupt maneuver that requires some coordination on his part, so he will stop fixating on “the thing”.
Your OP made me think of this Warwick Schiller video on bringing the horse’s focus back to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCOO80nydGE&list=PLRanqnpaErQ5qp-4fNfsLLrqGz4KCoGNq&index=7. I’d watch the whole video, but about 12 minutes in is where he starts working with a horse who is fixating on something in the distance. Basically you pick up a rein when you lose the ears and release it when an ear flicks back to you. As you practice this more and more, it will take less and less of a cue for them to re-focus on you. I’ve been using it with my very green 4-year-old, whom I just started riding about a month ago. I worked on it in hand at first and it has translated pretty well under saddle. If his ears/attention lock on to something outside the arena, I can use a little contact on the inside rein to bring them back to me, and then I immediately release. I think it helps keep the distraction from escalating.
Distracted horses are horses who aren’t being really asked to mentally focus on their work, meaning the work isn’t requiring them to pay attention.
I wouldn’t resort to removing the distractions from him (ear plugs, blinders, etc), as that isn’t addressing the root issue, and he doesn’t seem to be acting out, he just starts losing focus on you.
I would ignore his distracted behavior and just ask him to come back to you, and increase the mental intensity of the work, even if it means shortening the ride because of being more taxing.
It’s a time and learning and training thing. Make sure YOU aren’t noticing those things and transmitting your attention to him. If you aren’t focused on him, he’s not going to be focused on you.
Also, even if you’re doing " circle, serpentine, extend, collect, overbend, counterbend, etc to keep his mind busy", if you’re waiting too long to move on to the next thing, it’s not requiring as much mental focus. Make quick transitions, and then increase the time between changing things up, depending on how well he’s focusing on you. It’s also up to you to watch his ears to gauge his attention, and if he’s never listening back on you, then you’ve let him tune you out and it’s time to ask for a change of direction/pace/gait/etc
I came here to basically type out the process shown in the video link.
I’ve been doing this work with my horse for two years ish now though with a big break in the middle while we moved.
I went all the way, so to speak, going back to riding on the buckle and only using one rein at a time. So glad I did too.
At any rate, if I so much as twitch like I’m gonna pick up on a rein, I’ve got an ear. It’s been incredible really. I can’t recommend this work enough.
Not a bandaid fix at all. Creates relaxation, focus, and learning to trust the rider’s input. The blinkers come off after a horse who was previously distracted and unfocused learns these things. A short term crutch, to help a horse and rider connect.
Removing sideways distractions may help the horse pay attention to the rider, because he doesn’t have sideways distractions. But that doesn’t remove distractions in front of him. And it doesn’t teach him how to focus despite distractions.
Many good trainers don’t want to start young horses in solid-sided round pens which “remove distractions”. They want things open, so the horse can see all those distractions and learn to ignore them.
It’s like people. You hear “manage your distractions” by turning off all notifications on your phone, or putting it in airplane mode, or closing the door, or going to a coffee shop instead of sitting at home where you might be tempted to do laundry instead of the “hard” work you really need to do. Those only remove those distractions, and sure, it absolutely helps, but they don’t keep you from people watching, or any number of other distractions.
It’s like taking a very distracted horse out of a very busy environment where there is everything under the sun going on, and into an environment where there are still things going on, but not as dramatically. And there are still birds and squirrels and barking dogs. That can help him focus a little more on the rider because there isn’t as much to focus on outside the rider.
The real work is in learning to focus - focus for 5 minutes, then take a break if you have to. Over time, 5 minutes becomes 10 becomes 20 and so on.
Blinkers are great for racehorses who don’t need to be distracted by a horse beside them or coming up behind them.
You are right, blinkers have shortcomings, and they don’t DO the teaching to focus and manage distractions. But they do help to build the trust the horse has in his rider WHEN a distraction happens, and for WHEN a distraction happens even after they have been removed. Because the horse has built up a dependence on his rider that he may not have had previously. Some horses are like that… early in their training. It may be due to ineffective training previous to riding, or it may just be “how that horse is”.
But rather than pulling and pounding on a horse, circling, making him work harder etc etc, for reacting to “distractions” without blinkers, allowing him to relax WITHOUT the distractions while being ridden can make a huge difference later, when the blinkers come off. For racehorses, OR riding horses with a problem like this. Or maybe they won’t… it’s a horse, there are no guarantees that any of our “tricks” of training will “work” with any individual… they are horses, after all. And each is an individual. But they are often “worth a try”, to see if they will help. The horse gets to experience “being ridden” without being distracted, or frightened by what he sees. He gets direction from his rider without experiencing stress, and he remains “safe”, because his rider is looking after him and keeping him “safe”. Horses like to feel “safe”, and the blinkers MAKE the horse trust his rider, rather than having him looking for “danger” without the blinkers. Thus, a horse who is distrustful, or “distracted” (from looking for danger which he thinks he’s got to do), gets a taste of trusting his rider, when previously, he was NOT trusting his rider because he was having to look after himself. Blinkers are worth a try, IMO.
My advice is to let him look, let him know you see it too. Then back to whatever you were working on. In addition, seek out things that are odd to his home-environment and either during a short ride or in-hand on a halter, encourage to meet them head on, investigate and don’t forget to turn his side and his rear toward whatever scary thing it happens to be. Try to build his ‘library’ of “things in this world that won’t hurt you”.
story: i bought a horse from a breeding farm who lived his first couple of years surrounded by horses and the comings and goings of just a few people. I left him there to grow up, and started green breaking him there. When he was four i moved him to Golden Gate Park stables and started riding him around the stable area, in the rings. One day i thought he was ready to start a foray into bridle trails and headed out to the paths. Unfortunately that day/that moment was Bay to Breakers footrace!! Oncoming was a teeming throng of humans…advancing and passing right before us!~. He was riveted. Like a statue. It was a win that he didn’t bolt off the opposite direction! Once the main group had passed (like 1o or 15 mins later) we proceeded along the path, not 20 feet from the joggers, but going the opposite direction…heading into them. (well not INTO-into them, but on the path which was to the side of the road they were on) Thinking about it later i suppose it was a cataclysmic revelation for him to discover that there were NOT more horses in the world than there were people. (which here-to-fore had not been his experience -breeding barn then stables) The lad turned out to be a magnificent park horse…beautiful, elegant and quite brave.
I appreciate your perspective and discussion on all this, I do!
IMHO if you’re pulling and pounding for a distracted moment, you’re doing it wrong. It’s not about making a horse work physically harder, not necessarily, it’s about asking him to do something that forces his attention back to what you’re asking, so he doesn’t become unbalanced. Change of direction, change of gait, that’s all. Yes, that is a bit harder work since it’s engaging more muscles, but it’s not like you’re going to goose him into a hand gallop all of a sudden, or crank him in to a “collected” canter.
IMHO there’s a difference between a horse who isn’t feeling safe, and one who simply isn’t as focused on you as he should be.
I don’t know that blinkers MAKE the horse trust his rider. Horses like to see what they hear so they can figure out if it’s something to be alarmed about.
My horses get distracted by a cat walking across the ring, or the back neighbor letting their dog out, it’s movement they automatically look at if I’m not doing my job of asking them to stay focused on me.
Sure, it’s worth a try. It doesn’t teach the rider anything, which is usually the biggest part of any training issue, so that’s something the rider needs to be aware of every minute of every ride when asking the horse to work.
There may absolutely be times when you are on a loose rein and simply asking the horse to walk, or trot, or canter, without any direction at all. That’s SUCH good work for every horse to learn to be “on his own”. He can w/t/c anywhere in the ring or pasture he wants, as long as he sticks to the gait and pace you asked for. He can look left and right, he can stay at one end, or go all over, but he can’t change gait or pace, until you ask. It’s a GREAT confidence builder for the horse, and even for the rider.
Think of it this way… consider the relationship… the bond… between a seeing eye dog, and a blind person. The trust that forms when one is dependent on the other. With a horse who is ridden with blinkers for an issue like this, the seeing eye dog is the rider, the horse is the one who needs the guidance. The horse becomes more dependent on the rider when the rider looks after him, and is his “eyes”. That’s why it is so extremely important when riding a horse who is wearing blinkers (cheaters, french, 3/4, or full cup), to make bloody sure that you ARE his eyes, that he never comes to any harm that he can not see because of the blinkers. But the relaxation that comes when his mind is quieter makes a nervous or “distracted” horse much calmer, and far easier to train… easier to get into his head.
