Good evening, BeastieSlave!
You have my respect for being so thoughtful and persistent, and it sounds like you have sought out (and received) good advice and are taking very logical steps. I’m sorry your first season wasn’t more enjoyable.
That said, It sure could have been a lot worse! There are some folks who have brought out first-time hunt horses who would be thanking the sweet little tiny infant baby Jesus if the worst thing that happened was getting increasingly worked up at checks and incessant headflipping. #perspective #comparedtowhat
Yours Anonymously doesn’t hold herself out as a horse trainer, but here are some thoughts. Well, okay, my first thought reading this was, Move up to second (or first) flight. So that was a logical move (and I glean that you are a more than adequate rider).
Good for you to practice standing on a long rein. The circling at checks – which virtually every expert/dusty tome/wizened hunt guru will tell you is all right – is definitely preferable to hi-ho Silver bucking, bolting off, trodding upon hounds like the Stonehenge monument in “This is Spinal Tap,” or crashing into other riders.
BUT, if your horse isn’t really about to do any of those things, I’d stop telling him to go forward in a walk circle, and ask him to stand; or technically, not ask him to do anything. I think you know all this, but the more you can relax your “ass” and your entire leg (the parts of your body in greatest contact with the horse), exhale a deep breath, and loosen the reins as much as you dare, the better. Even if you’re pretty regularly having to check him with the reins, go back to as loose as possible, and as relaxed tushie as possible, because you want every part of your body telling him Nothing. Do nothing. Zero input from you. Stand, now that’s it. Absence of further input.
BTW, teaching a good Stand will come in handy when you have to open and close gates.
Sometimes I’ll even very deliberately lean or rest on one of my hands on the withers, kind of trying to communicate, Boy I am tired, I am just going to park it right here on you – hey, aren’t you tired too? Think of recreating whatever posture you might have during a group lesson, after you’ve just completed an exercise, and now you’re going to watch the other 3 riders do it. Sit like that. Even slouch if you have to.
Lots of folks ride with a couple of peppermints or a carrot in their pocket, to distract their horse if needed. That can be a double-edged sword, I think, because if you offer too generously, and don’t hold your hand low enough, you could go reaching for that wadded-up Kleenex that’s been lurking in a coat pocket since the Bush I administration, and your horse could feel that movement and flip over backwards trying to get the treat. I think of saving that more for a green horse when you can hear the horn and are worried that the whole pack, kit and kaboodle, are going to go by. You don’t want to attract your horse’s attention to stand at a check; you want him disinterested in everything.
So another suggestion would be to go out as often as you can. Both to really reinforce the point of everything slowing down, and sometimes we have to slow down too, and also just to tire him out a bit.
When #AFH started hunting the late Most Wonderful Horse in the World, whom I’d started from a baby in a field, she had already evented and was pretty steady – but was always good for one huge, unbelievable, gasp-inspiring, Yosemite-Sam-lifting-himself-off-the-ground-firing-his-six-shooters buck per hunt meet. Did I mention she was a big girl (87’ blanket, 1600 lbs) with a head and neck like an excavator? Our first season, while rating speed, other horses close by, hounds, jumps, etc. were no problem, it felt like she was about to buck The. Entire. Time. Only ever did it once per meet – usually when we burst out of the trail into a bright open field – but it felt like she was about to throw the heat every step of the way. Did I mention this was also The Anonymous Foxhunter’s first season hunting? And like most junkies, despite this rather knuckle-whitening experience, I became addicted.
The next season, after I had rearranged my entire life to accommodate more hunting and thereby #feedthemonster, we went out two times per week, and that (and maybe the additional experience) ended the bucking.
If there’s any possibility of parking a mile away and walking (not faster than that) to the meet, so he’s not still in the adrenaline tizzy of stepping off the trailer in the morning dew when the hounds move off, that might help too. It does not sound to me like lunging him or riding up a hill a dozen times before loading will help. It has to be at or on the way to the meet.
If you can get him to stand, but he flips his head incessantly, which I know is THE MOST ANNOYING DAMN THING IN THE WORLD PLEASE STOP IT NOW HORSIE, I honestly would probably tell you to live with it. There are much, much worse things he could be doing, and the Anonymous One believes in picking one’s battles. A three or four hour hunting day is too long to demand perfection.
Remember that relaxed leg and patootie. “Like you’re a fat man riding Western,” is a phrase that my Anonymous Juniors might hear.
I hope you will persevere, and I hope it will work out. It’s definitely positive that he does all the good stuff you described when the field is moving. Don’t give up! My catchphrase for you is, “Sometimes you just have to keep whacking away at the pinata.”
Give us an update!
Anonymously yours,
#AFH
