I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that one shouldn’t start a battle they can’t win. That’s a wonderful way to approach riding a green horse. But if it’s a battle that needs to be had, it needs to be had with a rider that knows how to win. Otherwise baby wins. Which is in no way conducive to positive, progressive training. There are no “draws” with baby horses.
[QUOTE=FrenchFrytheEqHorse;4661213]
I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that one shouldn’t start a battle they can’t win. That’s a wonderful way to approach riding a green horse. But if it’s a battle that needs to be had, it needs to be had with a rider that knows how to win. [/QUOTE]French Fry took the words right out of my mouth. Installing a “Forward” button, IMO, is non-negotiable. No propping and hopping over the jumps, which set the tone for the eventual stop and back around the corner. Personally, I would have been on that with a stick the first time the horse lost impulsion, before the first jump. If I felt like carrying a stick would compromise my ride, as the OP said it would compromise hers, I’d find another soldier (ie another rider) to send into this battle. I might add that there is no shame in this - no offense to OP, who certainly looks competent enough to carry a crop and do it herself, but instead chooses not to…when I sure think someone needs to.
[QUOTE=DMK;4661210]
Conversely, you should probably not start with the assumption that all this talk about “going forward” and “using a crop” DOES NOT mean that many of these posters are starting battles they can’t win … or that they scare an already unsure greenie more than he already is. Now that would not be a smart assumption at all.[/QUOTE]
Ahh, excuse me DMK…where did I ASSume anything?
I simply posted what I was taught and what I saw…no where in my post did I make mention of crops, etc.
All I can attest to is MY impression of the video, which I did.In
My opinion, there are no Smart Assumptions :lol:
The balking started the moment the horse entered the ring. He balked and backed up immediately as he past the exiting horse. The rider was able to get him around once before he started stopping again, but not before he added to the jumps. I have no idea if this happens in schooling or if it just cropped up at that moment, he’s a greenie, that could very well be the situation, which is why it is better to be prepared. If the horse had been going forward all the way until the unfortunate stop, I would’ve been surprised, but you could see it coming from the get go. I would never advocate beating a horse excessively. I don’t think a firm tap of the crop behind the leg is in the same category.
You know, at first I thought it was just another COTH drama lama stampede, but really, there was no excuse for not having a crop. He wasn’t having a meltdown, he was just being cheeky.
And I agree, taking your hand off the rein for 2 seconds would have been less of an abandonment of the ride than what was going on there. If you really feel like you must have a rein in each hand, tap him on the shoulder.
Being cheeky? Not quite. You could tell the horse was genuinely scared. Cheeky, IMO is “I don’t wanna” not “I’m gonna die.” and there is a different reaction to the two.
My horse gets genuinely scared. I should post the video where I went into the ring, WITH A CROP and he caught sight of the judges table up on a hill. He had a similar response to this youngster, 'cept when I went to urge him forward, he spun and bolted. I got him stopped, he did some more theatrics and finally started going.
Its hard to say without actually being on the horse but I have to agree that he wasn’t having a meltdown. He looks quiet but timid. Things didn’t really startle him but more so made him nervous/uncomfortable. He didn’t look like the type of horse that would absolutely explode but then again I haven’t ridden him (he just looks that way).
Agreed. a meltdown would involve spinning and bolting away from the jumps. timid and uncertain, yes, but most greenbeans start that way, although I’m a bit confused about how much experience this horse has or has not had, cause the hunter definition of ‘green’ doesn’t quite match the rest of the horse world 
Apparently this horse showed at Devon at some point in the young hunter under saddle. While that’s certainly impressive (pretty intimidating atmosphere), that would make behavior like this even worse in my eyes. Was there some pilot error? Yea, but when isn’t there- none of us are machines. BUT stopping and backing up at any point in protest, much less OUT OF THE RING is absolutely unacceptable at any juncture in a young horse’s training. This horse was clearly not paying adequate attention to his rider, which seemed to be exacerbated by the fact that he had no impulsion approaching the jumps. Also seems like this is not a case of a horse that would be afraid of the crop as OP rides regularly with a larger whip. Crop would have made a world of difference, even if applied in front of the leg.
I’d be interested to know why the OP didn’t use earplugs. They make a huge, huge difference for my often distracted, tends-towards-nervousness horse- particularly in a spooky arena filled with interesting sounds and sights.
[QUOTE=Allagash’s mom;4661476]
Agreed. a meltdown would involve spinning and bolting away from the jumps. timid and uncertain, yes, but most greenbeans start that way, although I’m a bit confused about how much experience this horse has or has not had, cause the hunter definition of ‘green’ doesn’t quite match the rest of the horse world :P[/QUOTE]
I am a little confused by this post.
It seems like you would have liked the ride in the video better if he had been spinning and bolting away from the jumps.
Some of these posts seem to be criticizing my riding on the basis that the horse wasn’t having a meltdown or on the verge of one.
I could probably make a meltdown happen at any point of any ride if I just suddenly yahooed into him, but …I thought the point was NOT to have meltdowns…? And spinning and bolting away from the jumps is a sign he is adequately scared, as opposed to just quietly timid (but still sane about it)? Huh?
I get posters like Equino who would have used a crop sooner, or who carry one at ALL times regardless …but these latest arguments I’m not following so much…
[QUOTE=FrenchFrytheEqHorse;4661563]
I’d be interested to know why the OP didn’t use earplugs. They make a huge, huge difference for my often distracted, tends-towards-nervousness horse- particularly in a spooky arena filled with interesting sounds and sights.[/QUOTE]
I’d be interested to know how you can SEE whether or not I used earplugs from that video, since I haven’t mentioned anything on the subject and the camera does not exactly zoom into his ear canal.
Especially since the video quality is evidently not good enough for you to pick up on the inch long spurs you earlier claimed I should have worn because they would “likely have prevented the problem”.
The armchair training crew sure is taking it to new levels of expert detail…
LOL that whole “People tend to forget that horses are “fight or flight” creatures…” kind of cracked me up, cause it sure sounded like you thought that people forgot that sort of thing. Although to be perfectly fair, that was a smart assumption on your part, because I go with flight first, fight second when we are talking about a potential dinner item. But I don’t forget that, and I’ve not met too many people who have a clue about training greenies that forget that either. They just have more tools in their toolkit to get the job done in those situations.
So we are BOTH right; there are assumptions, and apparently they are smart ones. Wow, a win-win on the internets, who knew?
I don’t follow the meltdown argument as you describe either, meupatdoes. But I’m not convinced that that’s what A’s Mom was trying to get across, so until she clears that up, I’m going to respond like this:
If the horse had been having a meltdown, it would have been clear that he was overfaced or overstimulated to the point of refusal to respond. This kind of behavior sucks, but it usually doesn’t become a habit- it just indicates that the horse is being put into a situation it simply can’t handle.
Your horse, on the other hand, demonstrated a lot of non-meltdown like, baby green moments consecutively on the same course, twice. From what I saw, and from what a lot of other posters saw, he learned after the first BG moment or two (which would have been totally understandable/acceptable) that he could get away with this, and that not focusing on his pilot, or at least things inside of the actual ring, was okay (and maybe even more fun than actually working). In my opinion, the last 85-90% of this series of “baby green moments” called for some immediate, proportional discipline that never got applied.
I’ll repeat the fact that I condone the idea that it’s better to only get into battles you can win. Approaching a “moment” with disproportional or inappropriate discipline can cause equally bad issues. But once again, there’s no such thing as a draw with baby horses that have little to no experience under their belts. They learn what the can/should do EVERY SINGLE TIME they go into the ring. If that includes refusing to move forward when asked, responding to pressure by backing out of the ring, and paying attention to anything BUT the task at hand, that’s what the learn they can get away with. Perhaps this experience won’t cause any long term negativity, but it absolutely, 100% has the potential to.
The “real battle” beneath what the horse did with his body was the struggle to keep his mind on doing his job rather than inflaming his sense of self preservation to the point that he thinks he must have a knock-down drag-out because death is a possibility.
I’m all for the rider setting things up to win any and every small skirmish. But when you pick one that causes the horse to escalate and stop trying, that’s pilot error. In older, stronger-egoed horses, you must make it clear that death will come faster when they bail on a job than when they just buckle down and try.
But in a young one, and in a show ring where you can’t ask open a can of worms that you are not likely to be able to close? That’s were you schmooze your way through the horse’s question about whether this is a good day to try or a good day to take an existential stand against having a job at all.
You all must admit that you don’t raise really big training questions in the show ring. When a horse brings those to you, you do the best you can.
AWE! hes SO cute! what a HOOT!
“lets just back out of the ring mama!” 
you did GREAT! no worries.
it was just a confidence issue (no biggie), that goes away after a while.
you have a nice solid, quite, confident seat for the babies. no need to put a crop on baby who is already confused and unconfident. it will come in time, nice and easy. And in the future, he will ALWAYS remember these days. make them good for him.
IMO - you both did a good job 
[QUOTE=FrenchFrytheEqHorse;4661832]
I don’t follow the meltdown argument as you describe either, meupatdoes. But I’m not convinced that that’s what A’s Mom was trying to get across, so until she clears that up, I’m going to respond like this:
If the horse had been having a meltdown, it would have been clear that he was overfaced or overstimulated to the point of refusal to respond. This kind of behavior sucks, but it usually doesn’t become a habit- it just indicates that the horse is being put into a situation it simply can’t handle.
Your horse, on the other hand, demonstrated a lot of non-meltdown like, baby green moments consecutively on the same course, twice. From what I saw, and from what a lot of other posters saw, he learned after the first BG moment or two (which would have been totally understandable/acceptable) that he could get away with this, and that not focusing on his pilot, or at least things inside of the actual ring, was okay (and maybe even more fun than actually working). In my opinion, the last 85-90% of this series of “baby green moments” called for some immediate, proportional discipline that never got applied.
I’ll repeat the fact that I condone the idea that it’s better to only get into battles you can win. Approaching a “moment” with disproportional or inappropriate discipline can cause equally bad issues. But once again, there’s no such thing as a draw with baby horses that have little to no experience under their belts. They learn what the can/should do EVERY SINGLE TIME they go into the ring. If that includes refusing to move forward when asked, responding to pressure by backing out of the ring, and paying attention to anything BUT the task at hand, that’s what the learn they can get away with. Perhaps this experience won’t cause any long term negativity, but it absolutely, 100% has the potential to.[/QUOTE]
So big meltdowns suck, but usually don’t become a habit, but smaller resistances that the horse overcomes over the course of a ride “100% have the potential to.”
After your previous “advice” on this thread I am really wondering how much weight I should give your analysis, because you are pretty obviously GUESSING randomly about a lot of it, such as your astute lectures about whether or not I am wearing spurs or using earplugs, which you pretty clearly have NO BASIS for making your assumptions about in the first place.
But feel free to randomly pontificate on…This is like the Silvia Browne school of riding.
[QUOTE=mvp;4661852]
The “real battle” beneath what the horse did with his body was the struggle to keep his mind on doing his job rather than inflaming his sense of self preservation to the point that he thinks he must have a knock-down drag-out because death is a possibility.
I’m all for the rider setting things up to win any and every small skirmish. But when you pick one that causes the horse to escalate and stop trying, that’s pilot error. In older, stronger-egoed horses, you must make it clear that death will come faster when they bail on a job than when they just buckle down and try.
But in a young one, and in a show ring where you can’t ask open a can of worms that you are not likely to be able to close? That’s were you schmooze your way through the horse’s question about whether this is a good day to try or a good day to take an existential stand against having a job at all.
You all must admit that you don’t raise really big training questions in the show ring. When a horse brings those to you, you do the best you can.[/QUOTE]
Well, you just summed it up much better than I could!
How does applying a crop appropriately get turned into a knock down fight to the death conversation? I don’t even begin to understand how this came into the conversation.
If the horse is properly trained to the aids to begin with at home, applying those aids in any environment is not going to freak the horse out. Is it? Maybe if the rider doesn’t know how to add a spur or give a well timed tap with the crop when they FEEL the horse starting to balk or suck back, and instead the rider throws a little baby fit, starts yanking the horses mouth, starts crying, beating the horse, but what the hell does that have to do with simply reinforcing your leg with a crop?
I think it started at this post:
[QUOTE=TheOrangeOne;4660680]
However, one day we were in the parking lot at lexington and he did not want to walk past a particular trailer that had people moving around in it. After a little time, I said “ok bud time to go” and when he declined, I touched him with the spur. Up and over. Probably the most frightening vision I have seen, that giant horse body coming down on me, just before I hit the ground.[/QUOTE]
I have not yet figured out whether I am supposed to take from this that I should use spur/crop or should not use spur/crop, because the basic gist appears to be, “Use them so he always goes forward, you should learn from my example when I did this and he flipped over on me” …?
No, I don’t think my horse would have flipped over on me, had I used the crop, no, I never claimed I thought he would, no I am not the one who brought the whole meltdown/life or death issue up, but you asked how life or death came into the thread and here is your answer.
Either way, TheOrangeOne’s application of the aids seems to be pretty textbook and what many are advocating here, but if you are going to claim that applying the aids in any environment is not going to freak the horse out and people should just use their artificial aids appropriately, you should keep her story in mind.
I didn’t get the impression from TOO’s post that she didn’t know how to use a crop or spur, used them inappropriately, or had had a little crying and face-yanking fit, rather it seemed to me that she rode just fine and responded reasonably but horses are horses and the worst case scenario happened, but you’ll have to take that up with her, as it is her story, not mine.
Huh, funny… I read TOO’s post as a bit of a life lesson in what can happen when you don’t nip that particular behavior in the bud.
