Bolting under saddle

[2LaZ2race]

I have a horse who’s been off the track for over a year now in light work (mostly walk/trot/ canter and some x rails). He’s always had a wonderful and calm personality but he’s having some issues coming back after having the winter off (no indoor, terrible PA weather).

He has started bolting anytime he’s at the far end of the ring, asked to canter and he’s going towards the gate/barn, or jumping in that direction. My trainer (who’s still away from winter) thinks it’s gate/barn sour and I tend to agree. He’ll jump away from the gate fine but toss his head, grab the bit and fly over the same jump going towards home.

I know we’re re going to have to have to go back to the basics, transitions, getting back into a routine of work and ALWAYS keeping that gate closed. Has anyone else experienced this ? He does have his Spring physical Tuesday so I’ll have the vet check for any discomfort but it really seems like more of an attitude isssue.

[findeight]

You answered your own question. Yes, back to basics. Any horse, any breed is going to be kind of difficult coming back from a winter off. Going off towards the barn is a dead giveaway here, he wants to stay in his little condo, not go back to work and he’s fresh and full of himself. He’ll get over it.

Your job is to not put him in the situation where bolting back is any option. Work him on the lunge and sidreins so he gets a good lesson instead of running around like a fool., wear him out a bit then get on to ride. Just a time or two, not every day. You must not stop your ride if he tries to bolt. Very important he does not change the subject and get rewarded by you not continuing. Some of them think they are automatically done if they make it back to the gate. We teach them that be rewarding them, we get off.Make sure that doesn’t happen. Maybe you just walk, maybe he stays in the crossties for 30 minutes, maybe he doesn’t get fed immediately on returning to the stall. Whatever it takes, he’s not done when he feels like it.

Find that dealing with the cause, barn sour, is better then punishing the result of the behavior and teaches the horse they are done where and when you tell them they are done. Period. No discussion.

[SoundAndFury]

Mine went through a kind of similar phase a couple of years ago. It was more playful than barn sour, but on windy/cold days he’d scoot/buck/take off, almost always away from the “spooky” corner of the ring. I think one thing that really helped us was my trainer had me regain control, but stay cantering and then make him WORK. So he’d grab the bit or scoot, I’d bring him back some, then for example continue cantering in a 20 meter circle. Spiral in, spiral out, lengthen, shorten, hand gallop, short canter etc etc. Even though I never stopped my ride, for us I think that worked better than stopping him (=reward) and then continuing to work.

[DarkBayUnicorn]

Another tactic I’ve found useful is to remove the immediate gratification of exiting the ring = done for the day.

Enter the ring, do some work, exit ring and hack down the driveway for a few minutes (or whatever). Go BACK into the ring and do a little more work. Exit ring and hack about. Go BACK to the ring and do a little more. NEVER go directly from ring to barn.

This also helps prepare them for shows where they may go in and out of the ring several times for back-to-back trips, or to-and-from the barn or trailer throughout the day for multiple classes.

[WildGooseChase]

I’d take a different route here and make the side of the ring he wants to be in uncomfortable. So if he’s bolting for the gate, work him pretty hard near the gate, and then walk to the other side of the arena and stand. If he will not stand, go back to the gate and work him hard for 5 minutes. Go back and forth, and make him move those feet near the gate. Pretty soon he will stand happily on the other side.

You can also incorporate going in and out of the gate multiple times during your workout. Horses are not dumb. The gate is “final” in that it usually means they’re done for the day. I would use the method i mentioned above, and once he gave me the desired reaction, I would take him through the gate, and walk around for 5 minutes, and then come back and do it again.

To my horses, the gate means nothing but a passage-way. When they exit the arena, they are not done working and they know it.

[NancyM]

A “bolt” infers “no brakes and no steering”. A “run off” implies “no brakes”, but you can still steer. The two are very different, and have different causes. I think it sounds like your horse is a “run off”, not a bolt. A bolt is done when a horse is frightened, and evading participating in something you want him to do by running scared. A run off just gets strong in your hand, you can’t stop him but you can steer. So if this is the case, steer. Turn into the wall of the arena if you have to. And back to basics of pressure and response with your hand and his mouth. If you are jumping before he has some self carriage, and before he holds his own pace that you have set, you have got ahead of yourself with his training. Until he will do that, don’t be jumping anything.

[jonem004]

I’ve always answered taking off with a 20 minute trot set. Don’t stop, don’t walk. Pulley rein until you have some steering, then canter a lap or two around the ring if you can safely. When he settles enough, transition to trot, and proceed to flat the shit out of him. 20 MINUTES, NO BREAKS. Then go jump it toward the barn again. See if he’s still interested in having a runaround. The idea here is not to run him into the ground. We don’t want to break your horse. But we do want him to associate this bad behavior with work. I personally like to get on the other side of behavior like this and I would set up a couple of small jumps and do nothing but jump them toward the barn and trot until he got really bored of this idea.

Also be sure you aren’t riding out of the ring at the end of your work. It’s a little inconvenient, but I always halt mine in some random spot and get off, loosen the girth and undo the cavesson. Just in case you aren’t already doing this. Best of luck!

[EventingMaff]

@WildGooseChase

I’d take a different route here and make the side of the ring he wants to be in uncomfortable. So if he’s bolting for the gate, work him pretty hard near the gate, and then walk to the other side of the arena and stand. If he will not stand, go back to the gate and work him hard for 5 minutes. Go back and forth, and make him move those feet near the gate. Pretty soon he will stand happily on the other side.

Second the above. If I have a horse acting gate-sour or really just particularly opinionated on where they want to be in the ring - I make that part of the ring very “un-fun”.

I picked up this technique from a Warwick Schiller video - but basically I drop reins to the buckle. If horse walks with intent to a particular part of the ring, as soon as we get there I pick up the reins and “work” in small circles (still in walk). Depends on the horse’s level of training. If it’s green I’ll just do small (5-10m) circles working on bending, or leg yield circles, or haunches/shoulder-in – anything that makes the horse mentally and physically work.

Once I can feel the horse saying “ummm this sucks, I want to get out” I’ll continue another 1-2 rotations and then release the horse with their head AWAY from their sticky area. Allow them to aimlessly wander. If they once again head back with intention to the desired area, rinse and repeat.

Once they’re truly aimless at walk, I do the same at trot and canter. Typically only takes 15-20 minutes of this for a horse to figure out that not wanting to be anywhere is the best place to be For a REALLY gate-sour horse, it may take a couple rides and once established I’ll do this exercise as my warm up for a couple follow-up rides just to reinforce the new habit.

I like this approach because it’s very non-confrontational and VERY effective! You can also do this if a horse wants to only work near other horses in the ring, if there is a particular corner they don’t want to go into (that corner becomes the only ‘non-working’ corner), etc. It’s an awesome exercise!

[Saskatoonian]

hahaha - I can never jump toward home when we first start outside in the spring! It’s always just been spring sillies for my guys, and I just manage it by only jumping away from home til they remember their manners. Then gradually introduce it. The joys of real winters.