Bucking problem when beginning trot under saddle

[TheAquaAppy]

Hi everyone!
I have this unique little animal who only bucks when a rider is in the saddle at a trot. By this I mean he is trotting beautifully and reliably bareback with a rider. He also trots perfectly with a saddle only or a saddle with weighted bags. He is super calm almost to the point of sedate when working and has been from day 1. However this little guy lights into a bucking fit for the ages once asked to take a trot stride under saddle and has managed to throw me twice in one week ( after 8 years of a clean record on colts ). He is vet checked 100% sound and has no pinches or sores as well as being ulcer free on a low sugar diet. He’s a real love bug on the ground and walking, and takes cues calmly, but he’s got a sketchy past up to the age of 4/5 when we purchased him I was told he hadn’t ever been saddled or ridden ( pasture ornament ). He also has a pretty bad case of the ‘when he’s done he’s just done’ syndrome, worse than other young horses I have worked with. I’m not able to hit the ground again as he’s already injured my shoulder in the second fall but want to move forward on his training as consistently as possible. I should also mention that it is ANY saddle a rider is in so it’s not the saddle fit.

Past hiring someone (other than me) to ride it out any creative ideas?

Here is what we have done so far : (keep in mind NONE of this bothers him)

Saddle with weighted bags
Saddle with mini tire to make noise in the seat
No saddle - pad only with or without rider
Bareback walk/trot
Just saddle when lunging
Walking in the saddle with direction changed, whoa and back up

[tinah]

What happens if you are up off his back with enough hold on his face for him to not get his head down when you ask for a trot?

Are you asking with leg or a cluck under saddle? If he is used to he cluck and doesn’t understand “leg as forward” yet I could see a pretty extreme reaction to being poked in the ribs.

What about saddle fit? People weigh more than sacks, and have different balance points.

[Foxglove]

Didn’t have a problem to your extent --but agree with tinah about saddle fit being a factor. Ok, my horse got to where he’d start to buck when asked for a trot. Trainer found sore withers because my saddle pad was worn out and my saddle was rubbing his withers. With me in the saddle, that was worse. So, new saddle pad. Then, EVERY TIME I ride, I start with a 10 m circle at the walk, and I mean the head is tilted in to the center by pulling the inside rein toward my thigh,(between knee and hip), outside rein loose, outside leg (spur) for forward motion --not hard, just annoying tap tap until he walks --and he does that willingly. Then the trot --same 10 meter circle, head tilted in, trot cue, tap tap tap until we get that trot —the second we get that trot, all kicking stops. He is only kicked when he breaks to a walk. When he is relaxed (ears neutral or forward, head in relaxed position), is he allowed to trot in a straight line for a few strides, then circle 10 m. the other way again, head tilted in. According to my trainer --he can’t buck with his head tilted like that --and so far he’s been right. We’ve had our share of snits --pinned ears, swished tail, lugging to the outside, but he can’t seem to buck with his head tilted in going in a 10 meter circle. The rein isn’t tight --it’s just keeping his head tilted inside and making a 10 meter circle. What horse learns (I hope --so far, so good) is I’ll leave him alone if he’s relaxed and trotting. Get grumpy and you do 10 meter circles (hard for a horse) and an annoying spur in your side. It’s worked for us so far, and I think it was July when the trainer worked with us --haven’t been back since as the problem seems to be resolved. I do trotted circles for 15-20 min every time I ride. Ultimately, the straight lines become cantered straight lines and the circles become 20 m circles –

[paulosey]

Sounds like a saddle fitting issue…Is it far enough back so that it isn’t hitting his shoulder blades at the trot?

[Bluey]

If you stay with your horse, does he settle then and rides on fine?

How well has your vet checked the horse out?

We had a batch of 15 feral horses to start under saddle.
All was going very well with them, when we hit this one little 5 year old mare.
She was a sweetheart, longed, saddled very well, just a little watchy, but easy going.

The instructor considered her ready to get on, so gave me a leg up, I weighed about 90 lbs then wet if that and as I gently settled in the saddle, she went nuts and dumped me.
At that time I could stick anything, but she was violent and dangerously so.

We thought we didn’t do something right, tried again, she was a saint all along, until I settled in the saddle, wild bucking.

That went on several times, tried another, bigger rider, she bucked so hard she fell down on his leg, broke it by his ankle, we had to stop to get him to the hospital.

Next day, we had our vet look at her and he was poking around her back and found that she had at some time broke some ribs and not healed well and probably were causing her pain, according to what happened the day before.
We felt so bad we didn’t realize after the first explosion that something seriously wrong was going on, not just that she was new to a rider on her back.

You may want to be sure your horse doesn’t has deep down some issue like our mare had, that the vet has really checked the back extensively to rule that out.

[beau159]

@TheAquaAppy

I should also mention that it is ANY saddle a rider is in so it’s not the saddle fit.

My question on this is that not just ANY saddle is going to fit the horse, so I don’t think I would assume that it is not saddle fit. Sure, some saddles may be better than others, but some horses just have a low tolerance for pain.

Just to make sure, have you had a chiro check his back? Any sore spots?

Are you able to tell if his bucking seems to be out of fear/pain or seems to be “mean”? From the way you describe him, I would doubt that it’s truly “mean” bucking (plus it’s not as common to have a horse like that).

Also curious what he ended up doing on the times you were able to successfully ride through his bucks. Did he calm down?