So… I have a trail Paso. She has been doing gentle, short (mostly walking) trail rides for a little over a year. She’s just turned 5, so is getting to the age where I can ask a little more of her. As an green-bean early 4 YO she did fantastic on the trails, handled obstacles, willing to walk anywhere in the group etc. Later in the same year she decided that she wanted to be at the front of the group (normal for Pasos, who walk fast) and began pitching fits when I insisted that we work on being in various spots (also kind of normal – most of the Pasos we’ve had seem to go through a bratty 4 YO quasi-teenager stage that essentially entails ‘I don’t have to and you can’t make me’. Most outgrow it by the time they are 5.). We had a couple of blowups that I put down to mental immaturity and general trail-greenness, then I got busy with other horses and she spent the latter part of the summer in the field with the broodmares. Since November she’s been in and I’ve been working with her 3-5 times a week on ground work (yielding, crossing over, flexibility, side-passes etc.) Mostly I’m giving me tools to get her to listen in case we have another teeny-bopper moment. In the last week or so I’ve begun trying to replicate the ground exercises in the saddle with wildly variant results.
What I’ve discovered is that this mare isn’t just dominant in the herd, she is exceptionally smart – and exceptionally hard-headed. Her ground manners are excellent, she picks things up quickly, she just… b*tches… about having to do things when I ask, particularly when under saddle. Sometimes she executes things well, then on the next session she will resist doing the same activities. For example she will go to the door on the round pen when she’s had enough and act up if I ask her to move away from it. Most of our groundwork sessions are 25-35 minutes in length, so I don’t think I’m asking too much of her brain or body. She breaks a sweat but isn’t soaking wet. She was professionally started and trained, so this isn’t a training-foundation issue. Since we are in winter I don’t think this is hormonal either (not that she was ever a hormonal mare even in the summer). I’m used to fiery and opinionated mares, but this one is setting a new standard for hard-headedness. LOL It’s like she sits in the stall between sessions, thinking up new ways to test me and evade work.
We’ve checked saddle fit and I’m working her in a rope halter, so a bitting problem isn’t even possible. I suspect this is a ‘brain’ issue. It might be that I need to give her more time to mature mentally, but it might also be that this is a phase and if I let her go it will be harder to fix going forward. So I’d like to keep working her and gradually asking more. I’d like to have her doing 4-6 hour trail rides (non competitive) by mid-/late summer, which seems like a modest and realistic goal to me.
Has anyone dealt with a hard-head like this? Can you offer low-stress (for the horse) conditioning activities that I can be doing with her for the next half-year? Since I commute and work I mostly trail ride on the weekends and do the above-mentioned groundwork and playing with the obstacles in the backyard during the week. I don’t want to make every trail-ride with her a test of wills for fear it will turn her off trails, but there is a limit to the amount of groundwork and ‘playing’ in the saddle that I think will be productive and heck – I want a trail horse, not a trick horse LOL Any exercises/activities that folks here can suggest or am I being overly cautious and should I just saddle up and be prepared to duke it out with her?
I should also add that I bred this mare and have a lot of familiarity with the bloodlines. They are clever and agile, slow to mature but have an incredible recovery rate and I do actually think she’d make a great LD horse, so I’m not being unnecessarily stubborn about trying to make this mare into something she can’t be. Although I’m sure if you ask her she’d prefer to be a bossy broodmare. 
