Hello everyone. Long time lurker, first time poster here. I am working with a rather barn sour horse right now. He leaves the barn perfectly fine, doesn’t do anything dangerous, but as soon as we start heading in the direction of home (he knows the trails by heart), he’ll start to get anxious, starts chomping on the bit, and wants to walk TREMENDOUSLY fast home. He’ll walk so fast if I let him, he works himself into a dripping sweat. If I ask him to half halt, he will for about a nanosecond and then launches right pack into the frantic rushed walk (not jigging… he IS walking, I’ll give him that). I’m trying various things to try to teach him to slow down… circles, side passes, serpentine’s, stopping and letting him munch on grass, going back and forth on the same section of trail multiple times… But what I’m curious about is I’ve read and been told by several people that a good way to fix the problem is to work him for 15 minutes or so when we get back to the barn. I’m just having a hard time seeing this working, because this horse seems to enjoy his arena work. He’s perfectly happy in the arena, he’s in his comfort zone. The one time I tried working him after the trail ride, I almost felt like I was rewarding him. I’m just wondering if anybody has tried this and actually had success? And if you did have success, did you do this and ONLY this, or did you do other things to stop the barn sour behavior as well?
Worked very well with a happy to work pony. Eager for everything this mare is. But now she can warm up in a ring ( or go straight to hack) then for nice hack then end with a little ring work. At first the walk home wasn’t much fun but now she can putter.
Change your routine.
Leave the barn and then 5 minutes into it, turn around and head back before horse gets worked up. Gradually make rides longer, focussing on calmness.
Rinse an repeat. When you get back to the barn, turn around and head out again.
Or ride out a ways, dismount, hand graze horse.
Anything to break the routine.
Take him places in a trailer. It is hard to be barn sour when you are on a trail that is far from the barn.
All good suggestions. To reply to your original question, yes it can work for any horse if the rider presents it right. So for example, if it were me I would pick a day when I had lots of time then take this approach:
Walk a short distance out on the trail.
Turn around and come home.
If he doesn’t get in a hurry, put him away.
Wait 30 minutes, do it again. (If it works twice, I’d quit for the day.)
If he does get in a hurry, put him to work in a matter-of-fact way as physically close to the barn door as you can (not in the arena). Try (say) 5 minutes.
Walk a short distance out on the trail.
Turn around and come home.
(Same options as before.)
If he continues to get in a hurry, make the work a little harder and the distance out a little shorter until eventually he doesn’t.
If he does it right once after previous unsuccessful tries, put him away for the day.
Continue this routine gradually increasing the distance of the trail walk and then decrease the work at home. Do not put him away at home without a short work session and a short walk out and back until the new behaviour is completely confirmed. Any tiny relapse results in same routine.
Be extremely regimented about the routine. Do it exactly the same way each time so that he will know absolutely for sure what is coming next and what will happen depending on his choices. None of this is a punishment of any sort; you are simply creating a highly predictable set of choices and allowing him to decide for himself.
I will sometimes do arena work then go for a trail ride and other times, go for a trail ride then do arena work. Heading home is no guarantee that your day is done. Home is where the arena is.
Brody, your mare sounds much like this gelding… eager, willing, and happy to work. Just curious, how long would you say it took to notice a change in your mare using this training method? Weeks? Months? And were you doing just this and ONLY this (ring work at the end of the trail ride), or were you using other training techniques out on the trail as well?
ladyrider:
I think you’re better off not thinking of this as “ring work.” As I suggested, you should not put him to work in the ring, but rather very close to the barn door (or wherever he is trying to go).
When I say “put him to work,” it should probably be something you don’t do too often in your normal work. For instance, walk squares alternating turns on forehand or haunches in corners, walk an “hourglass” by leg yielding to opposite corners.
You can do all of this in a small space and for a brief time (5 mins). It will be helpful to the process for this to seem different from other schooling. Reiterating, this is not punitive but rather establishing a consistent consequence and offering him a choice. That is the key concept.
It can begin to show results very quickly (days or less). Or not, depending on how much time you have and how clear you can make the choice for the horse.
I owned a saddlebred gelding who also had this issue. The horse was a work-a-holic and loved his job. He was a horse that could be ridden for many hours in a day. The ride home wasn’t always pleasant because he was always really fit and would jig and toss his head and just be a general jerk. Finally had it one warm spring afternoon when we turned toward home after a long trail ride and about two miles from home he was pulling so hard and jigging and flipping his head that I was getting blisters on my hands plus he spooked at something that he never spooked at and was just unpleasant. That is when he perfected his back up. You can not jig while you are walking backwards. So I turned him around and backed him up towards home until he settled down (like 1/4 mile back up not just a few steps) and then walked him in a circle to settle and relax him and allowed him to walk forward towards home. The minute he got goofy I redid the whole process. I just made the job a lot harder for him when he misbehaved and made a walk home very easy as long as he did what I asked of him. This will not work with all horses but it worked for him. Good luck. This can be fixed but it just takes time.
My issue was milder; my otherwise lovely gelding would jig in the way home instead of walking out on a long rein as a good trail horse should. My solution is to interpret the jig as “I need to work more.” and then ride him up into the bridle and work on leg yield, shoulder fore, and shoulder in. I would then lengthen rein and invite him to stretch down, if he did, and stayed in a forward walk, great, we’d continue home that way, if he jigged again, back up into the bridle and lateral work. He’s a smart boy, it didn’t take him long to figure it out.
He occasionally needs a brief reminder, but that’s all it takes.
In your case, I think some of the other advice is more on point. Right now, for him, barn = rest/ relaxation. You need to break that association. Barn may = more work or even always = more work.
Barn always = herd members and familiar surroundings, so you have to work a little harder to overcome that association.
Ditto everyone else. The barn is a comfy familiar place; you will need to make it a place where he might have to work hard. Another thought to tack onto the other suggestions. When you are finished riding him, don’t untack and groom/bathe him right away. Loosen your girth a bit and tie him up someplace safe for ten minutes or so. That will help to break the association of barn=comfortable, and his “job” is not over as soon as you get back to the barn.
Another thing that works for my horse. Sometimes he’s too eager to get home and I just don’t have the time to work him and get him hotter so we just:
Stop. Turn around. Sit and think about it for a minute.
It works for him because he will stand quietly with his back to home. It wouldn’t work with every horse.
It seems like there are two approaches here. You can make the barn unpleasant or you can make the trail more pleasant – or combine the two. I like BEARCAT’s method because if you focus on positive reinforcement your horse will come to love the trail rides, and it is just more fun when you know the horse is having a good time as well as you. Somehow, this seems especially important on a trail ride:
Change your routine.
Leave the barn and then 5 minutes into it, turn around and head back before horse gets worked up. Gradually make rides longer, focussing on calmness.
Rinse an repeat. When you get back to the barn, turn around and head out again.
Or ride out a ways, dismount, hand graze horse.
Anything to break the routine.
You can do a combo, of making the trail riding experience more pleasant, and riding at home more work
Also, don`t immediately un tack the horse and turn him out with buddies when you get back, or feed him right away
Tie him up, alone somewhere, then ride him some more.
Soon, getting home is not such a big reward
Horses hurry home for several reasons
-it is their comfort zone
-home equals buddies and food
Rushing home is not too different from a horse that is drawn like a magnet to the out gate of the arena, as that gate also means end of work. He will work in that arena, unless really arena sour, but he will still drift towards that out gate
At my farm, the only way a horse I am riding can get back to the barn is by walking quietly on a LOOSE rein. Otherwise we don’t go back to the barn.
I will pull them up if they get anxious and then give the rein. If they get quick I pull them up again and then give the rein. If they insist, I turn around and walk away from the barn a short distance. Then I turn around and walk toward the barn on a loose rein. Pull them up if they get quick. I do this until it works.
I also don’t have to go straight back to the barn. My ring is a distance away and I have cut paths through the tree line and can go around the hay field so I never have to go straight back to the barn.
I’ve had the best luck with trailering away from the barn to ride, and when I couldn’t do that I’d ask my horse to back up when she got jiggy.
As another poster mentioned, backing up for a quarter mile sure makes a difference!
Ride more often. Once your horse trusts being out with you, he won’t be so fussy. My horse gets a bit “whinny crazy” in the spring when his friends are on pasture, and I haven’t been riding as much (I hardly ride all winter).
What works for us is sometimes I just hand walk him out to the trail and hang out with him for 30-45 mins while he grazes. Other times, I hop on and point him to the trail. What works with horses is (and I’m quoting Warwick Schiller) making the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy.
Point your horse on the trail and go off on a loose rein. If the horse dips for home (turns around) immediately start bumping with your legs and irritating him whenever he points in that direction, make a big loop back to the direction you want to go. As soon as he is pointed the right way, you go back to loose reins and just walking casually. If my horse selects the wrong gait when moving towards the barn, I break the forward motion by doing a tight circle (think his head, your toe) until he breaks to the correct gait. If I want him to walk, I let him go immediately when he walks, not continue circling. I am just telling the horse that he gave the wrong answer and he must now do something difficult until he gets the right answer. You have to be VERY fast at taking the pressure off, or you can confuse the horse. Check out Warwick Schiller, he is incredible! He is not at all a Parelli type, as a beginner horse owner would never understand what he teaches.
