Getting impatient horse to stand and relax under saddle

The horse I currently ride is a “go go go” horse. He absolutely does not want to stand still while we are riding. This is very apparent in lessons when waiting for our turn to jump. He will stand for, oh, maybe 30 seconds before he starts moving his head, trying to move forward, after a few minutes he starts pawing, will reach around and touch my toes with his nose, and try to do anything to get moving again. During a rather long lesson recently he also added peeing and crow hopping to his list of “I don’t want to stand still” tactics (thankfully the crow hopping has only happened that one time).

This guy is honest to fences, doesn’t bolt, doesn’t buck, no issues standing on the ground, etc. He just wants to move! During lessons, instead of waiting and having him get antsy with standing, I walk him while making sure to stay out of the other riders ways. If I can get him to halt and wait quietly for a bit then he does get a pat and a good boy and then we continue walking before he can get antsy again. Does anyone have any tips on getting him to relax and stand patiently while waiting to jump our course?

We are working a lot on transitions right now outside of lessons. Other than sometimes trying to yank the reins when I ask for halt he listens well and waits for cues. Today was a great day with a lot of transitions, short periods of waiting at halt, and no fuss on upward or downward transitions. However, there was not the added distraction of other horses in the arena either.

Work on the ground to ask him to stand still. He is praised when he stands. He is made uncomfortable if he moves a hoof, put back where he was and praised.

You do the same thing under saddle. Ask for halt, Praise. uh uh if he walks, ask to halt and praise. Let him walk forward you gradually extend the time you ask to halt.

This happens with most racehorses. It does get better. I promise.

Ground work isn’t a problem for us thankfully. I’ll do walk/halt transitions with increasing halt time tomorrow. Hopefully he will be as focused as he was today.

Yes time is all that is needed. Time and patience and reward.

I do cross tie time with my guy. He has to stand on the cross ties without moving and shaking for a good five minutes, which is way longer than it seems, before I reward him and move on. He is a massive 18h holsteiner who does not know he’s that big, so I do hold a dressage whip when we do this b/c he can be incredibly pushy and rude when he’s having a day. I rarely use it, and prefer to use pressure instead of whacking him. But he definitely knows what it means.

I spend time with each of my horses practicing this. I will ride for a bit then just stand in the center of the ring and watch other people ride. I count it as training just as much as any other work I do. It really is time well spent.

[QUOTE=islgrl;8951311]
I spend time with each of my horses practicing this. I will ride for a bit then just stand in the center of the ring and watch other people ride. I count it as training just as much as any other work I do. It really is time well spent.[/QUOTE]

This is what I did yesterday, but without other horses in the arena. We did a lot of walking around and halting and did a lot of trot to halt transitions as well and walked to the center of the arena and just waited. Without the distraction of other horses he was pretty good and felt relaxed. Once we did canter to walk transitions to halt in the middle of the arena he did start with the trying to walk off/back up/pawing. I tried to keep the halt short for now and when he did at least 15-30 seconds of quiet standing (no pulling on the reins or trying to get out of the halt) he got a pat and a good boy and we carried on.

Today there will probably be more people at the barn so we’ll see how things go.

The old western way - one rein pull around. Do this, keep tight pulling them around, until their feet stop! then immediately relax the rein and sit there. Repeat both directions until they learn to stand still. Believe me they will get the idea.

I have this same issue with one of my mares and I cannot seem to figure it out! Although, she is fine at home, but instead antsy when standing in the lineup in the show ring, or when waiting her turn to go back into the ring for one of our jumping rounds.

My trainer and I keep trying different things and we have not found the solution yet. The last breakthrough we had was when she stands, relax the reins and praise her with a pat. When she walks, turn her in a small uncomfortable circle without applying leg until she WANTS to stand. She is a 17.1 hand big girl so she eventually gives and stands. This repeats for hours and she still hasn’t given in yet!

I wish you luck!

Some horses are just naturally antsy and need patient training, but some don’t like to stand still with a rider on board because it magnifies discomfort. Saddle fit, hocks and foot pain are three examples I’ve encountered over the years.

The “waiting for our turn to jump” is the important bit.

My horse knows the difference between standing still in a jumping lesson and standing still during other work. Instead of waiting, do some schooling. Lateral work, transitions, and quite a bit of canter work where he doesn’t get to jump, and then back to standing for a bit.

I had a gelding like this, OTTB who was older but just wanted to always move. And his walk wasn’t a light stoll through the park on a Sunday morning- it was a march with intent! Over the time we had him we found that he was just happier when he had something to do, so in between taking turns doing courses and such with fellow riders, I gave him simple tasks to do such as leg yeilding, turn on the forehand and haunches, lots of bending and flexing- all at the walk only.
It was actually pretty good, the walk is the most under used gait and it really helped him build muscle and stay happy.

I’ve attended clinics with some BNT’s who don’t mind a horses that want to continue moving. They see it as a good thing that the horse is thinking ‘forward’.

I don’t see it as a problem. Just let him walk. He may eventually figure it out on his own - or he may just be the kind of horse that likes to be working when you’re on his back.

[QUOTE=pony grandma;8951417]
The old western way - one rein pull around. Do this, keep tight pulling them around, until their feet stop! then immediately relax the rein and sit there. Repeat both directions until they learn to stand still. Believe me they will get the idea.[/QUOTE]

I have done this. But what also worked for me was rewarding stillness. When you foxhunt, standing at the check or standing while waiting for hounds is a must.

When I first started hunting my TB, standing was his biggest issue. Sometimes there wasn’t room to use a one-rein pull. I started by getting him to stop out hacking and then rewarded him with an alfalfa cube. Then I carried a few in my pocket out hunting. He would turn and look for the cube! He learned pretty quickly that still feet = treat.

[QUOTE=MissingASock;8952954]
his walk wasn’t a light stoll through the park on a Sunday morning- it was a march with intent![/QUOTE]

This is definitely him.

I would let him march along and continue to work, not every horse can be a ‘coach horse’.

Mostly what others have said, I would just add that for now you should probably make a point of asking for him to stand still after he has worked down a bit, enough to get most of his excess energy out of him. Stack the deck in your (and his) favor and only work on standing still after he has a good long workout and can appreciate the benefits of stillness.

Obviously later that will change and you will expect him to stand whenever and wherever, but to start, make it easier on both of you.

And to start training him to stand still you need to focus on making the halt a reward. So for a few days/weeks/months (depending on his dedication and your frequency of execution) when it is his turn to wait in a lesson, instead of asking him to stand still (a battle you are not winning) go off and do some trot circles/serpentines/figure 8s/trot voltes/shoulder in, rein backs, turn on the haunches/forehand, etc. All things that are a bit physically hard and for sure mentally hard (and if you feel like you need more horse for the lesson, you can shift to mentally hard - shoulder in, rein backs, turn on haunches/forehand and so on so as not to physically wear him out). Then go back to the lineup just before it is your turn again and see if he is ready to stand still. The trick here is to time it in such a way that YOU ask him to go back to work rather than his patience expires, otherwise you are just losing a different battle.

You need to make standing still the reward, not the battle. Right now it sounds like you are trapped between trying to get him to stand still when he doesn’t want to (good luck with that!) or maybe walking off. The former battle he is winning, the latter is the wrong reward. If he’s not standing, he’s working! Just remember, work isn’t always about hard physical work, it’s about tough mental work as well. Always remember to start this exercise AFTER he has worked off excess energy. As he becomes proficient at standing after he is tired, then you can push up the exercise in the ride and ask him to deal with his natural impatience earlier in the ride, but not until he has mastered it at the later stages.

And last but not least, if - while he is standing - you notice he is shifting his weight from side to side (front or back) when he seems otherwise relaxed, he’s telling you he is uncomfortable. Some horses just are for a variety of reasons. If that is the case you owe it to him not to stand around (and to get to the root cause of discomfort if possible). In those cases I try to stay off the horse when waiting around for classes and keep him walking on a loose rein when waiting my turn (always allowing him to stop for as long as he wants).

ETA - for me personally I would not use the one handed turn. It can work but for my training process it becomes counterintuitive for my horse to equate that aid with halting, if only because the way I start turn on the forehand (not haunches as orig typed, DOH!) (as a precursor to working off leg/rein aids) is to lift the inside rein and only release when the horse does move his inside hind leg. So ultimately they equate an active inside rein/leg aid with a need to move the hind leg, which is pretty much the key to getting them to fill the outside rein. For me at least. Many roads to Rome 'n all that, but before using that response you need to make sure it isn’t in conflict with your larger goals.

[QUOTE=DMK;8955063]
Mostly what others have said, I would just add that for now you should probably make a point of asking for him to stand still after he has worked down a bit, enough to get most of his excess energy out of him.[/QUOTE]
He is more relaxed before we start working than after working. It requires effort to get him to calmly walk rather than power walk after a ride, whereas pre work he will usually stretch out a bit and not anticipate anything. Once he starts working he really does want to keep going.

This is what I’ve been doing and it seems to be helping. We’ll go stand with the group for a little bit and I give him a good boy and a pat then we’ll do some walk work so that I can still pay attention to the lesson while giving him some basic maneuvers to do. Last night we didn’t work too hard with the jumping, but after a few rounds he did wait with the group before we went to do our final round. The work we’ve been putting in on our own definitely seems to be helping and I’m hoping will only get better the more we do.

Thanks for all the tips everyone!