wow Alieceo that is wonderful advice! Thanks!
“Any advice as to how to show her I am the leader?”
In my opinion, this is the wrong question. The question should be “Any advice as to how to show her she can trust me?” That’s what leaders do - they guide the herd to food, to water, and away from harm. When you two go out alone, you are removing her from the security of a herd who keeps her safe, so you need her to understand that you’re just as good at keeping her safe as they are. Sometimes this may mean ALLOWING her to move quickly away from a scary object, as long as you can do it safely. Holding her in place or forcing her to go up to it, or worse yet punishing her are all actions that will make her distrust you.
There’s already been a lot of good advice in this thread about specific thinks you can do like hand walking, circling, talking, keeping yourself calm, practicing with scary things at home, riding with more confident horses, etc. But I just couldn’t help throw in the horsey psychology aspect. Best of luck to you!
Aliceo, I’m in my second summer with my green mare, and I needed to read your post. It makes me feel somewhat better knowing I’m just going to have to suck it up for awhile yet.
I’m with the thinking that hand walking is better than ponying or always going with a buddy. I regularly ride alone, so my horse needs to be able to do that. I don’t want her dependent on anything other than me. I know when I am with others and my mare gets anxious, she tends to check out on me, and it’s more work to get her focus back. She gets too worried about being close to the others, and sometimes that alone causes anxiety. Going alone is also easier sometimes because you don’t have to worry about annoying other people while you work on things. That alone can make me tense, which doesn’t do my horse any good.
I think Irish_Horse had an excellent answer about hiking if you don’t have any friends to ride with.
I also believe trail riding needs a different mentality than arena work. Horses use natural instincts on the trail and being a green horse that is naturally herd bound and a flight animal I think it’s a good thing when they can be spooky or cautious. Though it isn’t fun or safe, I like horses that are alert. Focus on positive reinforcement and confidence building out on the trail, it doesn’t require the same training as arena work. Horses should overtime not only learn to trust you on the trail, but build confidence and the only way to do that is by getting the most exposure to the trail as possible.
I will note that not every horse is cut out to be a trail horse, but with a young, green, or inexperienced horse this should be normal.
I pony my green bean on the trails with my old steady eddie. After a few of these outings I reverse the two horses and ride green bean and pony steady eddie. After a few more outings I can leave steady eddie home and just go on short rides on trails that green bean has seen often enough to be comfortable on. Eventually green bean turns into a steady eddie.
I see in one of your posts that you have a mini that your friend is going to walk on the trails with you. Maybe you can progress to ponying the mini when you go out on the trails?
I do most of my riding in the pasture/field/down the road/in an orchard/on trails out of necessity because riding in an arena requires trailering somewhere else and I don’t always have time to do that. I usually have a green pony or two that I’m trail riding to some degree or another.
I’m lucky that in their pasture their are a few small ditches, a few small logs to cross over, a (seasonal) creek, hills, etc. and always start riding there. Once they are mostly comfortable hacking around the field, first with a buddy then alone, I will start going other places. I define comfortable as “may need to stop and take a look at something for a moment but will reliably cross all obstacles safely without a major fuss or meltdown”. So in my experience the suggestion to keep the trail experience a familiar once at first is a really good idea.
I do a mix of riding with a friend, riding alone and ponying (this mainly due to time constraints rather than as a specific training tactic - it simply allows me to to do fitness work with more than one horse at a time). I tend to allow the horse simply to stand and look at something spooky if he wants to and then encourage him to go forward. Sometimes this means moving him laterally or actually turning his head and asking for a step or two if he’s a bit stuck and straight forward movement doesn’t happen immediately. If he spooks or tries to scoot away from something, I stop him and then as best as I’m able try to ignore the offending object or creature, act like nothing happened and ask for forward again.
I will get off and lead a horse over something that is scary or new if I’m alone and he is unsure. I tend to leave a rope halter on under the bridle for green horses and bring a LONG lead rope with so that if he decides to LEAP over the offending ditch/water/whatever I am able to be well out of his way.
I’ve also found that really “looky” horses like my own Morgan often do better at a trot. Less time to spook if they are busy working! However, for a horse that is truly scared and losing confidence I will make sure to do more ponying or going with a buddy for quite some time.
I think my biggest piece of advice would be to always ride with a neckstrap or grab strap (on front of saddle) of your preference. Being able to take a light hold of the neckstrap when approaching a potentially scary thing helps me so much with being able to stay light and relaxed as it forces me to put at least one hand a bit forward (which reminds me to stay relaxed and giving with both hands) and also gives me a better feeling of security if the horse does do something silly. I always try to remember to give the horse a little scratch on the withers or neck as I reach up to grab the strap and take a nice relaxed deep breath and exhale so that he doesn’t think that me grabbing the strap is a precursor to having a tense rider 
Thank you to everyone who sanctioned solo trail riding for greenies! I took my 3-year-old out without another horse on Wednesday and he was fabulous. He was a little more cautious/looky than usual but didn’t actually put a foot wrong and even made every water crossing without hesitation. I will continue to exercise reasonable precautions (tell someone where I’m going, halter under bridle, carry cell phone and wear RoadID) but it’s liberating to not depend on anyone else’s schedule! And there’s something special about being alone in the woods with just your horse.
[QUOTE=Libby2563;8759685]
Thank you to everyone who sanctioned solo trail riding for greenies! I took my 3-year-old out without another horse on Wednesday and he was fabulous. He was a little more cautious/looky than usual but didn’t actually put a foot wrong and even made every water crossing without hesitation. I will continue to exercise reasonable precautions (tell someone where I’m going, halter under bridle, carry cell phone and wear RoadID) but it’s liberating to not depend on anyone else’s schedule! And there’s something special about being alone in the woods with just your horse. :)[/QUOTE]
I completely agree! 
