For sure, you can never expose them to all the things they might find startling! But you CAN work to teach them an appropriate response, whether it’s to stop and stand, or walk a small circle around you if they’re one who must move in order to feel ok.
1 Like
Absolutely. And my mare is basically good. I’d say our biggest blowups, which are rare, relate to other horse behavior like a loose horse bolting up behind us on the trail and us bolting home after it. I think because she blows up so rarely we have few chances to practice it and she has little chance to understand self regulation.
She’s supposed to be Paint x Appendix, and most of the time she is Paint. Once in a while whatever invisible percentage of TB comes briefly to the surface and she’s just as surprised as the rest of us I think. However she does settle or blow off steam.
5 Likes
2 Likes
Gates are dangerous because they open wider while closing, if a horse gets caught at the incorrect time they can disembowel themselves. ALWAYS teach beginners how to take a horse through a gate.
The one I had to reteach that was annoying was Sim had been taught to lead with his muzzle on your hand. That took a while.
I hate horses that do not turn to face you when in the paddock. The next thing they are taught is to stand still, so they do not do it while being groomed or handled or lunging.
You do not need to shake a rope at a horse to back. I teach them to walk with a click and they walk before I walk. I say halt and they halt before I halt. A thumb not pressing on the chest and the word back for back. There is always 2 signals for back. You only want one horse to back when backing them out of the float.
So next they are taught to back with the word back and a gentle tug on the tail for backing out of a float, and a gentle use of the leadrope from beside the horse on the lunge not in front of them to back with the word back and a sideways back and forth of your finger for back.
I do not train this over and over and over to get a bored horse. Horses are smart, just going to get them and walking and standing still to be groomed and tacked is enough.
So I call the horse and they come when called, which is the result of facing up, which is NOT done Monty Roberts way. I hate the way they chase a horse away, that is tiring a horse out and not training.
I get them to halt away from me, because when it is muddy I don’t want them to try and stop and slide over the top of me!
I click they walk. I walk beside them. I say halt before the gate. They halt, I step forward and open the gate. I click, they walk through the gate. I say halt. They halt. I close the gate. I step to their shoulder, I click, they walk forward. I say halt. They halt and they stay halted without moving to be groomed and tacked. I click, we walk up to the mounting block together. The click and the word halt are between me and the horse noone else needs to hear it.
On horseback if I want to go through a gate and there is a horse on the otherside, I say back and wave my finger back and forth. I say halt. I can then go through the gate on my horse.
If I am somewhere else I do all the above with a halter on, as I do not want anyone trying to copy me.
All I ever hear is how lucky I am that I have quiet horses. As if training has nothing to do with that.
3 Likes
Right!!
I teach backing similar to you. I lower the head, soften and then back up, if needed and it is the first few times I will put my elbow into the shoulder and maybe touch the front leg with my boot, they catch on pretty quick. Of course, retraining can take a bit more before it can be refined.
4 Likes
I have gotten the “oh she is so calm” response from a new boarder. Um…yes. I worked damned hard to get that. She is 1/2 Andalusian and was quite reactive in her younger years. Very occasionally now, she will regress…like last year when the BO’s mare foaled. I could not get her anywhere near that foal without her turning into a fire breathing dragon for about 3 weeks.
Then she was fine. I don’t know what brought about that reaction.
Same boarder marveled at how my horse dropped her head for me so I could trim her bridle path. Again…yes. It is called training. Most horses don’t automatically do that stuff. You have to teach them.
Susan
6 Likes
Gates are dangerous places? Can you elaborate on what you are thinking?
The NH trainer out of my barn teaches all of the youngsters to open gates via horseback very early in their training. Herdmates don’t get to attack them at my barn, even the non-training boarding horses. They’d get beaten back by a flag and the handler is established as the dominant one. But they are all a bit educated so this never happens. No lead rope is unsnapped in such a dangerous situation. Only calmness is acceptable and the handler is always the dominant horse. No horse can take off or spin with the handler. Of all of the boarding horses and the hundreds and hundreds of training horses I’ve known at the barn that I barn-sit for regularly and watch the trainer and his associates handle the horses regularly, all horses are expected to have manners when handling and all do. Horses often feed off the energy of the handler and if the handler teaches the horse “no” in part of a productive training program, the horse will understand.
Bolting through gates is 100% unacceptable. The herd approaching a horse entering through the gate and influencing that horse is 100% unacceptable. That’s pretty basic groundwork training.
1 Like
[quote=“SuzieQNutter, post:65, topic:781926”]
From my post above.
[quote=“SuzieQNutter, post:65, topic:781926, full:true”]
Gates are dangerous because they open wider while closing, if a horse gets caught at the incorrect time they can disembowel themselves. ALWAYS teach beginners how to take a horse through a gate.
I explained above 
I have never heard of a horse being disemboweled at a gate though.
2 Likes
A gate was how I nearly got creamed recently by a boarder’s horse. I always have them go through the gate, turn around, and I request that the head comes down before I remove the halter. This mare decided that she no longer wanted to be in her normal paddock, and chose to try to run me over, pushing directly into me. If you can picture it, I was at halter taking off position, not directly in front of her, slightly to the side. Thankfully I didn’t fall. She would have stepped on me with her big Friesian feet and I’d have been a goner.
Her owner doesn’t believe that the mare has to stop her feet because “if she isn’t in the right posture she will always stop with her head up”. And if she pushes into you it’s because she is emotional in her shoulders.
No, her head is up because of her conformation. And the fact that she is a pushy mare who uses her shoulders as a tool of destruction is, I guess, emotional but not quite how she means it.
The mare needs discipline (not mean, but no you will not walk around me in circles and you will stop when my feet stop). Instead the owner has this notion that somehow she will magically behave.
She no longer boards at my barn, thank god, because the mare and I were about to have a major CTJ meeting. It’s BS like this that gets people killed. And yes, I’m still pretty salty about it.
11 Likes
OMG. It sounds like you were subjected to one of the horse witch’s disciples. I’m so sorry. What a nightmare. (and glad you’re rid of her!)
2 Likes
The sad thing is, her owner is a nice gal, just with some really misguided principles. And she thinks she knows better than other people so she is resistant to feedback. I just know I’ve had enough of that nonsense.
People with new training methods and woo are fine, so long as their horses aren’t jerks. But don’t come espousing new ways when you have a horse who hurts people!
7 Likes
I was run-over in a gate leading two horses that were panicking because some idiot switched on a hay elevator beside us without thinking. My only choice was to try to manhandle the two horses out. My mare barreled through the gate and sqished me into the other horse who stepped on my foot broke a bone, knocked me to the ground and kept over me leaving a hoof shaped bruise on my butt cheek. They both disappeared into the evening mist and I was non weight bearing house bound for 6 weeks. So yes about gates.
3 Likes
“Emotional in her shoulders”??? What the heck is that?? Never heard of it.
I have Saddlebreds, and the heads go way up with them, just like Friesians. Believe me, they can bring their heads down. It won’t be exactly like a QH heads-down look, but they CAN do it.
Pushy mare? - Yes
Tool of destruction? - Yes
You called it right!
And @sascha, who is the horse witch?
5 Likes
There’s another recent thread on The Traveling Horse Witch who is a ground work clinician with a rather cultish following who keeps her key teachings under a cone of silence unless you’re a paying client.
Every horse will barrel into you with their shoulders until you teach them not to. It’s badic leading 101.
9 Likes
Thanks, I found that one.
The cone of silence stuff is what puts me off.
3 Likes
Oh yea, she can totally bring her head down. But there’s this illusion that she has that she is emotional because her body is in the wrong spot, not because her brain is in the wrong spot.
I also have saddlebreds and teach them to lower their heads. But I harbor no illusions that they can’t behave because their heads are in the air! 
4 Likes
As I said it happens when the gate is wider at the time before it closes and the horse is in the incorrect place. The horse will try to forge ahead and not go backwards, like it needs to be out of danger You can play with a gate (without a horse) to see what that means. So teach people how to take a horse through a gate like you have and have had no mishaps.
Exactly!
