Help me kick my horses butt

[DoubleDown]

I have a sweet draft cross mare that I dearly love. I came from riding a hot OTTB mare and have found her calm lazy drafty attitude confidence building and loveable.

That said, my trainer has been nagging at me to get her off my leg and forward. Maresy jumps and moves way better with the added impulsion. It came to a head this weekend when we went into water and she broke to trot. I was kicking and smacking her with the whip and she just ignored me and trotted out.

I’m going to go ride tonight and I need to have this “When I put my leg on you MOVE” ride, but I need encouragement. I really feel like I’m being mean, and I know it will only take a ride or two to get my point across, I’m hoping for tips to mentally get tough with her!

[sunhawk]

have a big fight with your s/o and take it out on the horse?

[kookicat]

Have you tried spurs with her? Some of the draught horses react better to them.

Don’t nag- if you put your leg on and she doesn’t go, then give her one good smack with your crop. Praise any increase. Try to do it during things she finds easy to start.

How’s her fitness?

[PaintedHunter]

I have had this fight with my draft cross Ollie a lot. Bigger/longer spurs have helped. And a dressage whip is way more effective with him than a jumping bat. Now, if he so much as SEES a dressage whip, he gets off his butt and moves.

However, it also took strength building to get him more responsive, and even now I have days where he still is molasses times 20. But he’s so much better now!

[kookicat]

When I had a Shire/TB, we did lots of hillwork to build strength.

[DoubleDown]

We are running Training and I’ve been pretty good about her fitness. One day a week she’s doing about 21 minutes of trot work with hills, and for her second day she’s at 10 1/2 minutes of gallop with hills, then 2 flat days and 1 jumping. I ride in smooth roweled spurs for flat, and hammerhead spurs for jumping.

I came out of dressage this past weekend huffing and puffing- Big Mama wasn’t even warm! Now that got me a little mad :mad:

[GoForAGallop]

[QUOTE=DoubleDown;7629815]

That said, my trainer has been nagging at me to get her off my leg and forward. Maresy jumps and moves way better with the added impulsion. It came to a head this weekend when we went into water and she broke to trot. I was kicking and smacking her with the whip and she just ignored me and trotted out.[/QUOTE]

How rude. To fix a lazy pony:

1. Ask. A leg cue is a good place to start.
2. Tell. Stronger leg cue, tap with the whip, maybe a voice/kiss cue.
3. Make. A genuine Pony-Clubber kick, a smack with the whip, and a growly “GIT!” or other verbal cue.
4. Rinse and repeat.

Goal is for horse to eventually respect you at step 1, without needing to progress beyond that. The sensitive types figure it out with one or two tries, and keep it for life. The lazy types may need a reminder each time you get on. :lol:

She’s being a brat! You shouldn’t have to work so hard to keep her moving.

[Cameraine]

I’m enjoying this thread because I too ride one of the laziest beasts on the planet except mine comes in a small, red, OTTB package. Go figure why he didn’t make it as a race horse.

[DoubleDown]

1. Ask. A leg cue is a good place to start.

2. Tell. Stronger leg cue, tap with the whip, maybe a voice/kiss cue.
3. Make. A genuine Pony-Clubber kick, a smack with the whip, and a growly “GIT!” or other verbal cue.
4. Rinse and repeat.

This is great stuff, but how do I mentally get myself riled up to not “feel bad”? I feel stupid even saying that I do!

have a big fight with your s/o and take it out on the horse?

That’s a thought!

[GoForAGallop]

@DoubleDown;7629933

This is great stuff, but how do I mentally get myself riled up to not “feel bad”? I feel stupid even saying that I do!

Well, there’s two trains of thought on this:

1. Get mad at her. She’s being RUDE. You ask her to work for a very, very small percentage of her day, and in exchange she leads a pretty freakin’ cushy life. She can do a big trot in exchange for food. She’s making you look bad, and waste your money on shows where the dressage judges write the same “needs more impulsion” comment every single test.

2. Get mad at yourself! You are LETTING her be a spoiled brat who is ignoring your leg. You’re ruining your nice horse by letting her get away with bad manners.

Mix and match as needed! :lol:

[kookicat]

She has many, many hours off to be a horse and do her own thing. You’re asking for her to do what you say for a small fraction of her time. If you started beating her with a 2x4, then that would be you being nasty. Expecting her to listen to your leg isn’t.

[HorseLoverJana]

This is something that I’ve had issues with (both on my horse and on the draft-cross I occasionally ride). Jane Savoie wrote this article that I think will really help… Teach Your Lazy Horse to Go Forward Enthusiastically. Pay particular attention to the part about retesting. That’s the key that I think makes the biggest difference and is most often overlooked (or unknown). Hope this helps you as much as it’s helped me!

[Vesper_Sparrow]

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s kinder to get it over with in one fell swoop than nag. In my mare’s case, when she’s being obnoxious and balky, I think it’s kinder to give her one crack with the whip instead of spending a couple of minutes trying to correct each little misbehaviour, which is grating on both my and her nerves. Tried it last night and boy did she wise up instantly.

[CindyCRNA]

For those of you using the crack of a whip, where are you placing the whip? The shoulder, the butt? A quick slap to the shoulder seems logical as the whip can just hang down and when needed, a little wrist flick.

[DaniW]

Lots and lots of praise when she does what you want

[Brydie]

[QUOTE=HorseLoverJana;7629999]
This is something that I’ve had issues with (both on my horse and on the draft-cross I occasionally ride). Jane Savoie wrote this article that I think will really help… Teach Your Lazy Horse to Go Forward Enthusiastically. Pay particular attention to the part about retesting. That’s the key that I think makes the biggest difference and is most often overlooked (or unknown). Hope this helps you as much as it’s helped me![/QUOTE]

This article is great. The horse I owned for 7 years was extremely lazy, I just reacquired him and have just started bringing him back into work. My only goal so far is having him in front of my leg. This method is working great for me (although may be because he’s fresh from not working so long and we’ve only had a couple of rides), but if he doesn’t respond to a light leg aid, I will then give him a strong bump and he will immediately go forward (big praise!), then retest and he will go from the light leg aid (who would have thought?). Makes for a much more pleasant ride

[Vesper_Sparrow]

Dressage whip behind the leg. When my gelding would jut his shoulder out, refuse to listen to my leg or outside rein, and slide gradually out of the dressage ring when the arena fence wasn’t up (he loved that particularly trick and my mare has tried it with me, too), I was told to use the whip on his shoulder.

I’m not talking a bullwhipping crack, just a good firm tap (I tend to be too light with the whip).

And praise of course too.

[PaintedHunter]

[QUOTE=Vesper Sparrow;7630287]
Dressage whip behind the leg. When my gelding would jut his shoulder out, refuse to listen to my leg or outside rein, and slide gradually out of the dressage ring when the arena fence wasn’t up (he loved that particularly trick and my mare has tried it with me, too), I was told to use the whip on his shoulder.

I’m not talking a bullwhipping crack, just a good firm tap (I tend to be too light with the whip).

And praise of course too.[/QUOTE]

OMG, the exit-via-shoulder-bulge trick is Ollie’s FAVORITE.

[arlosmine]

Start at the halt.

Use your ideal aid leg aid. The one you think the best trained horse on the planet would respond to. Almost nothing.

When your horse does nothing, or a very minimal something, give her one hellacious wallop behind your leg with a cross country bat.

Let her leap forward (if she doesn’t do something enthusiastic, you did not wallop her Hard enough) Praise her like mad and let her go for about 15 meters.

Halt again. Retest original aid. Repeat wallop if her response in not ENTHUSIASTIC.

DO NOT:
Repeat the leg aid.
Make the leg aid harder.

She CAN hear you, she has just determined that your leg aid is meaningless white noise.

When she makes an enthusiastic response to any gait from the ideal aid at halt, DO NOT wallop her. Allow her to continue in that gait. if she has shot past a working gait, great…bring her back to a working gait.
Then:
Slow the gait down a little. (10%)
Apply IDEAL leg aid ONCE.
If she does not make a minimum of a 30% change forward, WALLOP.
Allow forward for 10-15 meters, then repeat the above (slow down to a working gait, then ask with one aid for one response)

Keep doing min-transitions within the gaits, and real transitions between the gaits, throughout your work session.

The key here is to expect a response to every single leg aid, and to NEVER increase your ideal aid to a nagging one.

Your horse must understand how to avoid the wallop, and be impressed enough by it to be motivated to do so. Of it takes three wallops to get her to pay attention, so be it. Your safety lies in the horse being in front of our leg. You are not being mean. You are a coach with a lazy student who is blowing you off.

[subk]

Anybody ever heard a parent look at their misbehaving kid and start counting…“1…2…”? If you don’t have a firm response to misbehavior until you get to “3” your child or your horse will wait until you’re just about to say “3” before you get the desired response. With that in mind ask your horse in the mildest manner you would like to consistently get a response from and when you don’t get the response you want wack him hard enough with a whip that you get an over reaction.

Consistency is the key. As soon as you stop responding to the disobedience at the first moment and start counting to 3 again (ie. using more and more leg) you’ll lose the immediate response. Once it’s installed expect to have a refresher moment at the beginning of each ride.

Here’s another neat trick that I got from a dressage trainer. Instead of using the whip use your leg so that if they don’t move forward from slight pressure you take you leg and go “bam, bam, bam, bam” hard and fast and until they move forward. The horse will anticipate that when you pull your leg slightly off they’re going to get pony club kicked and respond before you actually kick. For a horse that lays on your leg in dressage this is pretty cool.