My guy is on 24/7 turnout with his 2 brothers, my pony mare, and an ancient gelding. For a long while, he would “hide” behind his older brother when I would come into the pasture with a halter, even with goodies in my pockets to offer.
I ended up “training” the older brother to come up to me for a goodie, and my guy would just follow. 
I had one that had been spanked when caught by a previous handler. She was scared to death of being caught and would pull your fingers off if you touched her halter. I started by singing a song to her as I fed her treats. Every day I sang the song (just something stupid I made up) while I fed the treats. Now I can sing the song and she will come to me from wherever she is. I always treat her as reward.
As a horse trainer and a teacher of 40 years, I used a lot of horse metaphors when I talked about students to parents. One often repeated was --if I can’t get him/her in the pen (classroom) I can’t teach (train) him/her. This was generally in a discussion of too many absences from my class.
I had others, but this one fits yours (better than “you can’t train a hungry horse”) --if you want to catch your horse, you need to start where you CAN catch your horse.
One way or another, get him into a place where you can catch him --round pen, stall, end of a rope. Then teach him to come to you. It’s training. It will work. But you can’t train him if you can’t catch him.
There are many good DVDs on this topic, pick one and use it.
Foxglove
[QUOTE=RedHorses;8712857]
This might not help now, but might prevent a relapse later. Years ago I read something that talked about horse memory - they have very strong associative memory, but it isn’t good at extrapolating very far. Basically if the horse always gets A, B, C, D, E, etc he will associate B with A very strongly, C with A less strongly, and by the time you get to E there is no association with A.
In practical terms if you catch the horse (A) and give him a carrot (B) then take him into the barn © and put him in his stall with a handful of feed (D) while you get your grooming kit and tack out, then by the time you get to grooming (E) which means tacking up (F) which means riding work (G) you have him so far from A that the good things (B and D) are what he thinks when you go to catch him (A).
That’s for once you get past the catching issue, but is effectively what you are trying to do - separate catching from riding.
If you are off now, can you go out at turn in time and bring him in yourself? It might be a way to start changing his attitude.[/QUOTE]
So well described!
Put days into that equation as well. Tomorrow it will be well remembered; day after a bit less so; additional fade each and every day. A big treat that lasts for several minutes can help the memory last longer, as well.
I’ve had my share of hard-catches, although all of mine except the current one did learn to come at call.
So many people say “he/she associates being caught with work”. That probably is NOT it, unless you saddle up in pasture as soon as the halter is on. Just the time walking back to the barn is enough to disassociate with what happens in the barn.
That also means that the rubbing and unmounted time is not strongly associated with being caught, either.
Put aside your human analysis of why a human would be behaving this way, including “nanny-nanny-boo-boo”. Horses LOOK as if that is what is going on, compared with human behavior. But they really do not have that set of brain cells. The misinterpretation leads to a great deal of human frustration, because then the humans are working on the wrong problem, and the horse doesn’t respond so much.
You’ve gotten some great advice so far. I will add that I can easily approach one particular horse if I never, ever turn my body toward him … I back up to him, or else walk by him with the back of my shoulder angled toward him. He’s just over-reactive and easily gets his adrenaline up, it’s instinctive more than deliberate. The cell phone camera turned for a selfie lets me see what he’s doing behind me, and then my eyes are never toward him and he’s easy to approach. He doesn’t mind being caught. He instinctively alarms at being stalked.
Also, animals, and especially prey animals, are very aware and sensitive to eyes. A steady gaze is what a predator does just before the rush to catch the prey. Many horses easily desensitize to that gaze in humans, but some not so much. Don’t look directly at a horse being hard to catch. If you are wearing sunglasses, try removing them until horse is caught. Some pick up even an instant’s glance, because that’s how some predators stalk and then the rush to catch.
Definitely what others have said about using your own body language to reward turning toward you. Your eyes are part of that as well, look down or away as part of the reward for coming toward you.
I also made a deal with Spooky’s best friend - help me catch Spooky and get horse cookies. As soon as Spooky is wearing a halter, treats for both, but not till then. No Spooky catch, no goodies. The best friend is a lot saner than Spooky and bought into this deal almost right away. I need to swap their brains. :winkgrin:
Herd-bound - a longe whip, or a 10 foot lead rope, and know how to use it to cut an individual out of the herd. (And keep yourself safe from treat monsters.) I’ve become adept at moving Spooky out of the herd, so Spook and I can do our treat thing on the perimeter without the other horses. That means sometimes directing herd members as well. Spooky keeps diving into the herd, but that means the whole herd has to move until I maneuver Spooky out of it again. They quickly realized that abandoning Spooky to the human means they won’t be bothered. Now, when they see me, they drop Spooks like a hot rock. Spooks is suddenly a lot more interested in the horse treats than the herd! It’s kind of scary to see that the herd realizes that sometimes a sacrifice is necessary to get rid of a predator. :eek:
Oh, and … in spite of your wish for some peaceful horse time, like any other animal behavior work, you’ve got to make up your mind that “today I will take whatever time it takes, do whatever it takes, to get the result”. The more days like that, the faster the results. Think of it as your exercise program. Think of all the character you will build. Nobody will have as much character as you! :winkgrin:
Since your horse has been an easy catch in the past, that should help getting him back to that status. But if you don’t come out often you need a very, very strong goodness/treat memory immediately after his halter is on to help it stick. And only your horse - no other horse gets it, unless you have to reward maybe one other horse for helping you catch. Not the group, they will start competing with each other. It’s dangerous to have the herd fighting over treats all around you.
I sympathize with your situation. It isn’t fun when a little horse-time is such a pain.
There’s a philosophy in Aikido where you aim to keep the total energy, so to speak, between you and your opponent at a ten. So say your opponent is attacking very aggressively, you should counter more passively to avoid wasting effort or getting hurt. If your opponent is being passive, then you are free to expend more energy to become more aggressive. The system has a constant energy of ten. No more, no less.
It’s an odd concept, but I’ve dealt with a lot of horses who refuse to be caught, and keeping that in the back of my mind has made training them much faster and easier.
I don’t think this would work in your situation, since you wouldn’t want a 10 horse stampede. But with one of my horses who isn’t food motivated, when he used to run I chased him. I chase and chase him until he decides that running isn’t fun anymore. When this started I brought a small crop out to smack on my leg to make noise to make him run. He would get tired and stop and eventually just come to me. Now he never runs away because he found out running is hard and coming to me is easy. Maybe you could put your horse in a pasture by himself or only one or two other horses.
i think you need to set aside a whole day and keep that bugger moving, walking walking walking not allowed to stop and eat and chat to his chums.
then shovel treats down his neck like theres no tomorrow.
do it at least 3 times in a week before you ride, and like someone else said, give him a tiny feed and lots of grooming and fuss before you ride.
and after this NEVER try and short cut, if he turns away ever, you make him move.
my 4yo got a bit cute about this, coming in in the PM meant feed thus easy peasy…comigng in in the AM meant work and he would turn his bum and mooch off and then once caught refuse to walk in to the grooming bay.
i probably had to walk him down 3 times and now i always take a sweetie with me and leave a bucket of dry grass chaff in the bay for him, 99/100 he plods over to me regardless of time, but if he turns away…off he walks, until he turns back to me on MY terms.
A friend of mine is having this exact problem with her OTTB. He runs until you give up trying to catch him. He takes off all halters and fly masks, but it’s a moot point because you can’t get close enough to actually touch said halter/fly mask.
She was able to catch him the other day and do some catch and release training - she threw him in a small ring/paddock, and would give him cookies/scratches every time he would let her catch him. He’s been much better since that day, and she’s brought him in almost every day since, just grooming and feeding him, then turning him back out. It takes patience, but it’s paid off for her.
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