I have a gentleman of a QH. He is great on the trails
with other horses. It’s getting harder to find a riding
buddy, so I want to go out solo. I have taken him out alone but he calls to the other horses & gets very antsy. He know the spot I take him back to the barn. How do I get him past this point?
Well you need to vary your routine or else he will learn it and expect it.
Sounds like your gentleman is mildly herd bound. I would work extensively on the ground until he is really looking to you for guidance, and feels that he is safe with you as with other horses. Take him in hand out of sight of the barn and teach him to have his attent attention on you at all times.
I was working on the ground with an OTTB mare this past winter that had several years on a field after leaving the track young.
The first few times I handwalked her out of sight of the barn she got so looky she kept knocking into me with her left shoulder. After 5 months, one day she volunteered to walk away from the other horses off into the park for a grass walk and was completely comfortable in her own skin, with me standing by.
A herd bound horse does not trust his human to take care of him and feels his only safety is with other horses. You need to work on this globally with the horse, there isn’t just an easy fix you can do once a week on the trail.
However if he is a gentleman its likely that his general good manners and herd bound feelings both stem from being a bit timid and submissive. Thats good because you can get him to look to you for leadership.
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It’s really just practice, practice, practice. All of mine ride away fine, but I do it frequently. If he’s a gentleman, you just need to push through the fear. If there’s a concern of dangerous behavior, you may need a trainer to help.
I’ve also found that most horses are reluctant to walk away from home but are perfectly behaved if you haul out to a trail.
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Every experience you have with your horse you are training it, even if you are not intentionally doing so.
That being said, the easiest way to get a horse to forget about anxiety, is to keep his brain occupied with other things.
Some easy things to do on the trail, baby serpentines - zig zag back and forth on the trail. Change the horse’s flexion, so think about bobbing his nose gently to the left so that you can see the left nostril and left eye, and then vice versa to the right.
Change tempo - ask for the worlds biggest walk (not fastest, I’m talking longgg stride) and then creep back to the tiniest tip-toe walk.
When you decide to turn back, halt when you turn around, and do this frequently. The horse must be listening always. If he doesn’t want to halt, then turn around and walk a bit away from the barn again. See above if this makes him anxious and keep going until he is calm, Then start walking back to the barn again
