Still, , no X rays were done which is the only way to reveal kissing spines and who was that “other opinion” done by?
I am in the camp that some horses definitely learn it as an evasion, and it’s very hard to train it out of them once it’s confirmed. I bought a 5 year young TB (started at track but never raced), and then someone had bought him for their 12 year old kid. He had learned to shuck his rider and the habit never totally went away. He was incredibly athletic and at the time I was a twenty something “velcro” rider so I thought I could fix it, but while it became much less frequent, it would still pop out every once in a while. I evented him up to Prelim and then sold him when I was pregnant to a pro who was winning at Intermediate level, but he dumped her occasionally too. His back was x-rayed, he had excellent saddle fitting, checked by the chiropractor, so it was clearly behavioral. I will never buy another horse that is a really confirmed bucker.
when I was a kid, our neighbors bought a horse who knew that if he rubbed his rider onto a mailbox, the rider would fall off. The horse was smarter than the owners.
I’d not buy any horse who was unwilling to work. All my horses have been called “willing” by all BOs. But then they have to like to work to please their riders.
Maybe retrain horse with someone who can change his attitude? Most warmbloods are very willing.
[QUOTE=RedmondDressage;8688157]
I’ve seen a lot do anthropomorphizing on this board but this is not a case of that. Horses abolsolutely develop habits to get out of work. They may not be capable of planning ahead like say, while you’re tacking up… But they can most certainly learn how to get out of work, most just do it less extreme ways.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely they do. I was working with an Appy mare once that if you tried to lunge her she would dive at you on the lunge, teeth barred, prepared to maul you. If you tried to ride her, other than being led around like a pony ride, she’d rear until you got off. She was very scary.
I’d agree to give the horse a full exam. But after that, really, not every horse needs to be invested in to this degree. (it all depends on you, your confidence, your goals, etc).
Sometimes we like to think all horses will come around eventually. What if they don’t?
[QUOTE=DQintraining;8728832]
Thanks everyone, I have resorted to giving him some time off from riding him, and have been lunging him 4+ times a week. He does not have a problem going in side reins and cantering several circles at a time. I started light riding this week, and am lunging him beforehand. If he’s going to act like a 3 year old, I’ll treat him as one. He is perfectly fine to hack- he always got a lot of time on the trail, as he tends to get ring sour.
BUT- after looking him over several times, receiving another opinion, and changing the saddle, I still DO NOT think this is a pain issue. I will eventually work my way back up to cantering when his trot work is absolutely perfect and obedient. If he still bucks, I’m done, I’ll find someone to send him to.[/QUOTE]
Why are you so adamant against ruling out pain? Did you have a saddle fitter come out for the new saddle? A vet?
[QUOTE=FatDinah;8688141]
I don’t believe any horse is capable of planning/doing a buck to get out of work. We (humans) anthrmorphize their behavior way too much.
Some thing prompts him to buck. Figure out what that is and see if it is fixable.[/QUOTE]
I totally believe it because I’ve seen it. I rode a mare once that as soon as my butt left the saddle at a posting trot she would throw the meanest buck she could to get me off - she timed it perfectly. She knew EXACTLY what she was doing and she did it often with everyone that rode her. She waited until your weight was out of the tack and WHAM!!
Remember that sometimes pain issues only flair when the horse is at a certain point, OP, so giving her time off might lessen a possible issue. Once the horse is worked over a certain point it might flair- esp if it’s stifles.
Any time I have personally had issues with cantering, it’s been pain. Strength/young horse issues are more of going wide behind, crooked, or hopping up with both back legs.
Why do horses actually buck? to me they should be able to canter fairly well with no problems. To get to a bucking point to me means trouble? this is not asking something that should be that unusual, given enough time in preparation.
My caution- longing in SR is the last thing I would do in this case- circles are very hard for horses to balance. Long ovals sure, or better yet canter longsides in the half seat to get off the back and let them sort out balance (assuming you are safe).Long straight lines with gentle corners. Don’t make it harder.
Thank You for the article on Morten Thompson and Ingrid Klimke - two fantastic trainers who have the horses welfare in mind. I do work similar to them with my young warmblood and it most certainly helps keep him obedient and happy. I personally believe that all horses problems stem from the rider. We need to learn how to communicate better…
Dear OP,
I read alot of the responses but not all. I offer my experience as just that - my experience.
My Freestyle gelding was a very difficult 4 year old. He learned to buck people off not to get out of work, but to alleviate the pressure…in his mind… of being ridden and having to interpret multiple stimuli at once. If he didn’t understand something, he’d buck the rider off in a moment of panic attack. For example, if he saw a horse and rider in the distance and slammed on the breaks, and the rider insisted on kicking him forward, he couldn’t integrate the two stimuli and he’d buck (violently) in a an enhanced flight effort. Not just me, two extremely accomplished professionals were bucked off, both hurt (one broken collarbone). As a youngster, he could only process a limited amount of things at a time. I know he wasn’t “being bad” because his panic attacks were associated with an obvious increase in heart rate and cardiac output that you could literally see in his chest and feel between your legs. Horses don’t fake adrenaline dumps.
Vet, Chiro, nutritionist, etc. - no one could find anything wrong physically, it all pointed to his brain. He’s just a super sensitive horse.
Fast forward, he mellowed out alot as a 6 year old that I trucked around to a bunch of open shows, and while he’s a spooky 7 year old, he’s a predictably spooky 7 year old who doesn’t display any of the dangerous behaviors he did as a 4 year old. He’s become a puppy-dog personality (even though he still spooks). This is in large part to the dressage-riding Parelli cowboy I hired to train him/me for close to a year. Of note, I’ve ridden for most of my life, but I never met a horse like this one before. The groundwork I learned from the cowboy is our foundation when my horse freaks at shows, etc. The groundwork is his source of comfort, now. Also, the one-rein stop is something he knows and is something he responds well to even when he’s very upset by something.
My experience with this horse, who was bred by a large farm, handled like all of the other youngsters, and started by a GP-level dressage rider who has bred/started horses for 30 years, tells me that NOT ALL horse problems stem from the rider. This is reinforced by seeing the training horses who come into the barn. Horses are individuals who tolerate and accept things at vastly different rates. Tolerate does not mean accept. We currently have an Interagro Lusitano who simply didn’t. accept. the. breaking. process. even though his brethren did. What make him different? Who knows? But he’s being retrained slowly from scratch in a way that makes sense to him. Luckily, the owner recognized that he’s a GP prospect and he hasn’t tolerated “typical young horse training” and needs something very different. She’s looking towards his teen years, and is less concerned about his “progress” as a Young Horse. This horse is very lucky, IMO, to have fallen into her ownership. He’s a spectacular mover and uber-smart horse who is going to be a much better 10 year old than he is as a 4-year old.
To summarize, rule out health issues, but also give time for mental issues. Horses are individuals.
Take this with a grain of salt, because I am a total chicken and have no desire to ever get on a horse that has a habit of putting people on the ground … But this concept of having the trot b perfect before moving on to canter sounds to me like disaster in the making. Horses need to walk/trot/canter. Once you rule out vet issues, someone needs to walk/trot/canter every day. I would not make canter some big thing that only happens when trot is perfect.
Believe me when I say I would be terrified of this type of horse. I can’t even imagine it. But if you don’t make canter part of the daily job description, you are big to have a huge, huge problem on your hands.
Great post # 70!
Which shows there could be many solutions, aka this is a big horse who may need slow/different training or not be a dressage prospect, even if his breeding says he “should” be. Maybe they could turn him out for a year and start over.
The description of young Luso bucking because of pressure is imo closer to how a horse reasons ( as far as we can understand them), rather than thinking they’l dump a rider to get out of work.
If horses could reason strategically, re dump a rider to get out of work, they’d dump them at the mounting block and be done with it. They’d also jump out of their paddock every day and find nice grass to eat and all kinds of other behaviors they don’t do.
Horses indeed do reason, an instinctual kind of reasoning that makes sense to them, not to us. So since we choose to ride them, we have to learn to view behavior from “their” reasoning, rather than assume a horse is operating by “our” reasoning; (our reasoning: dump rider/get out of work)
The true essence of natural horsemanship , however it is taught, is to view solutions from the horse’s reasoning and adapt methods to make their reasoning work with our goals, not against them.
Have you never known horses that buck people off at the mounting block? I have. Have you never known horses who jump our of their paddock every day? I have.
Admittedly they are few, but they exist.
It is not a question of strategy. It is a question of personality. Horses are not robots or computers. They have their own minds and there is quite a bit of diversity among them.
One thing that is constant in training in every species of animal is that animals will continue to do things for which they receive positive reinforcement. If a horse is positively reinforced for bucking (however the horse defines “positive”) then he will continue to do it, and practice makes perfect.
Very few jump out of paddock to get to better grass, so few that imo the first time they do it it’s exuberance or a mistake , they then associate where it led (grass) if they could pre think to jump out to get to grass, they’d all be doing it.
Very few buck off at mounting block and if they do it consistently most would consider them unrideable. Again I doubt even with those horses it’s a strategic plan, they associate mounting with pain or other issue going on it’s possible for a few they learn bucking leads to no riding (if after bucking at mounting block they are put back in stall or turned out)
I do agree horses are individuals and learn by positive reinforcement. I also think they are incredibly habit driven ( the alarm clock in their heads re feeding as example). Any vices they repeat are often sheer habit imo once established they just revert to it when stressed .RE for training, don’t let it get ingrained in habit in the first place…their idea of positive or negative reinforcement also may difer from ours so we can inadvertently train them for the “wrong” responses (imo)
I used to ride a pleasure-type mare who would swing her head to the left and threaten to bite the rider’s foot. I fiddled and fiddled and pondered and finally met her muzzle with the arch of my boot with equal force, bopping her in the mouth. She lurched to the right , swung her head straight, and never tired it again, at least not with me. A fun mare to ride, she was forward and sassy but at some point learned that showing her opinion about going from walk to trot was a way to coerce her rider into backinf down.
they can start as being overwhelmed, then learn what happens and use it. This big of a horse worries me and I agree that making hte pertfect trot the precursor to any canter a very bad idea. He may be so picked at and perfected tat the catner becomes WHOOSH I’m out of ehre and done.
The horse I described bucked two trainers off at the mounting block (bucking past mounting block). Not to get out of work, but because he couldn’t handle being mounted at that time. He gave all of the signals that he was not secure. Some riders feel like they can feel a horse better from the saddle, but this was not the case for this horse. ETA: I’m talking about professional/accomplished riders.
I’m sure that some horses learn to buck a rider off to get out of work. There is a young horse at my barn who is ridden (therefore trained) by a beginner rider and he has learned to lay down with beginner riders/completely ignore beginner riders.
Each horse is an individual, and they need an individual plan, IMO.
[QUOTE=beowulf;8688336]
I agree, it doesn’t ALWAYS mean pain which is why I wrote ‘almost always’ :winkgrin:
In my experience, horses who feel good (that may be green, for example, an OTTB) might give you a buck when they first get into a canter. Some crack their backs and I see it like cracking your knuckles, and then they buckle down. The trick is looking at the context of the situation.
Horses who feel bad buck when you are working on cantering, or asking them to do something that is physically challenging.
Horses absolutely do form habits, and the poster that said it only takes 3x is right. However, what OP wrote makes me think it’s discomfort. Horses that want you off will get you off at any gait; they don’t scheme and plot and wait until you canter to do it.
Sounds to me like it’s hard for him, for whatever reason. The more experience I have with big horses in general the more I realize a lot of them are more stoic than we realize; an 18h horse is huge – I know a lot of horses that size that are plagued with SI issues and hoof issues. Is it their size? I don’t know. But I think it’s worth investigating for the horse’s sake any possible pain issue before throwing your hands up in the air and saying “oh, he’s a Jazz grandson, he’s just being a dick”.
I really don’t think the average (non-rogue) horse is predisposed to being a dick or violent until he is asked something that hurts him to do. OP’s horse does not sound like a rogue.[/QUOTE]
I would like to add my agreement to this statement about very large horses. I think that they are very delicate. I also wonder if they frequently have muscle problems such as EPSM. WHen I have been around 17+H horses I have noticed them stretching their back legs frequently and seeming very stiff when walking off from a stand still while just in the pasture etc. Not all of them of course. If I owned a horse that large and was having problems with cantering I would put them on an EPSM diet and maybe have a post exercise blood test for muscle enzyme problems. I don’t know the exact details of these tests because it has been a long time since I have dealt with this. I had an appy that was HUGE and he always had a hard time cantering and he improved greatly on the EPSM diet. He was so bullied by trainers that were going to show him who was the boss and I have always regretted being so slow to discover what was going on.
If a horse resents painful (mental or physical) riding for any reason they will do what is necessary to get out of the situation. They will silently “scream” and if the rider doesn’t hear it they will either: shut up and accept the suffering (we all know these horses) or: Learn to get away from it. It could even stem from a past situation. Horses aren’t stupid.
I have to agree with the posters who have pointed out that bigger horses are delicate and can have difficulty balancing themselves.
Just at face value it sounds to me like this horse is saying he needs more time to develop and learn to balance his massive body (if he is 18hh then I’m assuming he has a massive body). 6 is awfully young for most warmbloods, he still has a lot of maturing to do both physically and mentally.
As frustrating as it can be for the rider to keep the horse doing simple things (maybe in this case mostly walk trot), it might be that he is not ready for the canter work. You don’t want to sour him if he is uncomfortable because it might really develop into a dirty habit and not just the protests of an awkward youngster. Better to have him willing and happy in the canter later on when he’s stronger and more together, then getting into a pissing match now that can only get one of you hurt.
When I’ve worked with 17+ horses and some smaller too, I’ve usually spent the first year or two of training including only the brief canter transition in our workouts. When I do start the more serious work I’ll try to begin on a 30 meter circle or larger or even let the horse develop some canter on long straight lines out on a hack. Seems that some get a bit panicked when they feel the confinement of the smaller space requiring more collection and balance.
Just my two cents, best of luck to you and the horse. Keep yourself safe, that’s a long way down!!
[QUOTE=CFFarm;8737921]
If a horse resents painful (mental or physical) riding for any reason they will do what is necessary to get out of the situation. They will silently “scream” and if the rider doesn’t hear it they will either: shut up and accept the suffering (we all know these horses) or: Learn to get away from it. It could even stem from a past situation. Horses aren’t stupid.[/QUOTE]
But they aren’t saints either. Case in point: Lovely owner who did absolutely everything for her 4th level horse, veterinary, alternative medicine, saddle fit, you name it. She was an intermediate rider who was not 100% balanced all the time, but was gentle, and timid, and did not ask for much at all. Horse would wait until she relaxed then bolt, stop short and buck her off.
He tried the bolting thing with me once; I stopped him. Never tried it again and I rode the horse every day for 2 years. Owner got the same result every time she rode him.
The silent “scream” was the sound of the owner emptying her bank account for a horse that she could not ride. :lol:
