Hello there, i have a very serious issue. Ill try to be concise, but the situation is overly dramatic.
I have this 9 yo gelded horse (show jumping), i bought him when he was 6 and a half. Very inexperienced, often looked at colorful jumps and refused (this mainly in competitions, not much at home), often spooked at sounds, bolting and kicking. This mainly stopped a year ago, i became very good with him, we found a sort of equilibrium, did 1 meter and 1.10 meter courses, as i said sometimes he refused but i kinda understood cause we went only a few times competing.
This month, he became another horse. Until august he was kinda lazy, didnt listen well my leg even with spurs, but it was ok cause he jumped great when it was time to do it anyways. September, we switched riding facility and trainer, and we improved so much for the first 3 weeks, we even raised the jump s height at 1.20 m. I became very connected with this trainer more than the previous one, and he instantly understood my horse and even slowed down the work to help him relax (cooler days = freshier horsie).
Truth is, this horse always have been kinda weird when working on the right side. He felt much weaker and had more difficulty doing exercises on the right rather than the left, but still he worked pretty damn fine, he over jumps a lot, has a powerful jump. So to see if he had any pain we called the vet, who said he needed to have hook injections on the right front leg (kinda predicted). He got em, got his days of rest, then when i went back in the saddle everything went downhill. First days, he was relaxed the first 10 minutes of work, did some trot and gallop with long reins, then he occasionally started kicking and spooking. When it was time to jump, he did fine with poles on the ground on the left side, for suddenly getting worse doing the SAME exercise (example : pole, 4 strides, pole) on the right side.
What he did is : balking, rushing at the barrier becoming impossible to me to hold him and put a nice distance, occasionally rearing and spinning on himself. Time to jump : a cross rail, refused 5 meters away. Rearing, jumping in the air, having me i dont know how survive this and stay on every time (minimum? 5 rears each lesson). This as i said became worse with days, he did it EVERY day (been 2 weeks and a half now), my trainer who is very VERY experienced (goes on GPs and wins) got on him and risked his life too, as he did the same thing. Last saturday i also fell, got back instanty, fell a second time as he bucked me off, everything in the same lesson (sprained my ankle).
Rearing? got it. Refusing small jumps (more on the right side but then did it on the left too)? got it. Bolting and bucking ? Doing some defenses when asking him to canter? got it. Became so rigid he doesnt even want to be round? got it. But my main difficulty is, he is impossible to hold. If he refuses twice, thrice, and then i make him jump, he runs LIKE CRAZY. He goes at an incredible speed without me even using my leg, making it impossible to see distances as he rushes even more 3 meters away from it, doing extremely dangerous curves and i swear, i risk my life every day on this horse.
One day we asked him to do 2 poles on the ground in a circle, he balked like crazy, sweated a lot and stressed sooo much. Even my trainer has no idea, his opinion on this is that for this horse its hard to reunite himself, and he wants to avoid it, but in three years? he never did this even with harder exercises (we jumped 1.50 at home easily in exercises).
He is extremely powerful and fast, and he became very dangerous to ride (even if before he has never been an easy horse for anyone anyway). We called the same vet who did him the injections, he prescribed us painkillers for 3 days, he said if it doesnt work then its all in his head. Today he was on the 2nd day of painkillers, nothing has changed.
Oh, also, often when doing poles he COSTANTLY does flying changes in the same line without me asking to. When in the paddock, he runs like a crazy, so i would really like to remove the pain prospect (vet 3 weeks ago, injections, got his teeth done on july) but i guess with horses you never know.
I love him even if he is literally attempting to murder me, we dont know what to do, if he is so dangerous he cant even be sold to another rider. Sorry for the long topic, im desperate!
Edit : one more thing that came up to my mind:
even if our arena’s surface isnt the best and many other horses trips often, my horse trips in it a LOT, like im not even surprised by it anymore, i got used to it, but i know that compared to other horses its not really normal.
