My 10 year old gelding kicks and kicks till his blanket rear leg straps are removed. He won’t accept a tail bag either. He is sensitive with anything foreign tickling his rear legs! Are there any alternatives?
You could try a tail cord. Not sure if he would accept that or not.
Most blankets work fine if you just use a tail strap, but I’m not sure if that would work either in your case. You could try going without if the blanket fits well and he doesn’t play hard or roll alot.
Yup tail cord. You can buy one or make one. I make them with metal clips big enough to fit the rings and add baling twine between the two clips. Just make sure you trim the excess on the clips so it’s not touching him. When disgusting enough just cut off the twine and add a new piece.
I hate leg straps and take them off all my blankets and just make a tail cord.
You can buy ones like Rambo/Horseware makes that are plastic coated. I personally hate those - it has plastic clips which suck in the cold weather!
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You can also use a shortened leg strap as a tail cord in a pinch, too.
How are you hooking your leg straps?
I’ve had horses that objected to crossed leg straps and/or leg straps hooked back only to their own side, but who have been fine if I loop them through each other before hooking them back to their same side (if that makes sense?).
But I’ve also turned many leg strap blankets into butt cord blankets because they’re just plain easier. Twine also works great as a butt strap in a pinch.
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Maybe try the Rambos? Horseware blankets are quite fitted and do have a tail cord. I find they don’t shift or slide, even on my roly-poly horses and play-hard types.
I’m the jerk that would leave them on until he got over it. shrug My mare didn’t like the tail flap on her blanket, and it took her a whole winter to get used to that feeling on her tail head when she pooped. This winter, no problems.
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Don’t walk on eggshells around this. Teach him to accept things touching his hind legs.
When we do colt starting, one of the things we do to an exhaustive point is touch their legs with a rope. Get a long, soft lead with no metal on it, bring him into a stall or other enclosure where he can’t go too far and just start gently swinging the rope at his hind legs starting on one side. Allow him to react but don’t otherwise do anything to stop him, just keep touching him. See if you can get swing the rope so it wraps a loop around his cannon bone, then retract it and swing again. Start low and work your way up until you’re swinging and looping the rope above his hocks and he does nothing but stand there and allow it to happen.
Next, approach him at his flank and loop the rope between his legs below the point of the hock. Take a step back and slowly “floss” your way up his leg and let it rub and touch him in his groin/inguinal area. Let him react, let him buck or kick at it if he needs to, but keep doing it until he stops responding and just stands there. Praise him when his happens.
Repeat this until he’s bored to death with things touching him back there. I guarantee he won’t care about blanket straps anymore.TEACH him to accept things touching him instead of allowing him to remain disconcerted by something.
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This is kind of what I was getting at. He isn’t being injured by the straps, so he needs to learn to cope.
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Thank you all for your input! He is such a sensitive boy!!
GOOD Morning All. I can’t figure out how to post on this forum so I am responding to you all who answered. My horse is a bit high strung Morgan gelding. He is forward and has a big engine! He walks fine when we start out but once he starts working he anticipates the canter and won’t walk so he trots. (jig). I have tried cantering first to get it out of his system, no cantering for a month and a half, etc. I talk to him gently, slow, easy, woop woop. He will be really up when he gets in a hunter pleasure class or western pleasure. Any suggestions would be really appreciated.
What @Abbie.S said. You need to desensitize this horse so that he is not so reactive to meaningless stimuli like leg straps. Lots of ground work will help with his under saddle issues as well. He will become quieter, more tolerant, more patient and less reactive.
I find leg straps useless und dangerous, all of my blankets (mostly Horseware) work fine without.
Well, I have a feeling this horse has bigger issues regarding his level of anxiety given this post and the one you started this thread with regarding him not liking things touching his hind legs…
If the issue is truly that he just wants to GO, then you let him go. And go. And go. And go. You go until you feel him start to slow up and say to you “OK thanks, I think I’d like to stop now” and then you ask him to go some more. You wait until he basically begging you to stop and then you slow him up to a nice, forward walk, pet him and get off for the day. You make slowing down/stopping HIS idea. Pretty soon he won’t be so fixated on going anymore.
The other thing you can do is when he insists upon moving is you allow him to move, but you dictate HOW he moves. So he doesn’t get to trot or canter off, instead you ask him to leg yield or serpentine. You start to isolate his individual feet and bring his focus onto you, which will automatically start to get him calmer, more relaxed and more compliant.
But like I said, I think this horse has larger issues, possibly including not being entirely broke to ride give his anxiety grows the longer you ride him.
