For me it’s about swinging the back. Hot horses are often braced tense horses, mentally and physically. Often this is because their riders don’t know what to do with their energy and sensitivity, and hold on to them, which they find unpleasant and tense against. It’s important to know how to control your horses swing with your own back before taking on a hot sensitive horse.
I make sure the horse is responding to my legs and seat by swinging its back equally left and right, and allowing it to swing forward in a big ground covering sloopy walk, into a forward following contact. Really feeling the hind legs swinging under and through. Even a baby horse can do this, in fact, that is usually how they start off, then some get messed up…
Then on into the trot, lateral work etc. It makes for bigger steps, not faster steps, it allows the horse to go somewhere without running, and to use its body in a pleasant way.
The canter becomes bounding and ground covering this way too.
Instead of being scary fast and unpredictable, they become powerhouses of fun 
Thanks all! I really don’t like to lunge if I don’t have to, she is 17+ so I believe its stressful for her joints and sometimes I think it makes her worse. I have been doing alot of the things you all mentioned, I think some of it will be just more saddle time.
[QUOTE=BaroquePony;8437360]
Is that Linda Tellington Jones? The TTouch?[/QUOTE]
Oh yes. Here is one of her books. You can find more info at TTouch.com or www.theexcellenthorse.com
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Horse-Behavior-Training-Book/dp/1570763208
I saw a great exercise this week for a hot horse. It was turned into a jumping exercise eventually but the start was equally suitable for dressage. Alternating raised canter poles, 8 of them around the end of the ring for 1/2 of a 20 m circle. Ridden in a quiet half seat.
I watched a mare that is similarly aged and similarly hot slow down dramatically using this exercise. The key was to set the pace and ride through quietly. If she messed up by being hot, quick and not paying attention then so be it. No correction beyond what she did to herself. Repeat with frequent changes of direction and breaks. The more the mare concentrated on the exercise, the steadier and slower she got.
Love reading all the suggestions. Ground poles in different patterns help us- walk, trot- whatever. Means he has to pay attention to something other than his own brain. We’ve been doing my own version of Prix Caprilli lately- a small jump, some ground poles, some circles, some lateral work- just keeping things interesting but also focused on me. Lots of long rein stuff to make him responsible for his own calmness. Very hard for us to come out of the barn in a swinging walk still- we do have to do a bunch of calming work before the back can swing.
Put your leg ON and take a light steady contact and ride forward into the stretch. Do lateral work when he takes a deep breath and settles.
I try not to longe my firecracker because I want his legs to last. Small circles are the devil for long term soundness.
Another general suggestion:
Hotter horses often benefit from “marinating” in a specific exercise or pattern. Don’t just do it once or twice, spend some time in an exercise. By the 4th or 5th run through, they are often looser and more relaxed.
That said, it can also be tricky to incorporate transitions/change of patterns in the hotter horse. Transitions can “wake up” the sludgy horse, but too many can really wind up the hot horse. You can think marinate during the transitions, too, by doing them in a particular spot so that the horse can relax in the pattern or by pacing them out in a deliberate way.
I like the “marinate” approach :lol:
A 20 meter circle or a figure eight of 20 meter circles …
Gosh there is sooo much helpful information here!
My first horse was hot and had no brakes. I thought it was great not to use leg to make him go. Wrong! We had to go back to the drawing board . Every circle, and every time you use your corners correctly, figure 8’s over and over continuously make a horse somewhat bored and requiring use of your legs. The other thing I did to teach relaxation is following the bit/rein to the ground. This
was done collecting the horse inch by inch shortening the rein, then letting the reins slide through your fingers slowly and the horse will learn to follow the bit to the ground. Over and over, it gets the horse to relax and learn shortening/lengthening while maintaining contact with the bit without the hot responses.
And what Piedmont was saying about transitions is very true. It’s better to not do transitions or with a loose walk between transitions until your horse can listen without getting hot.
Bingo! I ride a hot arabian mare and this approach works. Yesterday, the rain was pounding on the metal roof of the arena. Sometimes, I breathe with her using a loud exhale. I’m patient and focus on me while she arranges herself. My core always needs work, so on a loose rein for a long time we work on responsiveness to weight shifts. I get better results riding 5 days a week for 30-40 minutes with good warmup and focus on quality. She gets strung out or quick, I press my knees for halt, we regroup, then go forward correctly. I feel this is better than lungeing.
[QUOTE=FineAlready;8436836]
As the owner of a hot horse, I assure you: it is not about making the hot horse less hot; it is about making the hot horse more focused. Along the lines of what MVP and others are saying.
I can’t tell you how much I disagree with the advice to lunge the horse for lengthy periods of time or to take a “wet saddle pad” approach. That usually just riles them up more, makes them overly fit (as Lucassb noted), and invites injury.
I’ve actually had very good results riding my hot horse 7 days a week, but at lower intensity for most of the rides. It’s not that he needs a ton of physical stimulation. He needs the mental engagement, and he needs the “we are a team” reminder often so that he doesn’t go blasting off on his own bad ideas without seeking input from me first.[/QUOTE]
Heather blitz uses an exercise that she calls “squiggly lines” at any gait…similar to a very shallow serpentine but really moving the shoulders over , back to starting point then over in the other direction. Be careful to concentrate on moving the shoulders and not just the neck or steering with an opening rein. I’ve seen this work on many hot and tense horses and it can be used in quite varying degrees, from large sweeping over, back and over to the opposite side down to almost invisible movements.
Heather says that this exercise makes the horse rebalance again and again , really requires focus and makes the mind work, too
Check out TRT Tristan Tucker. I have seen his methods in person and am quite impressed. It’s geared towards dressage horses of all levels.
[QUOTE=raff;8437663]
For me it’s about swinging the back. Hot horses are often braced tense horses, mentally and physically. Often this is because their riders don’t know what to do with their energy and sensitivity, and hold on to them, which they find unpleasant and tense against. It’s important to know how to control your horses swing with your own back before taking on a hot sensitive horse.[/QUOTE]
Kinda key to this wonderful approach that yields a trusting forward enthusiastic “hot” horse is that the rider have good control over his/her own back …and all other body parts.
Riders have to be willing and able to support a forward flow rather than grabbing reins (losing balance) or falling forward (removing support).
I think with some hot horses they wait for the rider to pull on the reins to give them reason to respond negatively. My hot horse did anyway, LOL. So when he thought he could pull me into a fight, I planted my hands on the pommel and let him beat himself up. I also put him on a circle until he was bored to tears. Mount with a loose rein. Hot = avoiding work. You have to figure how to not let him set you up. I also like the Classical method of teaching him that rein pressure is released immediately if he bends at the throatlatch. Something you can practice on the ground. Look up Jon-claude racinet to see how flexions work.
Oh, and always ride with the thought during his unruly behavior “been there done that” meaning what he’s pulling on you isn’t working.
My green mare really benefits from the “ride in circles/figure 8s until relaxed and you release your topline” shtick. We start rides with this concept and will occasionally revisit it during a ride if she gets tense.
[QUOTE=princessfluffybritches;8440276]
Oh, and always ride with the thought during his unruly behavior “been there done that” meaning what he’s pulling on you isn’t working.[/QUOTE]
My favorite quote from a clinic this weekend: “You pay her bills, therefore you are allowed to touch her [with your leg].” When my horse tries something silly or reactive toward my leg I now literally say out loud, “I pay your bills.”
My ultra-reactive horse doesn’t ever have an issue with my supportive aids. It’s when I’m not supporting and she finds herself out of balance.
If her head is in the air, yes she’s “evading the contact” but that’s her trying to figure out how to be balanced. Trying to “put her head down” has never really helped. She seems to feel constricted and claustrophobic which does nothing good for confidence and trust.
The best thing I can do for her is help her regain balance.
I learned to “ride a 20 m circle” or “from letter to letter” … so if I’m doing a long diagonal, come hell or high water, I went from one corner to the next. I have had to learn to be a whole lot more sensitive to what’s going on in the system.
The mind-blowing new information from our trainer is that if a movement isn’t going well, it’s much better for all concerned to make an adjustment rather than persevere.
For example, if the diagonal has gone wrong, go for a circle right there to address the falling in/out.
My point is, sensitive horses need a lot of help and support to develop calmness and confidence. It’s not just exercises – it’s HOW you ride the exercises. Try to see them as activities to find, develop, and maintain your horse’s balance, not letter-to-letter ends in themselves.
For example, serpentines are a lot more difficult than we realize. The ones we do in tests are PROOF of balance. If you’re teaching them, don’t stick to the pattern if your horse falls out of balance – do a circle, a leg yield … something else to help regain balance. And if you’re the one upsetting balance (my horse seems to put me left and I have to be vigilant of my own weight), it’s even more important to make effective adjustments. (Sadly, not something that can be learned from a book.)
Your hot horse will develop confidence and trust in herself AND you. She’ll always be hot, but as another post said earlier, happy and fun instead of tense and terrifying.
I’ve really enjoyed reading through this. I have a hot mare but so much of it is in her head. She begins her ride breathing fire and very look but at the same time can be dull to the leg. Most of the warm up is getting her head in the game and making sure she is hot and responsive to the leg, the more electric I can get her to the leg, the more she starts to think and the spooking goes away.
I found it really interesting while watching a Charlotte Dujardin clinic that one of the riders mentioned that her horse was super hot and wasn’t really what she liked to ride. Charlotte got on the horse and said that she didn’t consider him to be hot. I think we all have a different picture of what hot is!
