She’s always in a 4 knot noseband rope halter for these walks.
Ok, so today was the day of ridiculous spooks, one for each mare.
Just after Feronia turned her around on the barn driveway by the road, a big truck went by, and she performed a nice ballotade (a baby capriole.) I laughed and told her she was too old for this stuff.
Lola had a lot of go today. She was also hopelessly wet from the rain. Before I tacked her up, I was walking her in the indoor, in Feronia’s wool cooler. She shook herself like a dog several times. After I tacked her up and was leading her around while we waited for the mounting block, she shook herself like a dog and the sound of the tack, probably stirrups hitting the saddle flaps, spooked her! Goof.
She was super fun to ride today.
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This is the reason Florida was invented 
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The other interesting thing is that when we’ve taken her to the orchard with another horse, it’s been the other horse who acts up, and Lola may startle once, but then she just stares at the other horse like they’re nuts. She’s really only having trouble when she’s alone. The trainer will keep taking her out, for now.
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That sounds good, something that is explainable horse behavior and can be worked with. Once she starts trusting more it should lessen.
Had a good time with Lola today. Part of it was two really LOUD confrontations with her about nipping. Yes, it took 2. I don’t want to scare her (or any of my poor barn-mates and their horses), but I. Am. So. Over. It. This is the one habit that has persisted and in some ways gotten worse (she is now chewing on cross ties and even on the reins… I need to dig up some reins I don’t care about, at least temporarily.) She sulks, and then she gets it – ok, firm boundary. But I may not be done with this “project.” There’s definitely a bit of bratty dominant baby mare in there, and it’s a completely different kind than Feronia’s.
I longed her… remember when I couldn’t? I still don’t canter her on the longe, because she can get a little wild, and I’m just not skilled enough (yet.) Then had a nice ride, just walking and trotting, and convincing her that she doesn’t need to package herself up just because I’m on her back. There is a difference between “using her body” and “packaging up.”
This may sound REALLY weird, but if I had been able to hand-walk Feronia in the woods 4 or 5 times a week this year, I might not have even wanted to buy another horse. I’d been looking forward to longer walks with her but all the flooding made trails impassable. Nonetheless it is so nice to be riding again.
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It sounds weird to me because I have always been very wary of hand walking. Perhaps because I am a really small person and schooled young and “problem” horses, but no matter the hand walking equipment or set up, a horse can still rear up and hit you with a hoof, step on you, knock you down, yank your arm out of the socket, drag you, etc. I’ve experienced all of that and have always felt much, much safer on the horse’s back!
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Me too, hand walking is asking for a loose horse, as there is no way someone can keep a horse in place that decides to leave when scared, as all of us know.
Can we control one acting up when riding?
We can at least stay on and go with it better than trying to play post to a horse seriously bolting.
Once was taking this black three year old fat sassy TB colt to turnout.
As we left the barn and hit the gravel driveway, he reared up high and playfully pawed the air coming at me!
I raised my hands and waved the lead rope and it got tangled on his front leg and as he came down, it tripped him and he measured his length and had the air knocked off him.
Very surprised and meek he got up, gave me a sideways look and decided I was no fun to play with and after that always behaved nicely for me, remembering my magic powers to humble him, I guess.
I do know many people that routinely hand walk and graze their horses, many do at shows and all is fine, but always think, if something happens, I hope your luck holds.
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I’d rather hedge my bets on the ground than on their back, as a loose horse galloping with tack while I’m trying to scrape myself off the ground is equally as unfun as a loose one from a spook handwalking, except I’m probably not injured in the handwalking case.
I have no interest in sitting on a horse who is truly bolting. Screw that!
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I was taking a horse out to the paddock and I put the lead line under my arm for a second to unlatch the gate. The horse bolted, and the lead line went around my wrist like a Chinese handcuff. The horse dragged me about 100 yards until it got to the paddock fence and came to a sliding stop. Bye-bye rotator cuff!
While riding a bolting horse, you can reach down and put both hands on one rein close to the bit and haul the horse’s head into your knee, and that will stop them.
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If you tried that with my current horse, you’d be up and over in a minute. Plus, on some trails it’s not wide enough to haul them around like that without getting clobbered into a tree or going off a cliff.
I’m super weird about how I hold lead ropes, to ensure your accident doesn’t happen.
I’m sure a freak accident could still occur though, no doubt! Both scenarios have their risks.
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There is no way I’d ride a horse I can’t safely lead on the ground in good head space. Shit happens but horse should be able to self regulate. Some just need deeper and stronger lines in the sand on what’s allowed and not allowed. Humans are allowed to have personal space. They can spook around me, not on top of me and rearing gets them sat on their ass.
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Luckily Feronia is old, and over most, but not all of her shenanigans. I started handwalking her as part of our trail rides probably back in 2018 as I noticed she was uncomfortable going down hills. And frankly, I don’t like riding down really steep hills myself. As time went on, there was more handwalking. So it’s been “just something we do” for years now.
This doesn’t mean nothing could happen, but I don’t consider Feronia to be a high risk horse. Part of my frustration is that with the trails flooded, the only way off the property is to go down a sidewalk on a busy 40 mph road with lots of big trucks on weekdays, so I don’t take her out except on the weekends. In 2022 when I moved her we were in a drought, so I could get her on the trails easily. There is supposed to be a horse-safe boardwalk installed, but it’s been stuck in planning hell for months now.
(And yes, got a vet and farrier involved but they all seemed to think it was Feronia’s hooves, so she got coffin joint injections, Osphos, different types of pads etc none of which helped a lot. But she wasn’t usually acutely lame. All along I was trying to get a vet to look at/Xray her knees, dammit but they kept blowing me off. At least 4 different vets, 2 of whom were sports medicine specialists. After I retired her, her new vet agreed to do knee Xrays in early 2023, and was pretty shocked at the arthritic changes. She’s had knee injections, which were really helpful the first time, but less so the second.)
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My young one would jump in your lap when spooked when I first got her.
That got addressed swiftly.
You still have to stay consistent with her walking with her head at or behind your shoulder though, because she splays her feet SUPER far when she spooks and has accidentally grazed my ankle a couple times. I am 100% convinced that’s an accident, but she’s too dumb to figure out how not to do it, so she’s relegated to “stay the eff behind and over to the side, k thx”.
I seem to have lucked out with both Lola and Feronia in that they spook away from me. Feronia 100%, still seeing with Lola. But when she had her “dragon snort” spooks in the orchard, she basically pulled back and went in a semi-circle around me.
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That’s super. When Lola lost her marbles at the hikers, what did that look/feel like? Like she was getting pissed off at your corrections, or unable to think, or?
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It started as just being unable to think. She noticed them, we took a few more steps, and then she backed away and threw her tail over her back and SNORTED before starting to bounce more. I got her attention (I honestly don’t remember how), and retreated, but she was snorting and ran a circle around me. Backed away and half-reared, came back down and then was not calm at all, but walked with me back to the orchard entrance – she did not drag me but she definitely wanted to get out of there quickly.
Maybe once you know her a titch better, you can use that opportunity for rhythmical groundwork that brings her back to you. Establish those in the arena now (perfect time, with the weather going to hell), and when the weather breaks you will have a tool in your box that will help her ground herself and come back.
You can pick whatever it is you want for the ground work. Just the same thing every time. For example, yield to the left, flex your head, lower your poll, one step back, stand. Over and over until she’s relaxed.
I also find it helps when they’re super duper wound up to let them graze a minute. Encourages them to relax their clenched jaws, and the head-down position releases endorphins.
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Absolutely. I have a groundwork pattern with my older mare, though she rarely needs it, and can probably “install” it, for lack of a better word, in Lola in the indoor. What I have to watch with Lola is that she’s so sensitive that she sometimes overdoes things; I ask for one step over and she’ll do 3.
Grazing helped, even on Lola’s bad day in the orchard. I knew things were getting better when she wanted to graze. I’m hoping for now that we can go out with the trainer and/or her mom and another horse maybe once a week. And hoping that the ground freezes so it’s not so muddy…
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Here’s the old lady on a trail walk on Saturday. She was, as usual, an outstanding companion.
When I was still riding her, I preferred to deal with spooks and difficult situations from up top, but now she’s just a fun horse to take for a walk. Still putting her head down and snorting at crossing tiny creeks, but she no longer tries to jump over them.
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