Hello all!
I apologize, but this is going to be a very long post, and if you read the whole thing, thank you so much!
I come to you looking for some answers about a horse that I had been leasing for the past year, but now that my lease has ended I’m curious if anyone has experience with some of the quirks that I had been dealing with with this horse.
Just to preface: I am a junior, I’m 17, and I graduated high school early, hence why I had so much time on my hands to work with this horse. I don’t have horsey parents, so this whole ordeal was a learning experience with the many things that went wrong. I had only ever ridden seriously at this barn and with this trainer so I was sheltered and uneducated at the beginning of my experince there(when I was around 13). My only source of “acceptable” information being from this trainer, I say “acceptable” because any outside info that I, or others, tried to contribute from other science based sources was dismissed, and anyone who went against the “traditional” approach was belittled and mocked to other members of the barn for going against the trainer. By this point, I have learned a lot, mostly to be skeptical of what people say, but my experience with this horse has been very enlightening to say the least. I now know better than to accept the conditions under which this horse and the others in this barn were living, which I would now classify (at least in part) as neglect. Needless to say, I have left the barn where the events of this post unfolded. Towards the end of my lease on this horse I stopped taking lessons and only worked with this horse on my own (under adult supervision) on the flat and on the ground to try to help him with many of his issues.
Okay, so the backstory on this horse is extensive and I could go on about many of his quirks, but here’s a (sort of) summary:
I leased a 16 year old gelding that was very experienced in the hunters, he regularly competed in the 3’6" and went to lots of horse shows, and got many good ribbons at capitol challenge, essentially he was a very fancy guy. He was always difficult to ride, and not the comfiest, which I always thought was a side effect of his “flashiness”. He was always very “wiggly”, as in he couldn’t walk in a straight line and you would constantly have to ask him to stop drifting right, then stop drifting left and so on and so forth. He was also like this in the transition to the canter, if you didn’t have your crap together when asking him to walk to canter he would just fall out in every possible direction, wherever there was a hole in your aids he would wiggle through it. Now I question the extent to which this was normal, especially for the lease fee on this horse and what he was “marketed” as. Especially I question these issues due to realizations that I later made about the barn, trainer, and owner involved with this horse.
When I began my lease he had pretty bad muscular atrophy, and some neuro issues found on his pre-lease, that were due to the trainer not riding him regularly, and him never getting turn out, something that as I continued with this lease became more and more apparent as an issue.
The owner had recently graduated college and moved away, and was not involved with his care other than paying the bill for full training and grooming before he was leased to me. He had always had a reputation in the barn for being “spooky”, not dangerously spooky, but just a “very unsure type” as coined by the trainer. At the beginning of the lease this was not a huge issue.
After I began the lease, he improved immensely, as I would ride him every day, I focused on trying to build his topline and balance back slowly (sans guidance from said trainer, I was freestyling it because she didn’t see anything wrong with his condition despite commentary from the vet). I did lots of ground poles and walking and trotting raised poles, worked with him on the ground, did lots of work on grooming to try and help him get over some of his spookiness with people on the ground. He improved his topline, spookiness, and balance within the first few months of my lease.
He continued to do well, at his mid-lease vet check (this was something we chose to do to see where he was at with the issues stated at the beginning of the lease), at this check the vet said that he looked the best that he has ever looked (probably due to actually being ridden and having human interaction). Later, we had the vet come out to see where he was at on soundness three months before the end of the lease, as he was known as a horse that regularly needed maintenance, likely due to the sheer amount of time he spent showing. He had not needed any maintenance thus far in our lease, which the vet had said was abnormal for him.
Vet said that he was not lame, but flexed slightly to the hocks, and he had some slight soreness in the back so the decision was made to do hock injections (biological, I’m not sure exactly which one) and shockwave on his back under guidance from the vet and input from the trainer. My saddle was also assessed for fit and it fit him well.
He had injections and shockwave done, after stall rest for a few days and light work he came back with little differences- I didn’t notice anything and I was the one riding him and caring for him every day, despite paying for full training and grooming (the trainer/barn would not complete the services included in training/grooming despite being paid, I took on many of the responsibilities). A month or so after his treatment I began to notice some issues, he had picked up a habit of stopping and aggressively digging whenever he was asked to do something that he had always found difficult.
He had always had an issue with halting when asked, as well as backing up. I worked with him on the ground after his treatment to train him to understand verbal cues for both halt and back up. He showed some improvement from this, and would stop and backup without tossing his head and pulling down on the bit as he used to (I was always careful with rein pressure and not pulling too hard, however, I can’t say for what others have done in the past). I also implemented walking over raised ground poles and hill walking to try and improve his topline and musculature, which helped the appearance of his back slightly. However, despite the initial improvement, he quickly started to deteriorate. He improved at the trot, his balance was better and he was better able to carry himself instead of leaning on my hand, however, many of the small issues with leaning that he had at the beginning of my lease had escalated.
When asked to track right (he had always been difficult to turn right and walk in a straight line on the right) he would stop and dig agressivley switching from leg to leg, my solution was to pat him on the shoulder to get his attention because adding leg to go forward would just result in him pawing faster and backing him up only escalated the situation to the point where it felt like rearing was a possibility. Additionally, when asked to pick up the right lead canter in the past he had always very quickly taken his shoulder left and avoided the transition, but now he would do the same thing, stop and aggressively paw. To try to prevent this, if I felt the pawing coming I would try to distract him, i.e. change up what we were doing and come back to it when he was in a better state. Mainly taking him to walk over some raised poles to change his focus and relax him, but this digging habit still persisted. Obviously I considered the possibility of pain, but given the situation that we were in with him having just had treatment and him never having any of these issues before the treatment, I was confused. I palpated his back (given that I’m not trained on how to due this except from watching the vet and asking questions) and didn’t notice anything. He was sound under saddle and to jog on the flat- I checked. Given the fact that I am limited in years and wisdom, I could have been wrong but I knew this horse pretty well so I tend to think that I wasn’t. He would also dig like this occasionally when being led for ground work, when asked to track right at the walk or go over ground poles on the right, which to me lessened the idea of back soreness causing it, but I could be mistaken on that as well.
Has anyone ever had a horse paw like this under saddle or on the ground? I’ve asked many people at this point and no one has experienced this, so I am very curious.
He also slowly started to get spookier and spookier, to the point where with only a few weeks of the lease left I decided not to ride him anymore because it became too dangerous, counter productive, and just pointless with him being too stressed to focus on anything or participate in any of the strengthening exercises that I had orchestrated. Then, in the last week or so he became extremely spooky even to hand walk, to the point where it was dangerous, so I decided in the last few days just to enjoy spending time with him in his stall.
I believe at this point that the escalation of spookiness was just plain old mental deterioration, from living the unfortunate life that he is stuck in due to his owner and the trainer/barn. No turnout because they are afraid he will hurt himself because of his spookiness, no consistent riding (at least for 2-3 years before I was leasing him and was at this barn) leading to atrophy, and no socialization at all with other horses or even people. It’s an awful life for a horse, and working with him has made me realize how detrimental his situation has really been for him.
At the age I am, the situation with this horse, and seeing him deteriorate has been very saddening, as well as eye opening to the kind of treatment that horses get in this sport. This kind of thing, in my mind, is why so many people are against equestrian sports. As this situation went on I also considered the possibility that the treatment of this horse, and other horses in this barn could be considered neglectful.
Here’s what makes me think that + just other less than ideal happenings from this situation:
There were often issues with horses having clean bedding (my horse’s stall at least was never properly cleaned, eventually leading my mom to take on mucking out every day while I worked with this horse). Now that my mother is no longer cleaning his stall, he is likely stuck in urine soaked shavings without having his feet picked or being ridden to get out of a stall full of soiled bedding.
Horses also never consistently received their medication (I know, because I would often help prepare feeds). One pony in particular didn’t consistently receive her thyroid medication, and would fluctuate extremely in her weight (something that I think has to do with the thyroid). When I would ask the trainer (who typically prepared feeds aftering spontaneously firing our groom with no notice- a whole 'nother story-) if she had received it yet that day she would say that she didn’t know, meaning that she either would get a double dose that day or no dose.
The trainer would also steal prescription medications from other people’s horses to use for other horses without asking either party (person who’s medicine it was or person who’s horse who was getting the stolen medication), and my lease horse would never consistently receive his equioxx (while I realize that this is a less consequential medication than thyroid medicine, it still seems a little wrong- though I’m not sure its neglectful). We kept track of the number of pills for my horse and it would vary widely within a week, either he would get 3 pills in one week or like 9, so either he was getting double doses or his medication was being “borrowed” (but never returned).
Trainer would also steal feed from other horses, use people’s horses for lessons without their knowledge or consent (and never pay them for the use of their horse). The trainer would never confess even when confronted by owners- owners would find out from other people in the barn after their horse had bucked off a lesson student. Trainer would also use clients equipment + saddles without their consent for her own horse and lesson horses. After purchasing her own horse, she also would only use the barn’s one turnout for her horse, and rarely- if not never- allow any other horses turnout.
The reason that I would consider some of this neglectful- some is clearly just bad management and morals- is due to the provision in some animal abuse laws for lack of space to exercise and adequate living conditions. If someone stuck their dog in a crate and rarely let them out with dirty bedding it would be considered neglectful, at least in my mind, so wouldn’t that be neglectful for a horse?
Anyway, this is a very long post, so thank you if you have read all of it. I think that if you have had a bad experience at a barn you know how long you can go on about it. Please feel free to correct me if I am mistaken on anything, I am also just a somewhat self-righteous 17 year old who loves animals, which garners some strong opinions about some of these issues. Also, to note, we did confront the trainer, and inform the owner on the many problems and management issues that occured, but with consistent asking on our end- nothing changed and the owner did not appear to care. We considered ending our lease early at many points, but for one the owner did not really allow us, and due to my attachment to this horse we didn’t end up taking this route.
Despite the rant I would love to know, 1. if anyone has experienced this pawing behavior- and what you may have found, and 2. any thoughts about the situation (barn/trainer/owner) this horse was in, what are your opinions?
Thank you for reading!
