From this thread and the other one about the young Arab, I will say that you should find yourself a more suitable barn with more competent trainers and suitable horses.
I hope you are not paying a cent to « train » those horses.
What if you get injured?
What if you injure one of their horse?
At the very least, if your goal is to learn how to train a horse, you should be followed more closely by a good trainer you can trust.
Relying on internet strangers to fix the type of issues you have is not a great idea.
Those are « school » horses that might be ridden by plenty of other riders, with different tack and clearly, different techniques.
I have 3 OTTBs, and 2 that came of the track 1 year ago. To (dis) qualify myself in dressage, I’m a 45-year H/J/Eq rider and just started taking BASIC dressage lessons with both horses from a fabulous trainer. SO–not even dressage-proficient but ALL of my horses over these years have been OTTBs. First, 6 months off the track is nothing. Many people give OTTBs more time than that doing nothing to just come down from being on the track. Just because they’ve been ridden their whole lives does NOT mean they understand ANYtHING from a sport horse perspective. Legs, for example, you can clamp your legs around them and they typically don’t react much. They don’t know leg cues. Both my guys need a lot of room to pick up and sustain a canter—like my whole front field. OTTBs are going to be much easier to turn and maintain a canter going to the left at first. The right lead? Well, that’s a whole’ nuther thing. With enough room, my one guy will start on the left and it’s easier for him to do a flying change to the right than to start on the right lead. My other guy needs a little half-buck to get the right lead at first. And we are working on that every ride. They need lots of work at the walk and they made leaps and bounds of progress at that. When I learned a true half-halt—it’s God’s greatest gift! Both horses respond INSTANTLY to that, and it’s super helpful when setting them up to canter. They are both VERY sensitive to changes in weight, they learned moving shoulders, moving hindquarters, and as they slowly build up strength on the weak side, especially, you’ll see huge differences. They are getting MUCH better as they learn and get stronger. With OTTBs, LOTS of praise goes a long way. For laughs, I was trying to get a right-lead canter from one guy and he bucked and when I got reorganized, I laughed because he was on the right lead. TONS OF PRAISE and petting as we cantered. But he’ s weak on that side and you can feel it ,and he tires quickly. But he got that lead 2 more times after that. They’re sensitive and most of them try really hard. Maybe scale back your expectations—it’s probably going to take longer than you think. But once they get it—I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
For the person who said I should find a different barn, there are no other barns without needing to take an hour train ride to get there which I’m unwilling to do. I’m in South Korea there is one barn in my city and I do not have a car in this country. I’m hoping my trainer will be back very soon since he is supposed to come back first week of June. I also am trying to learn how to train horses since I’m hoping to train OTTBs and Mustangs eventually when I get back to the US. (This has been m y dream forever and teaching in Korea is my way of quickly saving a lot of money.)
I do not have a ton of space to run her around in unfortunately Korea as a whole is just kinda short on space. I think you probably are right though about me expecting things faster than they are going to happen. She’s gotten everything else I’ve been working on with her so fast I might have been expecting a little to much from her. I only pay for lessons when its one of the days I’m not riding this horse in particular I am enjoying working with this horse a lot. Just wanted some advice since I got stuck recently.
Also she responds wonderfully to praise and scratches without those two things I don’t think she’d have ever figured out bending as quickly as she did.
You know they are taught to break on the right lead, yes? OTTBs know their leads. Right to break, left for the turn, right on the straight away, left for the turn, right for the push home.
One sided-ness is in every horse. OTTBs are no different. But the idea that they “only know their left lead” is bunk.
I didn’t say they ONLY know their left lead. I’m just talking about my 2 guys and restarting them from the track. That’s fine if they break from the gate on the right lead (I didn’t know that, OK, cool)—but I’m not asking them to do that. They’re just learning to stay balanced in both directions and to associate the ask with picking up the correct lead. They CLEARLY feel more comfortable picking up the left lead. And so has every OTTB I’ve ever had. They ALWAYS get that one right. We have to work a lot more on the right one. My current 2 feel completely different cantering on the left lead than they do on the right lead at this point. My comment about having a lot of space is that my one guy is a 17-h gangly guy who has a MUCH harder time getting his legs organized. He’s so much better than when he first came. My other one is super sensitive and tries so hard that he stresses himself out. When he has some space to gallop a little, a lot of that energy dissipates and he relaxes and then we can try again on the new stuff. For both, already, they’ve really relaxed from the “rocket launch” canter departs. All I’m trying to contribute is what we’ve done and what MIGHT be helpful. For the OP, I doubt it’s a soundness issue. The horse just came off the track basically and is just green for her new job. Small asks, lots of rewards, a little at a time—that’s what I’ve found to be helpful.
Not every OTTB prefers the left lead. As others have said, they mostly break on the right lead and then switch. My current OTTb would not pick up a left lead canter when I first got him. He was incredibly balanced and could counter canter on a tiny circle! What worked for him was trotting him over a small X on a circle. He would land on the left lead and then hold it comfortably. I used that method for a long time because it kept him quiet and balanced – no running into a canter.
I’m not a huge fan of lunging, but it can help a horse figure a few things out without the rider’s weight.
What I’ve always done is lots and lots of transitions. That’s what will build up strength and balance.
I believe others also ride her, so all the training you do is likely undone a bit by those who don’t ask, or do the way you do, and aren’t riding her properly to encourage strength building.
She doesn’t get ridden often by other people but once in a while she does actually two weekends ago she got ridden r\in a lesson right after I worked her and by the end she was flighty and soaked in sweat it’s driving me nuts cause the person in the lesson who rode after me is the only other person besides the trainer who rides her other than myself. I can definitely feel when I haven’t ridden her a little while that she has regressed a bit, and I know the other rider hits her when she doesn’t do what he wants. (I’ve seen him smack a horse with a crop while jerking backwards on the reins for a bad transition) and he honestly doesn’t belong anywhere near a horse but Koreans would literally rather die than reprimand someone publicly or tell him he can’t come back. I’m hoping to try to get her on a full lease so I can ride her out in the big outdoor arena and so that no one else can ride her and fry her. As it is I have to just keep trying to do whats best for this horse to the best of my abilities. I know I can’t completely take her out of the situation but if I can help her gain strength so she can canter and do things properly then there won’t be any motive for someone to use a crop on her or anything. I just want to do what’s best for her an I know someones going to think I’m crazy for caring this much about a horse that isn’t mine that ultimately is going to end up being a lesson horse but I do.
I would say ground work, build her natural balance from the ground first, ask her to do transitions and maybe use some training aids like side rains etc to make sure she is working through the back (ask for expert advise on how to use sidereins or look it up on the internet)
work in trot and walk transitions, and on the bends like serpentines when ridden for a couple of weeks to build balance and strength.
only ask her to canter from the ground, after a couple of weeks give her a try on the back.
You said “OTTBs are going to be much easier to turn and maintain a canter going to the left at first. The right lead? Well, that’s a whole’ nuther thing.” as if it was a rule with OTTBs. It’s not. Your horses are one sided - this is common in every type of horse. It becomes much more prominent when a horse isn’t fit enough to maintain balance. No big deal, just have to work on it.
My mare raced 47 times. She picks up both leads easily, and had proper back to front flying changes from the first off the track ride. My other OTTB raced 21 times and had both leads but no flying changes unless you wanted to run him into them.
Every horse is different. As I mentioned, there is a prominent “facebook figure” with an OTTB that raced 16 times and the horse will.not.canter. At all. Either direction. Big circle, little circle, straight line, after a jump, lunge line. Nothing. It wasn’t a fitness thing, the horse was hacked out nearly every day, and turned out 24/7. It was super weird. Maybe the horse has improved now, who knows.
But, that’s horses. If I wanted consistency, I’d buy a dirtbike.
I have no idea who you are talking about… but… would bet you money that horse is not sound, either. TBs know how to canter. If they can’t canter, something is wrong with them. :winkgrin:
That wouldn’t surprise me. She sure did appear to trot sound though, and never came up lame after 4-5 hour hacks (at the walk, but still). She would just straight panic about cantering. She would gallop in her field loose. Who knows, really sweet little mare, but had a few issues.
