rearing issue with a 5 years old stallion!

[arashabb]

good day to all dear riders,

the reason I am writing this, is because of an unsolved issue with a 5 years old stallion that i am training at the moment.
I started riding him around 3 months ago. he used to take his chance to bite you if you would get close to him, or rear when you were walking next to him. when I started riding him, he reared up occasionally. what i did was, pushing him forward, spinning and few times using my whip( as a last resort) to push him forward. each one of these worked for sometime and he he started to rear again.now, he behaves very well when I lounge him, listens to me and goes all gates with no problem. immediately when I sit on him and push him forward with my legs, he rears ( just when I want to start trot or to start canter, and then he is fine!)i have very soft hands, very soft bit in his mouth. even tried to teach him to go trot and canter with my vice in the lounge and he is absolutely obedient but once I sit on his back and ask him to go trot( by legs, seat, voice,…etc) he rears and not goes forward. he may go up and down up to 10 times. when I try to spin him, he just stands still and doesnt move(if he can rear!) he is absolutely healthy, have been checked by vet and has no issue in his back or mouth or anywhere else.he behaves much better when yo walk him. in the past 2-3 weeks, I am asking someone to help me from ground. I lounge him, then get on him, ask my assistance to stand in the middle and hold the lounging whip. up tp the moment he is there, the horse moves fine, immediately when they leave, he starts to fight and not go forward again!
any suggestion?

[Silverbridge]

To me, rearing is unacceptable even in hand. I would do something considerably more severe when he rears in hand, than pushing forward and spinning him.

BUT: what to do, and how severe to make it, depends on the character of the individual horse as well as the timing of the person implementing the punishment.

I would start there. I would also geld. The under-saddle refusal is in many ways a whole 'nother problem and typically one for an experienced pro. There are people who specialize in “fixing” and rearing is among the things they fix. Still, there may be a transfer of manners and behavior to the under saddle work, if it’s addressed from the ground. And provided the issue is indeed behavioral and not pain related.

[beowulf]

In my experience, spinning has never worked for me as a disciplinary tool. Either try some other disciplinary measure or move him onto someone else who has more experience with this type of horse. Considering you say he “reared occasionally” when you started riding him and now it is a daily occurrence, it does really sound like the training program you’ve devised for him is insufficient and the escalation of rearing to me is a pattern that may suggest you are not an appropriate trainer for this horse.

What are you doing to prevent the rear? I am sure he gives you signs first, it’s kind of hard for most horses to disguise a rear. Once the horse is in the air you already lost the battle IMHO. I NEVER spin the horse around after he lands. It is GO GO GO - gallop if I have to, to get him forward.

If I feel a horse is about to rear, depending on the horse and his sensitivities, I will either use my voice in a sharp ‘AH!’ combined with leg/crop to smack him forward OR a very sharp correction with the reins to one side to prevent the horse from going up - that is a last measure on my part. Horses cannot rear as easily if they are going forward or have their neck bent.

I don’t do rearers anymore. In my opinion, one or two rears when you are feeling good or in an extremely stressful situation is okay but certainly not desirable - rearing when you are asked to do basic things undersaddle like go forward or trot is not acceptable and is indicative of a problem in the training program, a problem in the horse’s head, or a problem with pain.

[Eclectic_Horseman]

You simply have to remain calm and have more patience than he does.

Do NOT let him rear under saddle. If he starts to go up, turn him to get him off balance so that he cannot go up. “Spinning” is not necessary.

Do that every time he attempts to rear. When you ask him to go forward, and he tries to rear, don’t allow it and ask again. You may have to repeat this for several minutes. Eventually he will get bored and walk off.

Rearing is natural for stallions. Young stallions do it in play, practicing for the day when they have to fight off other stallions to keep the mares. :rolleyes: If you are aggressive back to a young stallion, then they take that as an acceptance of his invitation to play/fight. You are the human, you need to use your bigger brain to convince him that you are not going to accept his invitation. The good news is that young stallions have short attention spans. So if you wait him out, and don’t fight with him, he will move on.

Oh and then when he does move forward, REWARD! And don’t drill him.

[HSS]

Agreed.

In my experience, rearing and refusal to go forward under saddle is almost wholly attributable to saddle fit- or non-fit as this case may be.

In this case, it may be exacerbated by the sex of the horse, since male horses typically rear in play, in aggression, etc.

That a horse rears on the lunge, or free, or walking with you does not necessarily translate into rearing under saddle- but it always can- but almost always rearing is a sign of self-defense by the horse to the situation. The fact that he rears immediately when asked to go off, and has to be driven by a ground person, makes me zero in on saddle fit.

If when palpated he does not show discomfort where the saddle sits seems off- but I am not an expert in saddle fit, I employ experts in saddle fit, and usually there is some tell tale sign on his back/withers/neck/shoulders that the saddle is pinching him.

Some horses will work through this pain, but others will simply say “no!”. In my life, I have have had 2 horses which were lamed by custom made saddles that were supposedly fit perfectly to the horse in question- this is a tricky issue for sure.

These days a lot of people are more experienced in this area, but I would start by switching saddles, even to a bareback pad, and see if the behavior changes.

And yes, I would absolutely pull his head around, immediately- and stop him from going up. Sometimes you have to kick his hindquarters out from under him to prevent the rear- but he will not change his behavior if it comes from self defense, whether you geld him or not.

So, you have to figure out the cause of this, or this horse might as well be put down now, before he flips over backwards on you, which is the next step.

[DressageChic2]

i agree with trying some different saddles, sometimes what looks like a perfect fit gets given the thumbs down from the horse and vice versa…let him tell you, give him the benefit of the doubt and experiment!

i would also perhaps do some flexion tests to check he is basically comfortable in his hocks.

can you ride in a bitless bridle to double heck its not a hidden mouth issue such as unerrupted wolf tooth or splintered root etc?

only when you are 100% sure its NOT pain can you crack down on it under saddle…flexing him round tight to prevent him going up always works for me but my stallion will only very rarely attempt a rear out of pure excitement so i can feel it coming and flex him then put him to work, theres no malice in it and he is a fun, forward, chirpy guy to work with so slightly different to your situation.

if he isnt in pain and is just a PITA gelding will knock some of the wind out his sales and he doesnt sound like a nice prospect as a sire anyway tbh…

[DownYonder]

I have no hands on experience with this issue, but some years back, a friend of mine apprenticed with a very good, very soft, very quiet cowboy that did remedial training - including “fixing” of various behavioral issues. I used to go visit her on weekends and watch them work horses, and the guy had a wonderful gift for working with problem horses. I watched them deal with a fair number of rearing problems over the years.

At one point, they got in a 7 y/o Thoroughbred breeding stallion to train up for resale as a hunter or eventer. The horse had not been ridden since he came off the track as a young 3 y/o, and had done only live cover breeding since. He had a litany of bad stallion behaviors - including biting, rearing, striking, etc., most of which were pretty deeply ingrained. The cowboy immediately recommended castration, and thankfully the owner was agreeable. The deed was done, and the cowboy started working with him as soon as the vet gave the all clear. The biting took some time to resolve, but he was able to get him over rearing in hand pretty quickly by simply pushing him off balance every time he went up. The horse was a fast learner, and he soon realized that whenever he got light in the front end, he was going to be pushed over. He came close to going down a few times in the beginning, but became pretty reliable in hand after only a couple of weeks. They used the same technique when they started riding him - my friend would lead the horse while the cowboy sat on him. If the horse started to go up, my friend would use her hand on his shoulder to push him over. The cowboy reinforced it with his inside leg, and the horse had to quickly come back to Earth to keep from losing his balance. That training carried over when the cowboy started riding him without him being led. Within a couple of months, my friend was riding the horse with minimal problems. (And of course, everything got easier as the hormones diminished in his system.)

I will say, though, that this cowboy was the long and tall type - he was about 6’3", so it was relatively easy for him to work with a tall horse. My friend is about 5’4", and she wasn’t quite as adept at pushing the taller horses around.

[exploding_pony]

I never say this, but I completely disagree with Silverbridge!

IME you don’t want to go to war over rearing, you want to prevent it from happening as described above.

The Exploding Pony used to walk around on his hind legs from time to time. It was his default in the turnout - he did it all the time. Sometimes in hand, rarely under saddle, but it did happen. Especially as a young horse.

The thing I learned over the years was to stop if before it happened. Once he was starting to go up, a severe correction just made all hell break loose and things got very, very dangerous.

If you can’t prevent it from happening you need to have someone else training the horse ASAP. Every time he does this under saddle it is going to be more ingrained.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=exploding pony;8744008]
I never say this, but I completely disagree with Silverbridge!

IME you don’t want to go to war over rearing, you want to prevent it from happening as described above.

The Exploding Pony used to walk around on his hind legs from time to time. It was his default in the turnout - he did it all the time. Sometimes in hand, rarely under saddle, but it did happen. Especially as a young horse.

The thing I learned over the years was to stop if before it happened. Once he was starting to go up, a severe correction just made all hell break loose and things got very, very dangerous.

If you can’t prevent it from happening you need to have someone else training the horse ASAP. Every time he does this under saddle it is going to be more ingrained.[/QUOTE]
completely agree: prepare, divert, prevent… i don’t find i ride as many rearers as i did when i was a teen and i think that in part has to do with developing my feel for an appropriate preventionary/precautionary aid and now, being able to tell when a horse is thinking long before the event happens. it’s hard to type out an instruction for how you would prevent a horse that is about to rear, but in general, instead of riding passively until the episode happens or doesn’t, make the horse move forward, sideways, whatever it is that keeps that horse from planting his feet and going up.

once the horse is in the air, as i said above, the battle is already lost.

[Silverbridge]

My advice for firm punishment was for a horse rearing IN HAND. While leading.

Those strongly disagreeing with that are discussing what to do instead of punishment, when a horse rears under saddle.

[exploding_pony]

It’s actually the same in hand. You need to prevent it from happening.

[Arabiandressage]

I am going to ask a strange question. How is he about letting you handle his ears?