Recommendations for Exercises for Hot Horse

[erinmcc]

Hi! I got a new horse in May. He is a 16 year old ISH and was previously eventing and showing in the 1m jumpers with a junior rider. He is a very sensitive horse. When I first began working with him he was tense, reactive, and very ‘forward’ (head up+running, not true forward engagement). He has no buck, bolt, or spook, just a tendency to get very hot and fast. I believe he was a bit too much horse for his previous rider so they had him pretty heavily bitted and he seemed to develop some anxiety around contact and would explode a few strides out from even small fences. Considering this, I decided to take him back to basics, put him in a simple loose ring snaffle, and also start doing some body work with him to rule out any discomfort as the source of his manner under saddle.

A few months ago we couldn’t even get a forward, engaged, relaxed walk. It was always a rushed pace, lots of prancing/breaking into a trot, evading contact. Once we were trotting, transitioning down to a walk and back to the trot was near impossible without a battle. I have spent the past few months doing TONS of transitions, leg-yields, counter-bending, shoulder-in, and serpentining at the walk and trot. Now he has the most incredible, engaged walk and a beautiful trot with a willingness to engage, stretch down, and adjust his pace. We are not without hiccups (rushing in the trot, getting tense in the walk after trotting) but I find I can always bring him back to the walk and do some bending, leg-yielding to re-center him.

So here is where we have hit a wall. Once we canter, even a single time, he goes back to being super hot. It is a struggle to get him to do anything but run in the trot and inevitably break into the canter. He becomes tense, throws his head up to evade contact. I can get the canter itself to be nice and rhythmic and relaxed. But if I try to do anything except canter it is a mess. I try taking long breaks to walk on the buckle until he calms and I am able to use my toolkit of bending and leg-yielding to get him walking nicely again when I pick up contact albeit more tense than in the beginning of the ride, but once we try to go back to the trot he explodes forward again.

So anyone out there have any good exercises/ideas to try? He is a fun horse to work with, has incredible work ethic, will jump anything, and has amazing gaits. I want to eventually move back to pole work and eventually over fences, but feel that we are not ready until we can move up and down through all the gaits in a controlled manner with solid half-halts.

(As a caveat, he has some osteoarthritis in his hocks (doing super well with Cosequin ASU and Adequan loading dose) so I avoid any trot work on a circle <20m)

[Willesdon]

It sounds like you have done really well with him so far. I have no exercises but a suggestion. Try a kineton noseband as that allows more control without pressure on the mouth.

[endlessclimb]

If his arthritis is that advanced, I’m not sure I’d think about jumping him again…

That said, my suggestions: use your body. Refuse to post to his crappy rushy rhythm. Sometimes with these hot ones, doing a million transitions actually makes it worse, so I’d get in the trot and just stay there, posting at the rhythm you want, not the one he’s giving you. Doing some bend and counterbend isn’t a bad idea, but don’t bring him to a walk until he’s settled. Also, make sure your leg is ON but quiet.

If you’re willing to do smaller figures, which if he’s going to event he’s going to have to…

I’d slow my posting, keep the outside rein connection, and slowwwwly sloooowwwllly make that circle smaller and smaller and smaller and my poster lower and lower and lower, until he walks on his own, without your prompting. Praise. Rinse, repeat. Make relaxing down the the walk his idea.

[ivy62]

I have a Trakhener that is very sensitive. We opted to use a Nathe and he has learned to trust it in his mouth. If you are willing to go back to the beginning and earn his trust that will help him. We taught my horse long and low as once they trust it is very relaxing for them. We did not canter for a long time. you could try cantering him on a lunge with a De gouge. he would not be battling balance with a rider and he probably doesn’t trust it to relax enough. Trail rides and enjoying his job. How much turnout doe he get? My horse evented to intermediate with a pro in his younger years. I also got him at 16… Why not have his hocks injected? It is direct to the problem… He used prostride on my guy and it worked like a charm

[AnastasiaBeaverhousen]

I would do some in hand work before you ride to teach him to wait for you and to instill some relaxation.

How is he to lead? Does he walk quietly beside you or does he jig, try to drag you around?

1. If he is restless in hand then do some exercises until he learns to walk quietly and waits for you.

2. I would do some walk halt walk transitions.
   if you feel safe doing it, tie your reins in a knot and use only your seat and leg aids.

I think your horse was so constrained in the past that he explodes when asked for upward transitions and also maybe ridden too much from the reins and very little seat and leg aids.

You may want to make sure that on upward transitions you do not hold your breath or lean forward, or try to shorten the reins too much .

All these things create tension.

You may want to do walk canter walk transitions instead of cantering from the trot.

Dont worry about his leads or his self carriage , the purpose here is to teach him that he can trust you and to listen to your aids.

It doesnt sound like he is trying to run away with you. He seems to blow through your aids which is why trying to slow him down doesnt work.

When you get set a goal say, a good trot or canter depart then praise him and go on to something else

If you dont get the results you want , dont get mad. Reevaluate and make sure that you asked correctly and that you set him up for success.

And dont keep trying and trying. Persisting on when it doesn’t work just creates a frustrated rider and an angry and possibly sore horse.

Just go back to something that he does well and restablish his confidence.

You may also want to think about checking his neck and back for pain/discomfort.

He may some unresolved physical issues that were never addressed.

He sounds to me like a horse that was ridden front to back and has some gaps in his training. This is no reflection on you or your abilities.

You just have to exercise some patience and give him the opportunity to respond correctly instead of reacting .

You are already doing some good things, imo.

I would also do some very simple transitions in your warmup and some changes of direction with lots of halt transitions to make sure that he is really listening to you, before you start the real work. If hes not listening and relaxed at the walk, he is not going to suddenly relax and listen when the work gets more demanding.

Also remember that he is 16 years old and he might get sore more quickly and need more recovery time.

Hope this helps.

Good luck

[catchcan]

You have made great progress with him already! As others have said, work on reassuring him that you are not going to hurt him in the mouth. I think he is getting hot/explosive because he is anticipating pain. It would be worth trying a hackamore or a Myler combination bit to see if he works better off nose and poll pressure. In that same vein, have a chiropractor make sure that his TMJ, poll, and back are all pain-free.

Work on strengthening your seat and voice aids so that you can bring him back with those instead of the reins. Get really solid at down transitions and halt with just those aids at the walk and trot before revisiting the canter. Then, ask for canter for just a couple strides on a 20m circle with only the slightest of rein contact, then bring him back to walk with your seat and voice aids, making sure to stay relaxed through your body. Do this just once a session at first, preferably toward the end so that you can reward his return to a relaxed walk with treats and back to the barn. If you need to walk for a long time until he relaxes, so be it. The relaxation is what you are rewarding. When you are getting that consistently, ask for a few more steps of canter before you walk, gradually allowing longer canter on the 20m circle, always trying to ask for the voice/seat down transition before he gets anxious. Do not introduce more repetitions of canter until he is staying relaxed consistently. You are trying to avoid his anxious anticipation, so repetition is the last step in the process.

[erinmcc]

Hi all thanks for the recommendations! I have a chiro see him every 8 weeks. Not to say it could not be related to discomfort but so far we have not ruled anything in. I like the recommendations to try some options for noseband or a hackamore to see how he responds to nose and poll pressure. Given the fact that we are making progress with the loose-ring and his problems seem almost certainly to be related to some form of anxiety, I am not interested at this time in going with anything stronger or that enacts any kind of leverage or curb action from the bit.

As for the concerns raised on the osteoarthritis, it is in the earlier stages and quite mild. I just have no competition plans in the near future so my vet and I agreed to avoid injections for now and take a more conservative approach with the Adequan and Cosequin. So far results are amazing and that on top of the body work seems to have him feeling great I mostly mentioned not wanting to school <20 m circles because given our lack of competition plans I see no reason to school him on tight movements. Also in the past some people have suggested I just turn him on a tight circle when he starts to get quick which is just…not something I will be doing.

I appreciate the advice to avoid too much repetition. That is a good tip and one I definitely did not think of since it is easy to fall in the trap of doing more repetition with these exercises.

[endlessclimb]

@erinmcc

Hi all thanks for the recommendations! I have a chiro see him every 8 weeks. Not to say it could not be related to discomfort but so far we have not ruled anything in. I like the recommendations to try some options for noseband or a hackamore to see how he responds to nose and poll pressure. Given the fact that we are making progress with the loose-ring and his problems seem almost certainly to be related to some form of anxiety, I am not interested at this time in going with anything stronger or that enacts any kind of leverage or curb action from the bit.

As for the concerns raised on the osteoarthritis, it is in the earlier stages and quite mild. I just have no competition plans in the near future so my vet and I agreed to avoid injections for now and take a more conservative approach with the Adequan and Cosequin. So far results are amazing and that on top of the body work seems to have him feeling great I mostly mentioned not wanting to school <20 m circles because given our lack of competition plans I see no reason to school him on tight movements. Also in the past some people have suggested I just turn him on a tight circle when he starts to get quick which is just…not something I will be doing.

I appreciate the advice to avoid too much repetition. That is a good tip and one I definitely did not think of since it is easy to fall in the trap of doing more repetition with these exercises.

You make it sound abrupt, the turning on a tight circle. That’s not what it’s meant to be. It’s just using a figure to slow his tempo down and staying there until he relaxes, and then continuing on. The never ending transitions jazzes these types up, so doing a walk break every time he gets quick is not productive.

Another thing that I did with my mare that reminds me of this guy is let go. She would get quick and tense, and just a momentary softening of the contact would often jog her brain into realizing it wasn’t a death trap she was in. For her, it wasn’t treated as a reward for being anxious, it was a quick mental break from the pressure.

[Pippigirl]

@erinmcc

Hi! I got a new horse in May. He is a 16 year old ISH and was previously eventing and showing in the 1m jumpers with a junior rider. He is a very sensitive horse. When I first began working with him he was tense, reactive, and very ‘forward’ (head up+running, not true forward engagement). He has no buck, bolt, or spook, just a tendency to get very hot and fast. I believe he was a bit too much horse for his previous rider so they had him pretty heavily bitted and he seemed to develop some anxiety around contact and would explode a few strides out from even small fences. Considering this, I decided to take him back to basics, put him in a simple loose ring snaffle, and also start doing some body work with him to rule out any discomfort as the source of his manner under saddle.

A few months ago we couldn’t even get a forward, engaged, relaxed walk. It was always a rushed pace, lots of prancing/breaking into a trot, evading contact. Once we were trotting, transitioning down to a walk and back to the trot was near impossible without a battle. I have spent the past few months doing TONS of transitions, leg-yields, counter-bending, shoulder-in, and serpentining at the walk and trot. Now he has the most incredible, engaged walk and a beautiful trot with a willingness to engage, stretch down, and adjust his pace. We are not without hiccups (rushing in the trot, getting tense in the walk after trotting) but I find I can always bring him back to the walk and do some bending, leg-yielding to re-center him.

So here is where we have hit a wall. Once we canter, even a single time, he goes back to being super hot. It is a struggle to get him to do anything but run in the trot and inevitably break into the canter. He becomes tense, throws his head up to evade contact. I can get the canter itself to be nice and rhythmic and relaxed. But if I try to do anything except canter it is a mess. I try taking long breaks to walk on the buckle until he calms and I am able to use my toolkit of bending and leg-yielding to get him walking nicely again when I pick up contact albeit more tense than in the beginning of the ride, but once we try to go back to the trot he explodes forward again.

So anyone out there have any good exercises/ideas to try? He is a fun horse to work with, has incredible work ethic, will jump anything, and has amazing gaits. I want to eventually move back to pole work and eventually over fences, but feel that we are not ready until we can move up and down through all the gaits in a controlled manner with solid half-halts.

(As a caveat, he has some osteoarthritis in his hocks (doing super well with Cosequin ASU and Adequan loading dose) so I avoid any trot work on a circle <20m)

Do a search on YouTube for Warwick Shiller. He has some really good ideas about this. I started trying his methods last year and although some of the exercises you’d think how the heck can this solve my problem but…I’m finding it working extremely well with the hot horses without getting into into a pulling match, without having to bit up or getting into a hot, sweaty mess. Can’t hurt to take a look

[MsJump21]

It sounds like you’ve done a great job with your horse already! My horse was very similar when I first purchased her. I messed around with bits a lot since she didn’t like a lot of contact and would constantly throw her head up so we switched her to a double jointed mullen happy mouth hackamore combo which put less pressure on her mouth and she has been a different horse since and no longer throws her head up or gets hot when contact is applied. I suggest that when after you canter for the first time let him walk around on the buckle for 10 minutes to let him relax. Switch directions and work on serpentines and spiral circles that go from large-small. Since you mentioned it might be anxiety related, I would put him away after you have him walking nicely so he no longer anticipates what comes next. If you did that for 2 weeks he might start to settle down and then you can start asking for the trot after you cantered him and then work to the canter. Working on voice aids during lunging would also be great too that way you don’t have to pull or leg him which might cause him to become hot.

[ClassyJumper]

Can you walk and trot completely on the buckle (including downward transitions)? If not I would start there. I had a huge breakthrough with my mare when I just let go and taught her downward transitions using just my seat.

I could also get nice gaits with her doing serpentines and leg yielding and such but she was never truly relaxed and I suspect your horse is the same.

As another poster mentioned I used the Warwick Schiller videos to help me, but he does use small circles alot so you might have to be creative and find something else that works.

[wsmoak]

@ClassyJumper

Can you walk and trot completely on the buckle (including downward transitions)? If not I would start there. I had a huge breakthrough with my mare when I just let go and taught her downward transitions using just my seat.

I could also get nice gaits with her doing serpentines and leg yielding and such but she was never truly relaxed and I suspect your horse is the same.

As another poster mentioned I used the Warwick Schiller videos to help me, but he does use small circles alot so you might have to be creative and find something else that works.

I’m another Schiller fan. I also have an Irish horse who despite being as old as dirt now, can be quite a handful. When he’d had too much time off due to family emergencies and I couldn’t even lead him safely, I took to the internet and found WS’s videos and even as imperfectly as I’m sure I applied the advice, it started working immediately.

My French eventing instructor from AZ is probably throwing up his hands in frustration that it took a reiner I’ve never met to finally teach me to Let. Go. And now I understand that until I can walk, trot, canter and stop calmly on a loose rein, nothing much else is going to get done.

Most of the circling I recall was at the walk and I really felt that it benefitted my old somewhat creaky guy. Making sure he’s bending correctly and balanced can only help… the work is kind of like yoga for horses.

You might also take a look at Tristan Tucker’s program, he’s an upper level dressage rider with a similar training method.

Brent Graef, Amy Skinner and Ed Dabney are others I’ve audited or ridden with that could also help – I’m sure you have someone nearby – if you search for ‘classical riding’ that will turn up the right sort of people. If they start quoting Nuno Oliveira and Tom Dorrance, you’re in the right place.

[TKR]

TRAIL RIDING!!! That is THE most relaxing thing you can do with him. I’ve reschooled alot of OTTBs and others as well as started babies forever. If you have hills, even better. YOU should relax and encourage him to walk out and lower his head. But you might just need to sit still at first and let him start looking around and not being so concerned about himself and you. You can get a great walk trail riding and the other gaits will come from that. All the repetitions won’t do what this will do. If someone has a quiet trail horse that would be great to go with you. Honestly, get out of the arena or anyplace that says “work” and let him just settle down and relax on his own. You can’t force that. Take your time and do this for as long as it takes. You could do some walking in a big field as well. Hills would REALLY be great!!! Good luck!