Restarting the Draft horse (rearing)

[CGC421]

I’m wanting to try and restart my draft horse. He is about 8, and started rearing in the cart maybe 2 years and has taken off in the cart too. Also rears while being ground driven. He has been out to pasture for a 1 1/2 now, I have been away but I want to try and figure this out. I believe he is afraid of men. He is scared, sucks in when men come around. He won’t come up to a guy in the pasture but lets me come up to him. I can’t get a halter on him though, he’s too shy and at 18hh i’m only 5’4 so…

So I was thinking about trying a natural horsemanship, I’m going just take things slow. Winter is coming soon, and I won’t be able to do anything we don’t have an arena we do alot of farming and then do alot of fair shows in the fall. But during the winter I was just thinking about haltering him and just loving on him. And then in the spring do some round penning to do the “join up” and then put on the harness and continue to round pen and start line driving, and not put him into the cart maybe till next fall or when he is ready.

Ruling out dentist and will have a chiro out too. Any suggestions? I know this should have been nipped sooner but due to circumstances it wasn’t possible. But Now I have the time and I’d like to make him my project before he gets sent away and could hurt someone.

Molly

[Cindyg]

I’m not a driving person, so I’ll just give you a general answer and a bump. I like the idea of your “loving on him” a lot this winter. I like the idea of the dentist and the chiropractor.

Beyond that, wow. He’s 18 hands, you can’t get a halter on him, he’s fearful, and he rears up. This is not a job for an amateur. I, personally, would not advise you to hook him to anything or to try “join up.” I’m not saying that never works; I just think you need to consult a professional. Please be careful.

[CGC421]

He technically is not my horse, but i’ve been with this team for 12 years and just consider him my horse. Owner who is older man wants to send him to the amish and try something called the Flying W. Which I think would make it worse. He is a sweet horse, but just has a problem.

The flying w described to me is a rope around the front legs, and connects to the bridle and around the poll and then the rope is ran like a rein and is in hands of the helper. And so when the horse starts rearing and is going nuts the helper is supposed to pull the rope the legs will be pulled under him and the horse is brought to his knees. And I definitely DO NOT want that.

Or he is going to be sold with who knows what is going to happen after that too him. We have many other good horses but I feel something special with this horse and if it doesn’t work atleast I tried. I used to ride this horse too, but I’m not going to try that!

[red_mares]

One of my very good friends is an Amish man and works like you describe. Sending this horse to someone like him is probably the BEST THING you can do. It will keep you and this horse from getting hurt. An 18hh draft horse with behavior problems is nothing to mess around with.

The guy I know is the GO TO person for horses like this. He’s been doing it for 30-40 years. What he can do in 2 weeks is nothing short of amazing. I know big time Morgan/ASB trainers who have recommended &/ sublet work to them. My point - just because it doesn’t fit the Flicka school/natural horsemanship picture doesn’t mean it’s wrong. This guy is not rough with his horses. The ones that get dropped are the ones who need to be dropped.

I know a couple Amish trainers, in different parts of the country, and both are very good at what they do. What they do is fix horses with problems like you describe, or worse. You would do well to respect the wishes of this horse’s owner.

As to natural horsemanship, that in and of itself, isn’t all that it’s purveyors would like you to believe. Go check out the threads asking how to deal with horses with dangerous habits - most of the horses that have the worst manners are owned by people who are enamored with natural horsemanship.

ETA: I know at least one of the 2 trainers I know probably wouldn’t take him because he’s a draft. One thing to deal with a 4 yro untouched 17 h dutch harness horse, another to deal with an 18h draft with bad habits. At 75, he knows his limits.

[5chestnuts]

The tripping mechanism known as the “Flying W” is for bolting, not rearing.

To trip a rearing horse you’d have to snatch a hind leg, and that could lead to a world of hurt.

I just can’t fathom why anyone would want to attempt this level of brutal force on a horse, a huge, powerful horse, that already appears to have a severe lack of confidence in humans. What do you hope to achieve? A placid horse that you can drive around with no worries? I doubt that will ever happen, even with Amish bootcamp. Certainly not with the so called Natural Horsemanship.

He’s not yours, thank goodness. red mares has it right. You sound like a very nice, caring person, but this horse is beyond anything you can do, especially if you can’t even get a halter in it after having ridden it in the past. Let the owner keep control of this horse’s destiny. Stand back and watch from a safe distance. You’ll learn a lot that way, and survive.

[Plainandtall]

Molly- I would not advise trying natural horsemanship with this horse.

The roundpenning moment of turn and face me and lick your lips triumph is not a desired “trick” for a driving horse to have in his book of possible solutions and I think it would only make things more difficult for the next guy who has to try to untangle this problem.

I’m sure you understand that “gentle giant” is also a myth. A well trained mannered draft horse can be a gentle giant- but they have even more potential to be an explosive lethal force and than needs to be respected.

In fact- I have to break the sad news to you- many draft horse people simply won’t even bother with a horse like this- human life is too precious and well behaved big belgians are plentiful- there simply is no good reason to risk life, limb and equipment messing with a 2000 lb. nut case. If you go to draft horse auctions- you will see these horses-(they are often the most beautiful looking because they aren’t worked down like the boys who would behave in harness) you will hear the murmuring rumors about runaways- and the bidding will be limp. Even experienced teamsters sometimes just throw in the towel and walk away. It’s just not worth it.

I think in the mind/heart of a draft horse- his LOVE grows from respect, from fairness consistency and from hours and hours of labor… not the other way around…

If you approach it by trying to build respect from love- I don’t see that working. If you feed him tons of carrots- he’s just going to think you are the carrot lady. I think it’s better from a training perspective to have a horse who is cautious around men- than to have one who expects the world from a woman when he has never done a dang thing to deserve it.

I have worked with drafts for many years and the types of problems you are talking about are REALLY dangerous. Like, leave you dead dangerous. I agree that training- which probably would include unbreakable hitching, another rock solid horse and possibly some yank his feet out form under him humility - MIGHT- help him. He might never make a safe driving horse but could possibly become a riding horse for a person game for that.

I have known horses who “were dropped” (with a running W) and my opinion is that sometimes it doesn’t make safer horses- not in their head. They are still running away in their brain- they are just too terrified to take a step past “whoa” They were not relaxed- and they were not behaving- they were just terrified. I think it’s a legit last resort method if done safely.

8 years old is also a very powerful age in terms of draft horse maturity. A lot of people break their drafts as youngsters- and have very gentle good working horses and then about this age- those horses find a second wind in their power… if you don’t already have it in hand and channeling in a good direction it can really unravel.

[Petstorejunkie]

Not driving, but bigassdraft related.

I have an 18h draftx in training with me that had some serious holes in his foundation. I took things back to square one in hand, longing, ground driving, and simple simple mounted work. He still wasn’t getting that forward was non negotiable. When he had a BIG tantrum over a very minor request, I decided to go have a chat with him NH style. He LOVES IT! Big lightbulb went off for him. He went from puke to prince.

We now do about 5 minutes in the RP at the beginning of every session (even before grooming) and I get a forward happy horse every time.

In the RP I worked on forward, regulating gait, and inside turns. Once we have join up (which now is the second we enter the RP) we do forward, back, leg yield, TOF, TOH, giravolte, some shoulder fore all at liberty. No touching, just body language and the visual aid of the whip

[Fillabeana]

I am a big proponent of the Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt, Buck Brannaman schools of horsemanship.

There are a WHOLE BUNCH of round-pen, ‘Natural Horsemanship’ types that are absolutely, unequivocally NONE of the above, even if they did work directly, and sometimes many years, with Dorrance and Hunt. Join-Up, oh dear, I’m not going anywhere near that garbage, thanks.

If this horse EVER influences YOU, to move your feet, so you get out of his way, you will not be able to handle him safely. And there are countless ways the horse can do that in a subtle way. And if he won’t put his head down for you to put a halter on, forget it.

And there are folks who never use a roundpen, or a western saddle, who are MUCH closer to what Dorrance and Hunt were up to. People who never had anything to do with them.

The round-pen guys, doing it right, won’t be ‘All warm and fuzzy and cosmic’, as Buck says.
Eighteen hands, deeply troubled, rears and runs away, is probably more horse than most of these fellows will want to deal with. People can, and do, get hurt with ‘reclamation projects’ like this.

In his retraining, there is going to HAVE to be some way the horse is shown that his rearing or bolting ‘just aren’t going to work out’. He has to go there, try it and find out that his choice wasn’t really a good one. And then, to have the re-training succeed, he’ll have to WANT to choose ‘the good deal’. He can’t be compelled to do it, and too many trainers insist the horse take the ‘easy’ route before the horse himself chooses that route.

But very dangerous, an 18 hand, 2000 pound rearer-bolter.
If an Amish fellow, who does the right thing by the horse, wanted to take him on, well, OK. But there’s not a whole lot of people who COULD retrain that horse properly. And plenty who THINK they could with a roundpen, that would make things worse.

I think it IS possible to get this horse pleasant and safe, but not very likely. And it is very likely that someone will get hurt, trying.

[Fillabeana]

In the RP I worked on forward, regulating gait, and inside turns. Once we have join up (which now is the second we enter the RP) we do forward, back, leg yield, TOF, TOH, giravolte, some shoulder fore all at liberty. No touching, just body language and the visual aid of the whip

I’ll first comment that ‘join up’ can be a synonym for ‘hooking on’, where the horse has given you his complete focus and attention, and is not afraid or wanting to be somewhere else.
So far so good, though I’d want ‘join up’ from the moment I was near the horse, and the horse knew I intended to catch him. ‘Join up’, or ‘hooked on’, is independent of a round pen, and can/should happen on the halter, mounted, or in harness.

And I’d bet a large amount of money, if petstorejunkie sent me a video, that I would see person influencing horse to move feet, to give over, in many places and in many ways and almost zero times the horse influenced Petstore’s feet to move.

So, while I’m not much for the whole trademarked Join Up phrase and the salesman that sells it, I do recognize that the phenomenon of ‘hooking on’, of getting the horse mentally WITH you, on the same page, as a partner with the person as the leader…not only exists but without it you aren’t really getting much accomplished.

[Petstorejunkie]

I used the term “join up” as a synonym for that connection. I don’t follow Monty Roberts.
And you are right, You have to be willing to do whatever necessary to not let that horse move your feet. The average horse person doesn’t have the cahones to enforce that boundary.

[Fillabeana]

I used the term “join up” as a synonym for that connection. I don’t follow Monty Roberts.

Yup, that was obvious to me.

And you are right, You have to be willing to do whatever necessary to not let that horse move your feet. The average horse person doesn’t have the cahones to enforce that boundary.

Often, and especially with women, there is an unwillingness to sacrifice human feelings of ‘but he looooves me’ for the perceived ‘insult’ of enforcement. Whereas the horse gets security and confidence from it, if it’s done right.

But sometimes, it can be not a lack of cojones, but rather a lack of perception that it is happening at all.

I allowed my horse to move my feet for a loooonnng time, not realizing that if I wanted him to liven up (and he did, but not nearly as much as I wanted) or slow down (again, a bit, but not much) and he blew me off, he was effectively moving MY feet. And thus uncontrollable when the fertilizer hit the ventilator, when we had a cow we HAD to get in to get AI bred, this morning was the only time it would work. Cow goes fast, horse gallops off…and in spite of extraordinary cow sense, runs right past the cow when she stops, with a buckfart and a horsie finger to me when I want him to stop with the cow.
And when he’s tied to the fence, I didn’t realize that he would swing his haunches around, and I would move. Oops. Ixnay on that one. Now he stands STILL to be saddled

Anyway, I think the horse the OP is working with, is at 18 hands and probably a ton and troubled to boot, very likely too much for her to take on as a project.
Yes, there are people that could help the horse. And there are lots that will make things worse.

[CGC421]

I’m not going to become the crazy carrot lady. I know that he is not a 15hh horse, and I know that I can’t put a halter on him because I am short. Other people halter him, we show him in halter I am just too short to get a halter on. I’m not a big fan of NH but I think it would work for this horse. I’m not about to chase him around with a big ball. I plan on making him work when he is bad and rewarding when he is good. I know its a long shot with Toby, but I think with some time he can be a good horse. Maybe he is not ment to be a carriage horse but we can find other things for him. I don’t think the flying w or whatever is for him, I think it will make him more sour. I won’t be alone, we do have a trainer but he doesn’t want to mess with him because he can’t hitch him. This horse has the best hock I’ve ever seen, we used to drive him ALL the time. Single, team, he was our wheel horse in the tandem, and in the 3 and 4. Just not sure where he went wrong.

[Plainandtall]

What you just wrote made me have totally different ideas about what’s up with him than what I gleaned from your original post.

I thought you had a spoiled youngster who never really got started going, had some tantrums and then got dropped and left to age with bad habits uncorrected.

I thought some dude had a pet draft horse, you a more dedicated horseperson- but without the draft experience and there is an amish guy who could maybe help… now I find out this horse has been shown in a four up hitch? That’s such a different picture!

What you seem to have is a seasoned hitch horse who’s gone sour.

I am going to make a stab in the dark and guess that the reason why he started rearing has something to do with a check rein… (possibly mixed with dental or back pain) That’s just my guess. I think this would be a great question for Doc Hammill!

[5chestnuts]

My thoughts have also modified based on this new informatiin. I, too, thought this was simply a draft with a bad attitude towards working. Now you’ve painted a very different picture. To me it says that at somewhere along the line, probably on the QT, someone overfaced him with what he could reasonably pull (probably mentally). And he had a meltdown, badly.

Driving horses have two ways to object to requests to pull overweighted loads :

1. Balk
2. Rear

This horse, once a reliable, steady driving horse by your account, now rears.

You’ve got a big problem here that needs to be uncovered. Either he’s hurting physically big time somewhere in his body, or he’s been overfaced and is now defensive…and scared. Scared of men, too. Was this normal when he was doing well in harness? If not, then there’s your clue.

[fivehorses]

For driving training, Doris Ganton and Clay Maier are two of the best. Doris’ has video’s and books out there called "training the driving Horse’, Clay Maier has a slew of videos and is more modern. Doris’ looks like a 60’ or 70’ video.
Both are excellent to teach you how to teach a horse to drive.

With this guy, Don’t ever get mad. Just keep picking up where you left off.
I have a draft who is now 11. He is a bad boy. Rears, strikes out and bucks when he is being lunged. I have finally found a trainer that gets him, and we think we may try long lining him this winter(I live in the south) and with the hopes of hitching him.

Before he is ever hitched, we will do all the things one should, drag a tire, put fake shaves around him, etc.

I don’t think you can do too much prep.
My youngster, under the training of a world class driver who screwed him up, was hitched immediately(because he was so calm and easy going). Wrong, as soon as he felt the pressure of the breast collar, he freaked and bolted.
So, I cannot emphasize the importance of prepping them properly. Let him feel pressure and shaves. Have a cart next to him being pulled, etc.
Doris is really 101, and I like her approach best, but Clay is also quite good in his videos.
Be safe, don’t ever get mad or want to 'show him who is boss"…that gets nowhere, no matter how much you might want to.

I would tend to want to hitch him up with a solid citizen who is bigger than him, so any antics would stop. But please prep, prep, prep. Ya can’t long line enough imo, esp with a drag etc.

[CGC421]

No, th![](s horse was once driven, and now he has bad habits that were not taken care of.

[IMG]http://i44.tinypic.com/2iwa5bo.jpg)
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/10cke47.jpg)

These were last year? I don’t think he is checked much, he carries his head very high naturally.

And I just reread my first post, lots of typos. I’m sorry. Thank you everyone for the information. I will definitely look into some things. I am having the dentist out, and having the chiro too.

[fivehorses]

He looks very modern and hitchy.
Well bred.
Go for it, be safe, be smart, and enjoy~

[Cindyg]

Oh my gosh! He’s beautiful! And already trained! I misunderstood too. I thought he was basically unhandled. Post back and let us know what happens.

[red_mares]

Given the pictures, I still say let someone who knows what they are doing this handle him.

Those pictures were not of horse turned out by a bunch of noobs. He is turned out to the nines. That tells me the old guy who owns him, knows something. A guy who isn’t going to go to internet for training advice, thinks that someone else can do a better job than himself.

There is also the simple fact, that you have stated, that you cannot halter this horse. Whether it be because he nuts or of his size, you cannot halter this horse. If you’re going to pick a horse to fix, start with one you can halter. Other than that it sounds like you’re working on the plot of the next great teen horsey novel.

Have the vet out, see if he hurts. If he hurts, fix it, then send him to the Amish guy. If he doesn’t hurt, send him to the Amish guy.

I don’t know your Am, but I do know mine. Sure he has a pair of W’s in his toolbox. What he also has is an infinite amount of patience and the fact that he’s lived through a thousand horses auditioning for the Spanish Riding School in harness. What get’s normal people upset is not what gets him upset. Normal people see the horse they’re driving go up in the air in front of them, and their pulse quickens, they say some version of Oh Sh!t. Not this guy, just another day at the office. So a horse goes up and comes down between the shafts (one over his back, one under his belly) No big deal. BTDT. Unhook, start over. After the 2nd or 3rd time in a day, Dobbin starts to figure that this ain’t gonna work, and goes to work. Got a balker - after standing for an hour, they’ll just decide to move. Many of us don’t have 2 hours a day to wait out a sour horse.

Most of the time he puts the Ws on a horse, he drops them in a stall. How ugly it is depends on the horse. Some fight a lot, some hardly at all. It’s about defining who boss, not pulling the legs out from under a runaway and splattering him all over the deck.

The reason he uses the Ws is simply time. Many owners give him 2 weeks to fix a horse. If he doesn’t get the job done, the next stop may well be a truck to Canada. If he is given the time to take his time, he will. I would put money that if you tell your Amish man he has 3 months to work this horse vice 3 weeks, his approach will be different. That is entirely up to you (or whomever is paying the bill)

Sorry for this got long.