So one of the lesson horses I ride is pretty sassy. Normally I can get her listening pretty well, she will canter nice and relax in a circle, but when I go the full arena she starts taking off and quits listening, So then I will try and circle but she won’t turn…any advice and help for me? Like how to keep her listening and slow on the long sides of the arena when we aren’t on a circle, and what to do when she throws her head up and starts bolting sometimes? Please NO HATE I am looking for helpful advice not criticism thank you
This is where you need those eyes and voice on the ground, to help you learn the complexities of pace. And if your instructor can not do this, you are on the wrong horse in the wrong program.
What my trainer would have me do, is to break it down to where I have her full attention at walk on the long sides, and then when that is accomplished, add trot. And if I lose her attention at trot, it’s back to walk.
And then, eventually, canter.
And if she “throws her head up and starts going real fast” I am to break it right back down to trot or even to walk, get her to drop her head and connect into the outside rein, first and foremost. And we don’t proceed until we have that connection and I can give/reward for it. The goal is to make the correction less obvious and less dramatic as it is repeated. And again and again, and maybe not even canter in a lesson, or else only canter on a 20m circle, until it’s all smooth at walk and trot first going down the long sides.
Continuing to canter when she “won’t” turn is more detrimental than helpful, in my limited experience with a mare who can be pretty sassy. You’re probably a pluckier and better-seated rider than I, if this is what you’re dealing with. And I would bet that with good instruction and correct timing of the basics, you can get her on your side and as submissive as you need her to be to canter the long sides in balance.
You just have to slow down both literally and figuratively.
I have a mare who recently decided to try this form of “mutiny,” lol. Not fun to be astride an animal who thinks that running fast without steering suits her. That’s just not self-preserving, and if she won’t look out for her body, she certainly doesn’t care about mine.
Nevertheless, here are my thoughts on these things.
- “Sassy.” I think this is really the wrong attribution to make to a mare (or a kid for that matter.) It disregards that being’s assumed right to be autonomous and to say No. Yes, children and horses do learn to take orders. But they don’t arrive knowing that. And they don’t challenge authority just for the hell of it. Rather, if you asked a child or a mare why she was telling you “F off… you are an idiot and I’m not submitting to you,” she’d have a list of good reasons for believing as she does. And, as I’m sure you have felt yourself (as we all have) no one likes to be told, “You’ll do it because I said so and I can force you to do it.”
The bottom line is that you shouldn’t think of your bolting mare as screwing with you, just because she feels like it. Give her some credit, or you will have a bad relationship with her. And believe me, a bad relationship with a mare is as horrible as a great partnership with a mare is superb. You are at a fork in the road, conceptually; mares invite us to pick the right fork and to change ourselves so that we treat them with justice and respect.
- That said, I will make it very unattractive for a mare to bolt (or to do just about anything I don’t want her to do). Notice that I said “very unattractive.” I still grant her the power to choose… but I do set up the choices to make a rational decision on her part the behavior that is what I wanted.
And now it does matter how dangerous your mare is being, how safe the area is, and how good/brave a rider you are.
My favorite is to work out dangerous forms of resistance, rearing, bronc-bucking, bolting on the ground. I teach my horses to long line and I do in-hand work in a rope halter. I try to “invite them to make the mistake” in one of these forms on the ground so that I can fix it from a position in which I am safe and effective. (I think you can’t be effective if you don’t feel safe; you’ll always choose your own preservation over ‘making a point’ with a horse if it comes to that.)
For my bolting mare, I tried just staying with her and not crashing while she galloped. After all, the problem with this kind of resistance is that it is very hard work! So if I can get up in a two-point, steer and not have her slip and fall over, she can try her strategy until she discovers that it’s more trouble than it’s worth. In this case, I don’t give the mare a break until the two of us get back to a civilized trot. And if she’s breathing hard, begging for oxygen at the end… well… she had a part in getting there. If she chooses to say NO to me by doing some serious cardio activity, then she can accept the consequences of her decision.
If this doesn’t work or it’s not safe on her back for me, I’ll do the same thing in long lines. I don’t chase bolting horse in the sense of “You want to gallop? I’ll give you something to gallop about.” But I do let them try out their brilliant idea for getting out of work so that they can experience its inefficacy for themselves.
My mare’s “complaint” was that I wanted to keep contact with her mouth and perhaps try a little counter flexion with her at the canter. So on the long lines, I’ll let her canter, but I won’t let go of the contact. She has to learn to accept that… whether I’m on her back or not.
I will say that my mare had a pair of somewhat legitimate issues that caused her exploration of the bolting strategy. I took her to a show to hang out and she got way over-faced without my knowing it. That’s the first time she tried being truly stupid under saddle, and I regret putting her in that brain-fry position. Second, she needed some body work way up by her atlas— she had a hard time flexing at the poll on one side so that when I did ask for contact, she couldn’t do what I wanted, at speed and flipped her head up in response to a physical problem. I have done other things since to teach her what kind of response I want in the bridle so that she has that tool when we are at speed.
You can see how I balance the need to respect my mare’s seriousness and to still insist that she take direction. But in insisting that this animal gets the kind of work ethic that says she must do as I say, no matter what, and without much opinion doesn’t mean that I would ever think of her as “sassy” because she doesn’t submit that way.
Sorry for the long post. I hope that some part of it is useful to you.
Thank you so much!!! An actual reply that is useful!!! Thank you a lot! would it be more beneficial for me to make her keep cantering after she bolts or halt or walk her? Also she is a lesson horse so some of that I can’t do because I just ride her in lessons 
anywho pretty much the main problem we have is her getting away from me and running, that is mostly in my jumping lessons
Which strategy you choose will vary with how safe you can make staying on her back and, more importantly, the state of her mind.
Whether you gallop on until she reconsiders and asks to slow down and you grant her the opportunity to trot nicely, or whether you halt and walk (or trot and do something mentally demanding like a figure 8) isn’t the point. The point is that the mare changes her mind from resisting you to complying with what you want.
I suppose since this isn’t your horse and you do have an instructor in the ring, you need to do as they tell you. The one time I’d do otherwise as a student on someone else’s horse was when I thought I might get hurt trying the instructor’s strategy. And I’m pretty good at figuring out what a horse is thinking, so if I have a different idea than the person on the ground, I’ll suggest my interpretation and solution. But if it’s their horse, I’ll defer to them.
If you do choose the “slow down” or halt strategy, I might do as Silverbridge suggests, with a couple of caveats.
- The mare’s mind must get better, not worse, as you ask her to concentrate and listen at a slower gait. Sometimes the horse who got their blood pressure and emotions all jacked up will be too frustrated by slow work. I’d hate to have a bolting mare then decide that if she had to walk, she’d take to rearing. Remember, they can do a lot of “bad” when they have three or four feet on the ground and they are spittin’ mad.
Again, the goal is to get her body-- and her mind-- soft and compliant. Giving her a job to do, things to think about like changes in speed, gait or direction, help do that. A very detailed, attentive ride from you does that.
- The mare might not let you get her right back to submission by going back to the walk. Some-- often horses who have been well trained and who get ridden with a lot of specifidity-- will allow you to get them back to a compliant, listening walk after a big, physical blow-up like the canter you describe. But many of them don’t. If the horse is getting more and more wound up, do everyone a favor and trot. You can have the same discussion about being soft, bending both ways and the rest in that gait as you can in the walk.
Letting a horse move and breathe a little bit (while still under control) is great for helping them change their body chemistry and, subsequently, their mind. I think that for reasons of changing the horse’s mind (always the primary goal) and staying safe, and also making the “training point” that there won’t be any mental or physical breaks until the mare does ask I ask, can all be done at that “civilized trot” I mentioned above.
Two thoughts-- depending on exactly what taking off means, they may or may not be helpful! For the more extreme case, there are lots of good ideas above.
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When you try to turn her, you may be using too much outside rein in your effort to control her speed, in which case you are actually keeping her from turning onto the circle.
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Is she losing her balance? Sometimes adding more leg to help her engage her hind end more will actually then allow the horse to slow down.
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Make sure that when she is good, the work is easy, and when she is bad the work becomes hard! We all like what’s easy:)
I would suggest that part of what is going on is a balance issue.
The horse might be getting off balance, falling on her forehand, and kind of “tumbling down hill” and just decide that it is easier to keep going faster and faster.
Or the horse could be unbalancing herself on purpose to “run out” of work.
If the horse is unbalanced, jumping is going to make her more unbalanced and hotter.
I think you need to go back to flat basics with the horse, in your lessons, until you can get walk/trot transitions large and circles. You can’t do anything useful with jumping practice if you can’t control the canter going large.
How does the horse go for other riders? That’s a key question to ask to see if the problem is in you as the rider, or in the horse’s basic training. In a lesson situation it is always preferable for the problem to be rider error 
as there may be some fixes you can make that are all at your decision. You don’t have any chance to work with the horse intensively enough to fix basic training holes.
[QUOTE=Scribbler;8550912]
I would suggest that part of what is going on is a balance issue.
The horse might be getting off balance, falling on her forehand, and kind of “tumbling down hill” and just decide that it is easier to keep going faster and faster.
Or the horse could be unbalancing herself on purpose to “run out” of work.
If the horse is unbalanced, jumping is going to make her more unbalanced and hotter.
I think you need to go back to flat basics with the horse, in your lessons, until you can get walk/trot transitions large and circles. You can’t do anything useful with jumping practice if you can’t control the canter going large.
How does the horse go for other riders? That’s a key question to ask to see if the problem is in you as the rider, or in the horse’s basic training. In a lesson situation it is always preferable for the problem to be rider error as there may be some fixes you can make that are all at your decision. You don’t have any chance to work with the horse intensively enough to fix basic training holes.[/QUOTE]
This horse is bad for everyone I’ve seen ride her. My friends have a way harder time just getting through one dressage lesson with cantering. I know very well that I am not an amazing rider and have a lot to learn, I am okay with that! That is why I am her on coth trying to learn as much as I can! If anyone has any good links to websites that are really informational, about riding, getting a horse on the bit, seat, etc etc please please leave them here for me!!!
Horses get “too forward” for lots of reasons, I’m pretty sure the only way anyone can tell where the problem is, is if they see you ride this horse. Perhaps you could post a video?
I really enjoyed MVP’s advice and used quite a bit of it as I used to ride a mare that was a confirmed bolter when she got upset or scared or bored or whenever.
[B]However, in your case I would find a barn that does not supply lesson horses which are bolters. That is ridiculous and a huge liability issue. I can’t imagine spending my money for a dressage lesson where the horse is a confirmed bolter in a big arena.
A novice rider can’t learn how to ride properly on a horse like that. It doesn’t make you a strong brave better rider it gives you bad habits related to survival techniques. I can totally sit a bolt on a horse and it doesn’t bother me but I find that my body assumes the bolting safety position on normal horses that have no bolting history and that affects my riding.[/B]
[QUOTE=Karis;8551034]
This horse is bad for everyone I’ve seen ride her. My friends have a way harder time just getting through one dressage lesson with cantering. I know very well that I am not an amazing rider and have a lot to learn, I am okay with that! That is why I am her on coth trying to learn as much as I can! If anyone has any good links to websites that are really informational, about riding, getting a horse on the bit, seat, etc etc please please leave them here for me!!![/QUOTE]
OP, what does your coach say? You say you’re riding a lesson horse, but you have yet to tell us what your coach has you do to address this issue.
If this is not a horse you ride regularly (i.e more than just in lessons), it is unlikely that you alone will be able to fix her in riding her just once or twice a week.
Tell us, what does your coach/trainer have you do when the horse gets forward and bolts when asked to use the whole arena?
Online forums are great for a lot of things, but you cannot learn to ride on one. While this situation may not be dangerous yet, it sounds like it could get that way quickly. You need eyes on the ground, not links to websites. :yes:
[QUOTE=Karis;8551034]
This horse is bad for everyone I’ve seen ride her. My friends have a way harder time just getting through one dressage lesson with cantering. I know very well that I am not an amazing rider and have a lot to learn, I am okay with that! That is why I am her on coth trying to learn as much as I can! If anyone has any good links to websites that are really informational, about riding, getting a horse on the bit, seat, etc etc please please leave them here for me!!![/QUOTE]
If everyone has trouble riding this horse, there are big holes in her training.
If you are just riding her in lessons, you are not in a position to fix those holes. One: you are not riding often enough. Two: you do not have the authority in this situation. If your coach tells you to do something, then you have to do that. You can’t just pop up and start schooling the horse in something that you read on-line.
There are no quick fixes for getting a horse “on the bit” if the horse doesn’t go well for anyone.
As far as written instruction in riding, there are hundreds of websites, but also DVDs and books, which are usually more explanatory and more in depth than websites. You can order these DVDs and books on-line.
But really: you are paying for lessons. Your instructor should be correcting you in all this. If your instructor is not teaching you to ride, you need another instructor.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;8551126]
I really enjoyed MVP’s advice and used quite a bit of it as I used to ride a mare that was a confirmed bolter when she got upset or scared or bored or whenever.
[B]However, in your case I would find a barn that does not supply lesson horses which are bolters. That is ridiculous and a huge liability issue. I can’t imagine spending my money for a dressage lesson where the horse is a confirmed bolter in a big arena.
A novice rider can’t learn how to ride properly on a horse like that. It doesn’t make you a strong brave better rider it gives you bad habits related to survival techniques. I can totally sit a bolt on a horse and it doesn’t bother me but I find that my body assumes the bolting safety position on normal horses that have no bolting history and that affects my riding.[/B][/QUOTE]
This. If the OP is entirely accurate in her description of things, this lesson situation is not good. From OPs description, I gather: out of control bolting horse that cannot be ridden productively even in flat work by anyone, even the trainer. OP is put on this horse in a lesson and given no coherent instruction as to how to influence the horse or how to react to misbehavior.
In this case, all I can really say is: find a decent lesson program with proper horses.
If the OP has inadvertently made things sound much worse than they are, then perhaps she can come back and give us some more details. Otherwise, it just sounds like a disaster.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;8551126]
I really enjoyed MVP’s advice and used quite a bit of it as I used to ride a mare that was a confirmed bolter when she got upset or scared or bored or whenever.
[B]However, in your case I would find a barn that does not supply lesson horses which are bolters. That is ridiculous and a huge liability issue. I can’t imagine spending my money for a dressage lesson where the horse is a confirmed bolter in a big arena.
A novice rider can’t learn how to ride properly on a horse like that. It doesn’t make you a strong brave better rider it gives you bad habits related to survival techniques. I can totally sit a bolt on a horse and it doesn’t bother me but I find that my body assumes the bolting safety position on normal horses that have no bolting history and that affects my riding.[/B][/QUOTE]
It would burn me up to pay for a lesson and being put on a horse that is for someone with way more experience . Lesson horses are supposed to know dressage, but make you work hard for everything you get by needing lots of leg. I would not be learning anything on a horse that is only going to give you anxiety, anxiety being the killer of anything nice and soft. It also takes your focus away. I would ask for a more suitable horse for a lesson, or don’t go there anymore.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;8551126]
I really enjoyed MVP’s advice and used quite a bit of it as I used to ride a mare that was a confirmed bolter when she got upset or scared or bored or whenever.
[B]However, in your case I would find a barn that does not supply lesson horses which are bolters. [/QUOTE]
To be fair/clear I was describing my own mare who went from “a big, forward canter without much steering because she’s young and weak” to “bolting as a strategy for sticking it to The Man” one day when she was fried (by The Man, albeit accidentally).
This isn’t to say that the OP’s horse is bolting in that way. I can picture a horse who is both unbalanced (good call, Scribbler) and who isn’t sure what to do about being “trapped” by contact on the outside rein while she’s going straight. The speed, and the throwing of the head (because she thinks she’s going to fall over if you don’t let her use her head and neck the way she thinks best) can feel out of control to many riders. But that’s not the same as a horse “shifting gears” into an even less rideable canter and steadfastly staying there, as was my bolting mare during this short periof of her life.
I can also imagine that a school program owns a horse who isn’t really educated about how to tolerate contact at the canter. I think that’s a little green for all but the advanced riders in the school’s program. But it sounds like the OP is among those and the instructors/HOs know what’s going on with this mare.
[QUOTE=princessfluffybritches;8551822]
It would burn me up to pay for a lesson and being put on a horse that is for someone with way more experience . Lesson horses are supposed to know dressage, but make you work hard for everything you get by needing lots of leg. I would not be learning anything on a horse that is only going to give you anxiety, anxiety being the killer of anything nice and soft. It also takes your focus away. I would ask for a more suitable horse for a lesson, or don’t go there anymore.[/QUOTE]
See, it would burn me up if the “schoolmaster” I rode was a dull, very hard “push ride.” I have ridden that. IME, it badly distorts my riding. I don’t think I could learn much about dressage (which needs Forward) on horse who made me “pedal” all.the.time.
I think that most lesson horses are a bit less reactive (duller) to forward aids due to all types of riders taking lessons on them.
A few thoughts here:
Lesson horses should not bolt. If they do it more than once, there is a problem with the trainers running the program. Because quite frankly, if the horse is truly bolting (as opposed to just going really forward) that is a huge liability issue and I can’t image a trainer in their right mind having a horse with a confirmed bolting problem in a lesson program. But I digress.
If it were my horse (and not a lesson horse) that did this more than a couple of times, I would not be going around the whole arena for awhile. Because I am not going to be game for a horse bolting with me out of control - I want to shut that down before it becomes a habit.
So I would canter a circle, then go like 10 meters down the rail, then another circle. If that goes well for a couple of weeks, then I would start very gradually increasing the distance down the rail between circles until I could maintain bend and control so that the horse couldn’t bolt very easily.
I would also be doing lots of figure 8s and serpentines with trot transitions, and I’d want to be able to do a shoulder in and leg yield at the canter so I could put that into place the first second I felt a bolt coming. Because it’s pretty darned hard to bolt if you can move the shoulder around or go laterally.
Don’t put the horse in a position where it is easy to bolt until you are pretty darned sure you can stop it.
So, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I live in Germany, I just moved here 6 months ago, I am very happy with my two trainers (one for dressage, one for jumping), I don’t speak very much German, I am trying to learn German the best I can but it takes a long time, anyways they speak pretty good English, (they are so nice to teach me in English!) however sometimes they might not be able to explain a certain thing in complete detail. They know this also, that is why I am asking for some additional help and detailed advice on this! Also sometimes when someone else says it in a different way it clicks more than another phrase, even for the same person. You have to understand I am trying my hardest here, it is very difficult for me in Germany, and also I am not going to switch barns or trainers at this point, it was pretty hard for me even to find the barn I’m at now and even harder to find a barn that teaches in English. Also riding in Germany is different then the USA. The horses tend to be a lot more lazy, well the several barns I’ve test ridden at, also they use side reins on most of even the lesson horses, also even the school horses are in need of more expirenced riders
