Looking for some tips and advice about my current situation. Our new gelding is a gaited horse in his late teens who has been in a trail riding home for over 10 years prior to us purchasing him. After purchasing him we found out he’s been allowed to lead every trail ride and then gallop back home every single ride (would have been a deal breaker had we known). He’s amazing on the ground, gentle and silly and in the arena he’s perfect in every gait you ask for. When we are on the trails he has to be in front (we ride in pairs of two, today there were three of us) or he throws his head, almost crow hops and insists on walking so fast that the other horses behind him cannot keep up. If he hears a horse catching up behind him (because he walks too fast for anyone to keep up) he insists on speeding up/gaiting to remain in front. Today one of the horses in our group spooked and began to canter down the trail in front of him to which he took off with me in a full gallop and I had no control of him what-so-ever (no half halt, nothing). He didn’t stop until we practically ran into the other two horses in our group. When he’s in front he’s a wonderful canter/controlled gallop.
When we turn around to head back every ride however, he tosses his head and acts like a complete fool the entire way. The best way to explain it is when you’re watching barrel racing and the horses getting ready to go in the chute are crow hopping and jumping sideways in anticipation of running…that’s him. If I half halt him or turn him in the opposite direction he stands until you turn him back in the original direction and he does the same exact thing. I basically have to have the reins completely tight in my hands to my point they’re red and he does some foolish bouncy gait/trot thing all the way back to the barn basically side passing (I joke he’s basically a chubby Dressage horse).
Back at the farm I ride him right to the arena and work him gaiting and cantering for 25 minutes to show him rushing back isn’t such a great thing after all and he’s fantastic while in the arena. There are three of us who have access to ride him but the other two are terrified because of his trail behavior. I have not ridden him out alone yet.
Can you guys possibly give me some advice? I’ve been riding for 25 years and consider myself an advanced rider but this is one sport when you’ll never know everything and I VERY MUCH realize that.
Maybe some trail riding alone is where you should start? I have been trail riding a long time myself and am clueless too.
See how he is alone and maybe use that time to get him used to you and show him what you expect from him and then add another horse and use the time with that other horse to undo his bad habits.
Either way it will take a long time but he sounds like an otherwise nice horse.
Good luck.
Thanks! I’d love to ride him alone, however it’s not an option right this moment unfortunately with the other girls out of school on holiday break, I do look forward to it eventually 
He is probably a big motored horse to begin with, plus a well known secret among long WLking Horses/trail riders is they have a phenomenal amount of endurance. It is bred into them to be able to quickly cover ground on huge plantations without wearing out, then hook up to the carriage on Sunday and carry everyone to church.
that said, whomever owned the horse before must have been someone who wanted to make trail riding a timed event. Galloping back to the barn all the time was a huge no-no. You have reLly got your work cut out for you but breaking him from running back to the barn will be easier than slowing him, if he is a naturally big mover to begin with.
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I would just flat out let him have his no-gallop temper tantrums, letting him know he can gait back for now but no galloping. In this cold weather you certainly don’t want to overheat him but I would do circles with him, even if it means he circles himself most of the way back to the barn.
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Far as naturally moving out fast ---- again, if he is a big mover by nature, you likely won’t get that out of him. My heart TWH was only 14.3H and could dog walk faster than many Walkers bigger than him could run walk. He was with me 24 of his 27 years and never slowed down until he developed metabolic issues around 20.
When I lived in SoCal’s Low Desert, I could get him to slow down if we rode in the sand, otherwise he was always a fairly fast mover.
The galloping back to the barn is ill-mannered and the people who let your horse get away with that need strung up but you can fix it with a LOT of patience Nd frustrating circles. As far as moving out fast, you may always find yourself having to whoa him back a bit and sadly if friends are riding horses that move too slow, you can either stop riding with them or you will make this Walker a very frustrated horse by forcing himself to do something that goes against his DNA:)
best of luck with him as he sounds like a great guy:) 
Can you avoid trails which are an out and turn around to go back? Trailer him to some big loop trails so he isn’t sure when he is headed towards home. After 20 trail loop rides, you might find he doesn’t care so much about galloping home. Then, you can institute a walk only rule for him when you turn around and head towards home.
Perhaps start a trail with a LONG, STEEP, difficult hill. Make him work his butt off on the terrain. I’d also suggest not an out and back, and trailer out so it’s not the barn you are returning to. I guess turn him back out when he starts to speed up, and go back the other way.
In my area, there are rather a lot of gaited riders that aren’t really in control. The horse zooms along, wild eyed and high headed, until they are back where they started. If they try to stop along the way, it gets a bit crazy.
In addition to the above, try to play leapfrog on the trail. The one in back moves to the front for a minute or five, then the rider who is now in back moves to the front for so long, etc. This will give him his time in front but he will also have to learn that he can’t always be there. And it’s not the end of the world bc he will get to go up front soon. He may need to be in front for five minutes and the others for a shorter period of time so his brain doesn’t get too fried, but you can increase his time following as he gets better.
It also sounds like he could use some work on the ground getting him to yield his hindquarters so you can one rein stop him before he gets too out of control.
How is he if you hand walk him? If he’s a jerk that’s not a safe option, but would be something you can work on at home initially, starting by getting him focused on you and leading respectfully, and increasing your distance from home.
You also might want to try just riding a short distance from home and coming back, working a little at home, heading back out and coming back, working, repeat until you want to cry. That will have his energy level going up and down more frequently, which should tire him out sooner than if he’s up constantly. When he does slow down AT ALL be sure you are leaving him alone immediately so he gets his reward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj-Ri1dGi_4
As with most problems. Make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy.
The video posted is good, too bad they didn’t have a really sour horse to work with, that mare didn’t put up much resistance.
I rode a horse like yours Racing Photog, and while I didn’t get him completely over the jigging back, he was better. He would blow thru any kind of stop, so I worked on gallop - stop in the arena, and when he would race back to the barn I immediately turned him back to the trail and kicked him into a canter. He would run back to the barn and I turned him and kicked him back into the canter. Rinse and repeat. By about the 4th time out he would be a bit winded so before turning back for the last time I would dismount and lead him in using a chain over his nose and a lunge line.
I’m sure there are much better ways than what I did, but it was the only thing I knew to do at that time. Have you followed any trainers online, I really like Warwick Schiller. He says the bit does not control the horse, the horse controls itself. Lots of respect gained thru groundwork.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYIU72KaLUw
I think the best thing you can do for now is to do the leap frog idea but make sure everyone is walking and not gaiting. Horses tend to panic when they think their friends are going to get away from them which may explain why he likes being out in front. On the way back I’d put him in between a lead and a rear horse and make everyone walks until he learns to chill out on the way back. Make sure in all of this you focus on being able to see the horse’s hocks in front to keep a distance. Once he starts to chill out while walking, then you can try gaiting.
I will add that I am a proud owner of a TWH mare that I compete with in endurance I love her but I prefer to ride her solo and let her go at her own pace.
I had a horse who had the “Gotta go fast home” Mentality, now what i did may not work for you, since we have the acreage to do it. But i figure why not explain.
Our two hay fields, are side by side. Each around 100 acres with some good hills. Around these fields we have 4 houses, mine, my parents, and them grandparents (mom and dads side) They make a HUGE figure 8. With this gelding, i would set off from home to the point where they meet at the trot. Half way around, about the point we would be heading home, i asked him to lope. Of course, it was a speedy held in lope but i had control. As we got close to my house, he was thinking “almost home and done” But, instead of making him turn i kept him on the same path, and kept him loping around back to the middle to go to the other side of our “Field figure 8” Of course, he started to lug down again into a slow lope, so i let him. Once again, as we rounded the other side to head for home again he picked up the pace, and i let him to an extent. And again, made him lope right by the house.
By the time we had repeated this the third time, he did not try to speed up at all from his easy lope. i still loped him by, but stayed on that field. Once to the other side i loped him directly into the large pond we have up to his belly and let him get his air and cool down at a stand still. Got him to see and find that "Oh… there is a place besides home i get to cool off with water (horse was water crazy)
The i walked him home, a nice calm easy walk. But i did not ride him to my house. Instead i rode him past and to my grandparents and untacked him there and left him tied up to the large tree in the shade to soak and relax for an hour while i helped my grandma in the garden.
That was all it took to cure him of that. Never again, did he try to rocket off for home. But even then, rarely to i end my rides at the same place. I alternate between my house (his home) my grandparents and my parents house. I hand walk the horse home and then put them away. So they never know where the ride may end. Heck i have ridden 14 miles to a friends house and then trailered them home after lol
This was the one thing that worked for this horse, his mentality was if he ran fast he got home fast. So by making him run fast, then PAST home, it really set in his brain that rushing home did not mean he was done.
The only thing that worked with my horse was one-rein stops (but I had to be taught how to do them properly, so it wasn’t just pulling the horse’s head around and spinning in circles). Doing small circles down the trail infuriated her and ramped her up and made things worse. Adding work didn’t help, because she could happily have cantered around or worked nonstop for another five or six hours, or days. Horse did not know the meaning of “tired” (until age 24 or so). I was taught to do the stops alternating left and right, so the horse didn’t learn that as soon as she jigged, she could anticipate being hauled around to the right. Down the trail we went, jig: one rein stop to the left. Jig: one rein stop to the right, with me staying very relaxed in my own body and perfectly unconcerned and cheery about the whole thing and how long we had to keep this fun game going. It took her about 10 times on each side, and then she basically gave me the horsie finger, sighed dramatically, and cut out the jigging. The next ride only took about three times, and the next ride, I just had to tighten my fingers on the right or left rein. She would need a brief refresher every so often, but, the one-rein stop really worked for her (again, I was shown how to do it safely and without unnecessary roughness).
In terms of his walking speed, though, at some point it’s just not worth it to ride with horses who are much slower, as it just frustrates the naturally faster horse and then everybody’s miserable. Obviously, running for home is bad manners, though.
I had one mare that we would take the the LBJ Grasslands where there are multiple looped trails with a central staging area… mare knew where the trailer was always, we would be out on a loop turning away from trailer location was, she would stop turn her head to me asking Are you Sure you want to go this way as the trailer is over there.
As for OP I might not trail ride that horse for a while and just do arena work, ride the rail as if it were a show class… but when finished take it elsewhere than to the barn like load it in the trailer drive it around some–go to a donut shop then come back to thebarn… sometimes they just need to be reprogrammed
Start with short riders and gradually work up to longer rides.
SharonA’s advice is sound. These horses have big motors and good memories. Circles will just make him frantic. He’s going to be hard to fix.
If you are riding with non-gaited horses… It’s frustration all around. Either he has to travel below his natural speed or the others have to trot to stay with you.
You might experiment with voice command. I had a horse that was like a runaway if one let him get to a running walk. There was no slowing regardless of the bit pressure. He scared previous owner. I found a quiet command of “walk” was all it took to transition back to walk. No bit pressure required. The moment of discovery was like the scene in “water for elephants”
My old Tb is generally like this. I tried lots of different things with him but I’ve really never been able to solve the issue. Circles and one rein stops and leap frogging just pissed him off and he had enough stamina to keep the poor behavior up. I mainly dealt with it by letting him be up front and not fighting or fussing with him, just letting him go with nothing to fight against, so he would generally settle into a really fast walk on the way home instead of a jig. He is also MUCH better on loop rides instead of out and back. He was a good horse in many ways so I chose not to fight this battle.
I know the OP hasn’t been back in about a month but…
First of all, since this is a bad habit that has been allowed to go on for 10 years, I will warn you it will probably take a very long time to correct. So prepare yourself for that! But it can be corrected with time. And proper riding.
The first thing you will need to address is the holes in his training, such as this. I’m okay if a horse spooks (let’s face it, they are going to spook from time to time) but I still need to be in control, or gain control immediately.
What bit are you currently using?
A one-rein stop is a very useful thing to teach. And if not a “true” one-rein stop, you should at least still be able to get them to respond to a direct rein. I’ve been on bolting out-of-control horses before and it is NOT fun.
Start by working in the arena in a controlled environment, and start on the ground. Try to find things that make him nervous, to desensitize him. It’s not so much about the desensitizing itself, but it’s about teaching him to look to you for guidance when he is unsure of himself or startled. It’s about teaching them to keep the “thinking” side of their brain turned on and not automatically going into blind flight mode.
When you’ve got him going good on the ground, then do the same exercises in the arena from the saddle. It can be very useful to have a helper on the ground to present objects and/or intentionally spook him. Yes, I said that. But if you can “set up” these things in a controlled environment and teach the horse to still pay attention to you, you will be much safer when you are out on the trail out in the open.
I would suggest to start riding him alone, or else only ride with people who understand you are trying to fix this horse’s problems and they need to be patient with you.
Honestly, I would ride a short way away from “home”, then turn around and go “home”, then go back out again, then turn around the go home again. Rinse and repeat. He’s going to jig. He’s going to act stupid. That’s okay. Do NOT hold onto him with both reins. This is just going to make him dull to the bit and pull on you. Instead, do one rein at a time. Do a million serpentines, back and forth. Circle him. Etc. Use a single direct rein to control his speed.
When I first got my horse Red, there were days we rode for 2 hours … and didn’t even go more than a 1/4 mile from home. When he wouldn’t go the speed I asked (he would always try to speed up or act silly), we serpentined back and forth or did endless circles.
He didn’t have near the bad habits that your horse does, and it took a full year of daily riding (I rode alone) to get him into a solid sane trail horse that traveled nicely on a loose rein at all gaits, whether we were going away or toward home.
You just have to be consistent and very patient. Don’t make a big deal out of it, but just use serpentines and circles to naturally regulate his speed and also get control of his head.
You can fix your horse. It’s just most certainly not going to happen overnight.
