Spooking OTTB help!

[LaurenP]

I have an 8 year old OTTB mare, that I have owned for about 5 months. She ran until she was 6.5, and then had over a year off in the pasture, before I owned her. She has excellent ground manners, probably one of the best behaved horses on the ground that I have ever known, but she is VERY reactive/tense/spooky when riding, lunging, or hauling to new places.

She also does not like to be brushed, so I assumed a magnesium deficiency. I have had her on smartpak ultra calm for 2 months now, she gets flax, chia, MSM, and raspberry leaves. She eats a high quality grain twice a day and has access to high quality hay 24/7. She has also been treated for ulcers. I practice yoga and am not a tense person, I really focus on my breathing when riding, and I try to keep her mind busy, which does help. But, she will still spook, a dirty dirty spook, several times every ride. The jump, duck, spin type-not very fun. She has even gotten me off twice now.

I have been really focusing on relaxing her. I never stop or get off when she spooks, I always ignore it and keep on riding, and we always end on a good note. She isn’t sour at all, just very reactive. I took her out on her first trail ride the other day- lets just say she wanted to gallop the entire ride, and she was jigging like crazy.

She starts snorting, tenses up, and is clearly afraid when she’s spooking. I know she isn’t being a brat, so I don’t want to punish her, but this is getting old to say the least. I’m at the point where it isn’t even very enjoyable to ride her anymore. I have two small kiddos, and I can’t afford to get hurt these days, but I do really like this mare for some reason, and I worry about her ending up in a bad situation if I sell her.

I have owned Hanoverians and warmblood types, never an OTTB, but I have ridden plenty of them-and none of them were this tense and reactive! To all of you OTTB peeps out there-what can I do to fix this issue? Will it get better with time? Should I throw in the towel and sell her?

[Angela_Freda]

Define ‘High Quality Grain’ and quantity, and how much and what type of hay?
How much turnout is she getting?

5 months into retraining is a lil early to be trail riding, esp if her behavior in the ring is spooky/silly still. Or to throw in the towel even.
It takes time, for some of them LOTS of time. Not weeks or months… YEARS.

I would be working with a trainer who deals with OTTBs.
One of the best things I learned to do with my spooky silly boy was to watch his ears and when it went from ‘back towards me’ to any other direction DO something- change direction, change pace, change something

Some horses are horses you will always have to ride, can never not be aware of where their focus is, that you can never just sit on and relax.

[Palm_Beach]

Lots of desensitizing and ground work. The breed or history or amount of yoga done by the rider doesn’t matter. The horse needs to be rock solid on the ground before you get on, even if it takes weeks or a month. If it takes years you are doing something very wrong.

[Christa_P]

You might try a different grain. I switched my OTTB at one point to a "better " grain and she went from calm and easy to reactive and spooky. Switched back and my calm horse returned. In my case it was Blue Seal Trotter to Blue Seal Hunter. The Trotter is more fiber based, IIRC the Hunter was alfalfa based.

[danacat]

First thought: Can you take her out with company ? – another rider on a quiet horse who can lead the way and giver her confidence.

[Posting_Trot]

How much grain are you feeding her? And is it a sweet feed? Too many calories, or a lot of calories from molasses, often translates into a hot horse. You could try scaling back her grain and upping her hay, and/or adding some oil to the grain if you feel she needs the calories.

Also, as a horse that raced for much of her life, she probably is now just learning that there are other gaits. At this stage in her re-training, she may be wondering where the track is, and when she’ll be expected just to go flat out. It may take some more time for her to relax under saddle, even if she is quite relaxed while being handled.

The only point that you raised that perhaps deserves some further investigation is that she is touchy about being brushed. That, especially when coupled with spookiness, is a classic symptom of lyme disease (although of course it can also just be her personality). A lyme test is not terribly expensive, and it would be worth talking to your vet about.

[AnastasiaBeaverhousen]

Hot and reactive may be her baseline and you can’t change that. Lots of people like that because they know how to channel that energy to make it work for them.

1. What area of the country are you in? It could be Lyme disease. There are some great threads in the horse care forum about this.

2. Do you lunge her? Is she spooky when you lunge her?
   . If she lunges well but has a problem when you ride her then check into having a saddle fitter check your saddle. An ill-fitting saddle can cause a lot of pain especially if it bridges or if it is putting pressure on the shoulders.
   Horses tend to spook and run from pain so there may be sore hocks or stifles or a sore back.

3. How long do you ride her each time?
   . If she’s been out to pasture for a while she isn’t going to have much muscle tone.
   You want to build her up slowly and consistently. She may be sore.

4. She may be a cold backed horse that needs some warm up time before you do actual work.

5. She may have Kissing Spine. Check out the horse care forum for more about this.

6. She may have some kind of old trauma or injury that you are unaware of. It may be worth it to have her checked.

You may want to consult with an Equine Nutrionist. You may want to lower her grain and increase her hay. And also look at her turn out. If she can’t be turned out for long periods of time then cut her grain.

If you really like her then you should give her more time and also slow down a little bit with her and don’t push too hard.

if on the other hand, you don’t mesh well with a high energy horse then find her another home with someone who likes that type of horse.

Good luck
Hope this helps.

[2DogsFarm]

@danacat

First thought: Can you take her out with company ? – another rider on a quiet horse who can lead the way and giver her confidence.

While I agree this could work < it eventually did the trick for my never-raced OTTB who worked for 4yrs as a Pony at the track - you are probably some time away from being safe on trail.

Look at it this way:
Mare spent the 1st 6yrs of her life doing one job.
That job did not include any work in an arena & “outside” meant workouts on the track or racing.
In 5mos you can’t erase the above.

My TB viewed trails as the World’s Longest Post Parade for years.
We’d head out with friends, only to turn back when his jigging became close to explosive - usually with the barn still in sight .
Martingale, double-twisted wire, nothing mechanical changed his mind.
We’d head back to the indoor & canter until he asked to stop - generally after his own Private Race.
Complete with snorting, hand gallop & nervous lather.
I also learned pulling on an OTTB gets you the opposite of Whoa.
Even when he got comfortable outside the ring, the 1st trailride of the season was {ahem} “interesting”.

Agree finding a trainer familiar with retraining OTTBs will be helpful.
They have a wonderful Work Ethic, just needs to be rechanneled.

As for the skin-sensitivity - my guy was like that his whole life.
My “dandy brush” was the softest one I could find - anyone else’s finish brush.
He was just a Sensitive Soul.

[NancyM]

Obviously, first check the physical and medical possibilities.

If no physical or medical problems, ground work needs to be redone, to gain her attention, to focus her on you and improve her responses to cues, and improve her confidence in herself and in you. “Re-break” her, redo things that may not have been done correctly previously. Look for any holes in her previous training. Fix those holes. A spooking horse ALWAYS has a problem with focus… the rider does not have control of the horse’s focus, the horse is focusing on what the horse thinks she needs to be concerned with and reacting to. When a horse is “broke”, she will voluntarily put the rider’s input about what is or is not concerning OVER what the horse thinks is a threat. The sensitive horse will still notice things, but if the rider says “It’s OK, don’t be concerned with that”, then it is OK with the horse. That is “broke”.

Did she wear blinkers during her racing career? If so, you can start by putting them back on her to get her ridden now, when you think that it is time to start to rider her again after the re-breaking exercises. These would be “full cup” blinkers, which only allow vision directly forward, as much as a horse can see directly forward. They block vision of many things that the horse is now reacting to. When you ride her while wearing the blinkers, and she does not see the things that she is now reacting to, you then work on getting her attention, and focusing her attention where you want it to be, responding to voice, rein and leg cues. You work on getting her attention back onto you, and tipping her head away from what she is wanting to look at and spook at. A horse who spooks is lacking training on “focus”, she does not know that her focus must be directed by you, not her. This training method works by making it possible to ride her safely, while you work on this, using the cues that you do while riding instead of the cues you use in ground work. Then you reduce the blinker size, and let her see a bit more, more options for her to lose focus, and more opportunities for you to keep and direct her focus. It is a bonus for us as riders and trainers that for a horse, if she can’t see what frightens her, that thing no longer exists for her. The use of blinkers takes advantage of this.

When wearing blinkers, if she starts to spook at something she can see, you turn her head a little, away from it. The blinker cup comes into play and makes what she is spooking at “disappear” for her. She learns that relaxation comes from responding to your rein cue to bend away from what is frightening to her, and the two of you enjoy a more relaxing ride together. When you remove the blinkers entirely, she will start to look at something, and she is going to spook at it, but you ask her to bend away from it, and refocus on you instead. The spook then doesn’t happen, because you have her focus, and control of where her focus goes. Her focus is where her ears go. Watch her ears when you ride her. Her inside ear should flick back to you as you interact with her, with each rein, leg and voice cue. The ability of the rider to “get the ear” indicates that you may be beginning to get her focus. Easier with less visual input coming in to her brain.

A warning about using blinkers… when you restrict the horse’s vision, YOU must be the horse’s eyes. When she can not see things to the side of her, it becomes your job to keep her safe, keep her from running into stuff. This forces her to rely on you, and your input. Don’t let her down. Do not put blinkers on her in a stall, because coming out the stall door can be a problem if she can’t see where the stall door opening IS. If you let her down, and let her get bumped or frightened because she can’t see things she is touching, her trust in you decreases. The point of the exercise is to gain her trust, not erode it. So be careful.

[clanter]

@2DogsFarm

.My TB viewed trails as the World’s Longest Post Parade for years.
We’d head out with friends, only to turn back when his jigging became close to explosive - usually with the barn still in sight .
.

just wondering but did you ever load it on a trailer then haul somewhere, the try to go trail riding?

Just my thoughts but if you had just taken it from the paddock/stall, saddled then off we go trail riding that whole scenario is pretty close to a Parade to the Post

[Alexie]

Another one who has had a positive response to riding in the company of a rock steady Eddie and an empathetic co rider who will keep calm and carry on.
it was the only thing that helped my TB spook machine.

[candyappy]

Do you routinely let her run, buck and get the freshness out before riding? You can’t always rely on turnout for that.

[tbchick84]

You did not mention if you tested for Lyme. All those symptoms apply, very similar to ulcers.

If it’s not that, I would first look at how much turnout she is getting and how often she is ridden. If she’s only out a few hours of half of the day, I would stop my search for answers right there.

It sounds like you are already trying to do things to keep her mind engaged. You might need to do much more of that, and really put her to work too. I always tell my TB, if he’s got the energy to spook, he’s got the energy to work. I don’t know how far you are into her training, but from the second you sit on that saddle, do something different with her every 8 strides. It’s not so much a matter of keeping her guessing, but rather keep her concentrated on you and what’s next.

Teach her shoulder-fore and put her in it whenever you think she might have a spook in store for you. I know dirty spooks give you no clues, but even if you incorporate that into your every 8 strides thing, it will let her know that you are in control up there and you can move her shoulders around whenever you damn well please. In fact, any basic dressage tool will gain you tons in terms of control. Shoulder-fore, hanches-in, turn on forehand, even leg yield will both keep her focused and let her know someone’s driving up there.

I like one game in particular to keep a loopy horse’s mind engaged. Set down poles on a large circle at 3,6,9,12 o’clock. Walk and trot her over them. If it’s a big enough circle, you can even canter them. At first, go over them without any change in rhythm. Most horses will change from fire breathing dragons to relaxed teddy bears after a few minutes of going over them. After she’s relaxed, shorten and lengthen her stride between the poles to mix things up a bit. If she starts to get bored with it, switch to something else.

I’ve never ridden a mare and probably never will, but I hear, once they are in your corner, they will walk through fire for you. That being said, if you’re concerned about your safety, just trade her in a a nice “yes maam” gelding.

[sdlbredfan]

In addition to the other great advice, get a Vet to check her eyesight and her hearing/

[Angela_Freda]

@Palm Beach

Lots of desensitizing and ground work. The breed or history or amount of yoga done by the rider doesn’t matter. The horse needs to be rock solid on the ground before you get on, even if it takes weeks or a month. If it takes years you are doing something very wrong.

Exact my point, thanks for agreeing.

When we try to hurry, when we leave out basics or skip steps, when we ignore the horse telling us something is wrong, when we don’t get professional help before a problem becomes what they do… all those will make it take longer.

.

[shiloh]

No grain, no sugar and take her off the MSM. I have heard stories about it making some horses quite spooky and reactive. It happened to my horse and I never could figure it out until recently.

[CupcakeTough]

I would drop the MSM as well. Made my horses nuts. You might try treating for ulcers. And high quality grain is great… but if she’s getting high quality hay, she may not need it. Recent studies have shown that even horses in moderate work do well on a forage only diet.

I ride all OTTBs (7 right now, at varying degrees of being off-track) as well as a few naughty ponies just for fun. I am apparently in the minority, but the first thing I do with my OTTBs after pulling their plates is start trail riding. I think it’s good for the brain. Soooo things I do on the trail: best tip is to not get “stuck” trying to keep the horse in a walk. Think “forward” at all times- that’s what they know. If you’re comfortable doing sections of trot or canter- great do them. I like to get a good forward trot, work on contact- and then ask for stretching down. If they’re jigging or getting too looky, I use it as an opportunity to shift their focus and introduce lateral work. Logs? Brush? Great way to introduce jumping- or just “how to use your feet.”

All this depends on how comfortable YOU are though. If the idea of faster than a walk on the trail scares you, stick to the ring until you feel more secure in your training.

[DJohn]

What kind of grain are you feeding? My horse turns into a wild man in the winter, and I have to take him off of Elite/Trimax because it actually makes him bonkers.

When he is being really bad, I put on draw reins. I keep them loose so they only engage if he spooks/shoots his head up to look at something. It seems if he can’t throw his head up, he wont bother with spooking.

I have also ordered a soundproof bonnet as he is very sound-reactive. I’ll let you know how that goes when it arrives! You could also try ear plugs, but my horse has an ear-twitch response to being touched so he wont tolerate them.

Unfortunately for us, it is ME that causes the spooking 99% of the time because I jump before he does which makes him anxious.

The other day I was catching up with someone (constantly chatting) while I was riding, and not really thinking about riding and he was absolutely perfect. Unbelievably so! That really helped me to realize that it is way more my fault than his. Maybe I’ll download an ebook and listen to it while riding so I have something to focus on other than “oh no, someone walked through the door/oh no someone is about to close their car door/oh my gosh why is that other person clucking so much!” etc. Even if you don’t feel tense, you are. You are anticipating the spook and he/she is picking up on those vibes.

If I didn’t have to drive home after, I’d have a drink before I saddle up :lol:

Good luck OP, I know how frustrating the spooking is and it just gets worse and worse. I will let you know how the bonnet works out. I know my horse is sound reactive because he is fine hacking out alone, but when my finace rides out with us, his horse does a nervous blow/snort that makes my horse super tense and spooky.

Oh the joy of intelligent/sensitive TBs! Next horse I’m getting will be nice and dumb…

ETA: Lots of turnout is also key. My horse is out 24/7.

[Kyrabee]

I would take her off the MSM too. I had one that it made goofy and spooky. I even re-challenged. Definitely the MSM.

Also, I did not see anybody mention ulcers. Look up Simkie thread about using Nexium. Fairly inexpensive to put her on a course of that and see if that helps.

I have a mare that when when she was younger was very tense, spooky and reactive. Come to find out, her bit was pinching her flabby cheek tissue. She was so preoccupied with the pain in her mouth, everything else was a surprised to her. Don’t dismiss pain issues. It can be quite the investigative process to find the cause but worth the effort.

Susan

[LaurenP]

@Posting Trot

How much grain are you feeding her? And is it a sweet feed? Too many calories, or a lot of calories from molasses, often translates into a hot horse. You could try scaling back her grain and upping her hay, and/or adding some oil to the grain if you feel she needs the calories.

Also, as a horse that raced for much of her life, she probably is now just learning that there are other gaits. At this stage in her re-training, she may be wondering where the track is, and when she’ll be expected just to go flat out. It may take some more time for her to relax under saddle, even if she is quite relaxed while being handled.

The only point that you raised that perhaps deserves some further investigation is that she is touchy about being brushed. That, especially when coupled with spookiness, is a classic symptom of lyme disease (although of course it can also just be her personality). A lyme test is not terribly expensive, and it would be worth talking to your vet about.

This is a very good point- I am going to have her tested. I live in TX but she is from PA, where I believe lyme is more common. I didn’t think about that until now-thanks!