I have a newer gelding (got him last August) who is very quiet and quite well trained. He does have one little issue though that I’m not quite sure how to correct. The girl who trained him trained him to back up by picking up the reins and what I call “butterfly taps” with your heel. Not a kick or consistent squeeze but gentle “touch, touch, touch”, then immediately releasing the rein contact. He’ll back up across the entire arena with no hands on the reins at all as long as you keep tapping with your feet. Now, the problem comes when you want to go forward again. After asking for him to back, I always pause for a second and have him stand. Then when I go to move him forward, he gets “stuck in reverse” and just keeps backing up. The only way around this is to turn him out of it. He neck reins so if I apply neck and leg pressure on the same side, he’ll do a step of turn-on-the-haunches and move forward. This is ok for riding at home, but I’d like to pursue some western dressage and obviously that wouldn’t fly in a test. Any ideas? I’ve taken professional lessons for over 14 years but do not currently have a trainer and this is something I’ve never dealt with before.
The horse is not only listening to your feet, but your whole body.
How do you sit when you ask him to back up and when you want forward, how do you use ALL your aids?
Keep trying to find your horse’s buttons, be patient, it may take a while, some train in goofy ways.
Your horse seems well trained, now you need to learn to ride so that fine training is not confusing him with new demands he has not been taught.
Generally, when a horse balks, you circle and get it going forward again thru and out of the circle.
Since your horse is not truly balking from moving forward, this seems to be a communication problem.
Could you possibly have a local show western trainer ride him and show you how to get him going, maybe with your seat, using your legs further back, if a reining horse, clucking to it generally means to move on and more clicks, increase speed.
Hope this helps some, let us know what you find, once you experiment some more.
Yes, he’s really not trying to misbehave in any way and isn’t refusing to move forward, just confused. Overall we have meshed really well and he’s so calm and patient that getting each other figured out hasn’t been too difficult. He had lots of time off over the winter due to some health issues, but we’re getting back into the swing of things now. When I ride him it only takes one step to the side and he snaps out of reverse, but I was giving my sister a lesson on him and she was struggling with it too bigtime. I eventually grabbed the reins and told her how to move her feet and she figured it out and can do it by herself now, but still it’s not ideal.
[QUOTE=Rusty15;8208499]
Yes, he’s really not trying to misbehave in any way and isn’t refusing to move forward, just confused. Overall we have meshed really well and he’s so calm and patient that getting each other figured out hasn’t been too difficult. He had lots of time off over the winter due to some health issues, but we’re getting back into the swing of things now. When I ride him it only takes one step to the side and he snaps out of reverse, but I was giving my sister a lesson on him and she was struggling with it too bigtime. I eventually grabbed the reins and told her how to move her feet and she figured it out and can do it by herself now, but still it’s not ideal.[/QUOTE]
I don’t know the situation there, but until you have him figured out, maybe it would be better not to have some rider on him that will reinforce what you don’t want him to do?
If this is a problem, try not to go there for a while and see if this overachiever backing habit will extinguish itself, if you don’t put him in a situation to revert to it for a while.
Later you can re-introduce it for only when you want him to back and, knowing that is his default behavior when nervous or confused, not ask him but rarely.
[QUOTE=Rusty15;8208420]
He’ll back up across the entire arena with no hands on the reins at all as long as you keep tapping with your feet. Now, the problem comes when you want to go forward again. After asking for him to back, I always pause for a second and have him stand. Then when I go to move him forward, he gets “stuck in reverse” and just keeps backing up. [/QUOTE]
Didn’t she install an emergency stop button? Like maybe pinching his withers? Or just dropping the rein hand onto his neck?
[QUOTE=SmartAlex;8208910]
Didn’t she install an emergency stop button? Like maybe pinching his withers? Or just dropping the rein hand onto his neck?[/QUOTE]
Or say a soft “whoa” and sit very still?
Have you tried shifting your weight back and/or adding steady leg to get the horse moving forward?
I would actually stop doing the rein back for a while. Sounds like you guys are both a little stuck on this. No reason why you have to rein back in your rides for the next while.
When you do want to go back to it, I would retrain him by only asking for a couple steps of rein back, and then sending him forward (no halt) by whatever means works OTHER than turning him. This may mean using your voice “trot on” Cluck", but I would be sure to tip slightly forward off your seat bones to rein back and sitting upright again to go forward and change your leg aids from tapping to solid.
After he stops backing and you say whoa and settle, have you tried lifting your reins softly towards his ears and kind of lifting your pelvis forward to go (obviously not touching his ears), but definite change of cue?
I also would forget about the back for awhile and then slowly as previously posted.
[QUOTE=craz4crtrs;8210018]
After he stops backing and you say whoa and settle, have you tried lifting your reins softly towards his ears and kind of lifting your pelvis forward to go (obviously not touching his ears), but definite change of cue?
I also would forget about the back for awhile and then slowly as previously posted.[/QUOTE]
Yes, that’s pretty much what I do. I always pause and let him stand for a second, before saying walk on and asking him to move forward. He just…doesn’t. We’ll take a break from it for a while.
Sounds like your cool horse has been taught a not so neat trick. I was a little confused by your post - you said that as long as you “butterfly tap” your horse he keeps backing up. So if you stop “butterfly tapping” does he stop? And then when you ask for Go, he goes backwards? Do you automatically start kick kick kicking him when this happens?
I’d focus on Go. I’d carry a dressage whip, and pair the whip with a strong leg. Forget about backing up for a bit. When you put your leg on him to go, if you don’t get an immediate increase in forward, tap tap tap with the whip until you do. Let him go on a few steps, walk and repeat. Many times until you get an immediate forward response from your leg. Do this for a few days, no backing.
I’d also do some ground work with him where you ask him to back a couple steps, then pause, then go forward. You’ll need to be able to get towards his haunches and tap with a buggy whip or something to reinforce go forward. You want to establish a pattern of backing a few steps, stop, then go forward on cue.
Sounds like you have a smart horse, and it might take him a while to work through it since he is currently trained to do the opposite. Once he seems to have Go Forward down pat, put him perpendicular to the fence about 10 feet out and back him a few steps, until he can feel the fence behind him, then give the Go Forward cue. He won’t be able to back because of the fence, and is likely to give the correct response. I’d do a lot of praising with this horse since he does not appear to have an attitude issue or dominance issue, just a confusion issue.
