I prefer Tristan Tucker’s method for this because it focuses on teaching the horse to have control of themselves. It’s much like the way you teach children to control their emotions, you are giving the horse tools he can access to respond more appropriately to stimuli. Because he teaches a series of movements, it’s also something you as a rider can do while riding to connect the experiences for the horse.
I know a lot of people who have had a lot of success with it.
For certain, fear events are difficult to erase. My horse still remembers the exact spot in the ring a tree fell six years ago while he was lunging - it was traumatic and he got hurt when he bolted (understandably) and went through the fence (also understandable). We’ve “gotten over it” riding, but if I try to lunge him in that area he gets very “up” on that side of the circle. And this was a horse who was as bombproof and as confirmed as they come lunging. He totally carries it with him - specifically only if lunging in that ring, though. It’s very interesting.
To circle back to the subject of OP… I don’t want to discount how meaningful it is to make a connection with your horse - be it through Warwick Schiller methods, or some other… but the more I’ve read of all that’s been given, the more I think there is something physical going on with this horse. A lot of what he is telling you sounds like symptoms of a horse in pain: being ‘overly emotional’ is one, having a different horse every day is another, having difficulty with the farrier… but a big flag for me is his difficulties wanting or willing to stand at the mounting block - that is a BIG symptom of back pain for many horses.
So, my guess would be this is something rooted in a physical cause, and the symptoms you are seeing from him are his way of communicating with you that something’s bothering him.
Another example:
The ULTRA bomb proof Old Man Horse is edgy when we’re riding on the south side of the hay field. That’s because other houses back up to it, and people’s dogs will charge the fence. This does not happen every time we ride, but it has happened enough that he will always be a little leery on that side of the hay field. This is a horse that you can literally do anything to and he doesn’t care, it’s really outside of his normal nature to be scared of anything at all.
In the WS work, the fact that your horse feels like he can express his anxiety to you is actually a good thing. Preferable to the horse that feels trapped and his only recourse is to bottle up his feelings and shut down. So you have that at least!
If you feel it’s best to have someone else work with him then I’d go with that. It’s your horse and you know him best. 
One question about the farrier issue:
Since the horse is fine with you picking up his feet, etc., but not with the farrier, I have to ask about what might be going on with the horse’s feet? Or possibly with the horse’s joints?
Is he shod? Could it be that the horse is reacting to pain when the farrier hammers the nails? Or anticipating pain? Could the horse have some mild arthritis that flares either because of the hammering or because of the torquing of the leg as the farrier pulls off the old shoes, or the length of time the horse has to keep the leg raised?
Could there be arthritis in the legs, either front or back?
You’ve perhaps already considered all of this. Again, good luck.
Vet check aside,
If you trust your trainer, why don’t you send him to her for a week+ and solve the problem once and for all as she suggested?
It sure will be expensive, but between that and finding another trainer …
Horses, like most animals, appear to have a strong associative memory. Most likely far better than that of a human. Makes sense when you put it into evolutionary context. An animal’s survival in the wild depends heavily on their ability to detect patterns & deviation from the expected pattern. It would follow then that a horse could come to associate certain objects/smells/noises with a past fear or pain experience & carry that association far into the future.
There’s also a growing body of research in the mainstream Western medicine that suggests that our bodies hold onto an imprint of trauma at the cellular level. (The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. and Waking by Matthew Sanford are good books to check out) Even in humans, our reptilian brain is designed to overwhelm the rational brain in times of stress, pain, and fear. And we have a much larger pre-frontal cortex than horses do. IMO it’s quite logical that the potential for a very strong cellular imprint of trauma could exist in horses, who have a smaller pre-frontal cortex & a larger amygdala than us. Strong enough to cause a disproportionate, largely unvoluntary response to a certain part of the body being touched.
My own background is such that I would start with myofascial release type body work with an energy aware PT if it were my horse, and then move into horsey Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. However, I get the sense the former isn’t the OP’s cup of tea. No harm in going right to the CBT then. CBT is basically what Warwick Schiller is doing in my opinion.
ETA: fwiw, I’m leaning towards it being a C spine issue.
The only reason we can train a horse is because of it’s memory and horses have a long memory.
Also add to that, that unlike us horses do not reason. If you put a horse on a float and the float flips over, the horse will load again. They do not reason that if they get on the float again it will flip again.
It is harder to retrain a horse than it is to train a horse because of its memory.
I do not like the desensitisation mentioned above with throwing things at a horse.
I use Spooky Object Training. It teaches a horse what to do if they get a fright. They are taught that after getting a fright they stand still.
You do want a horse to react to get you out of trouble. My horse with SOT, leapt out of the way of an out of control car. The desensised trained horse stood there and was hit by the car after my horse had made the leap - even if less than a second earlier, which as we know is a long time in horse reactions.
As above the first thing I do when horses come here is take them off all grain. I then never have the problems the prior owners had and gave up and sold the horse.
@Posting Trot He has some minor hock arthritis, but I know that the farrier anxiety originally came from a rough handling experience from a farrier prior to being with me. It’s entirely possible that he got hurt during it, I wouldn’t know and previous owners weren’t there as it was a farrier they trusted previously. My understanding is that he was always nervous for the farrier and it got out of hand at some point and the farrier punished him for it. He is in general an “aware” horse and that is definitely part of his personality. That’s not the concern, the concern is the occasional stupidness. He knows the difference between me and the farrier. It is getting better.
@TheDBYC He does see a chiro who does some massage as well and he was nervous for that as well, and she is very “low energy.” He is very stranger-danger. I know some people are big on that kind of thing but IMO for the most part you are just paying to feel like you did something.
Our precious flower is so suspicious of things being done to him by others. Sigh!
I can put the tools in his mouth, but he reacts when the dentist does it. It is better to sedate him. The dentist is getting older and I don’t want him hurt in any way whatsoever.
The vet he is better with since I stuck his muzzle in a bowl of pellets to be needled, before that he bent the needle 90 degrees. I don’t need the pellets anymore.
For the chiropractor we put him in the crush there the first few times. He can be done standing anywhere now.
This is a horse that even though a bully was really unconfident. He needs confidence in you. I can do anything with him. That goes out the window when the dentist puts the tool in his mouth, even though he hadn’t done anything with it yet.
He is also extremely suspicious of apples!
We often think a certain bad handling or training experience caused a problem. But it’s just as likely that the problem predated the bad experience. Most farriers are not rough on the very well behaved horses. But take a horse that is already having some pain or balance issues and starts pulling away or leaning or fussing. These are the ones that a temper prone farrier having a bad day may well go overboard in the effort to get the job done. In other words, when I hear “had a bad experience” I leave open the possibility that the horse had prior issues. Those issues plus the disastrous human response combine to make a bigger problem. Especially as the existing issues aren’t addressed or are called naughty or trauma.
When I started clicker training I found that my mare could learn a trick in one 20 minute session and remember it forever. As long as the cue was clear and she had no larger objection to the trick, it wasn’t physically difficult.
So yes they do learn fast and remember.
Dr Andrew Macclean says it takes 9 times for a horse to start generalizing about a situation, and change their behavior. So if you are trying to change a behavior and you keep getting in a fight, or have one good one bad day, nothing changes. You need to construct multiple sessions that make the good behavior happen.
After I went to one of his lectures I had a lightbulb moment about my older mare. I had made her ring sour years ago and had done many hours trying to work through it. I realized that all I had been teaching her was that we fight in the ring.
Building on the idea of 9 positive experiences I opened the gate of the outdoor arena on a quiet day and went for a trail ride. After she was happy and forward I trotted into the arena, did a small loop, and left before she realized where we were and started to get pissy. I did trot in and out 3 times, back on the trails, then in and out 3 times, back on trails, in and out again for a total of 9 trots in and out. I did this 3 days running and it really reset her brain about the arena. If she started getting sulky in there agsin I did a few sessions again. It really helped repattern her expectations of the arena. It could just be part of the trail experience.
It’s harder to know logistically how to do this with a farrier who is on a schedule. If you trimmed your own you could do a little each day.
I think we are saying the same thing. In different ways.
The short-term memory was active. But had you fed into it, I have no doubt she would have developed a bad and inconvenient habit of anxious behavior. It might even have begun to generalize into other locations as well - just some wild speculation.
Your example is a good one, imo. Your mare was at a crossroads of a repetitive behavior vs. a corrective behavior. You took action and made the choice for her.
Had your mare been left to herself, with no action by a human either way (unrealistic hypothetical), guessing that she would have remained anxious and learned some degree of chronic anxiety about that situation, through repetition. But it might have been increasingly weaker if nothing else kept her agitated. Of course the problem is that there is no such thing as a stimulus vacuum, and it’s likely that each day something would have juiced her up again, at least a little. If the horse were higher adrenaline by nature, that makes it harder, of course. But fortunately the human came through for her.
I once asked a vet about an over-reactive horse that was wearing out my nerves, as OP’s horse is doing to her. “Could you remove about 50% of the adrenaline? With about 50% of what he has now, I think we’d be just right.” Vet said “not an option”.
Drat.
But honestly, this chronic over-hyped horse is one of the biggest problems that riders can have. And that jeopardizes a good future for a horse. I wish a lot of high-powered research would focus on this behavioral issue. It would be such an important solve for horses.
If you have a chance, highly recommend Warwick Schiller. Love his work and he’s always learning and growing as a trainer.
Would southern RI be too far? You can shoot me a PM, I have a great colt starter/problem horse trainer who is super kind and understanding as well as having a good sense of when things are physical vs behavioral.
Is New Braintree, MA too far? Not to be confused with Braintree, MA. That’s where my trainer is based out of & now my horse knows how to calmly yet clearly signal to me when she is really stressed & needs time to just calm down. It really has made a difference as now we’re more set up for success because my horse can say “Okay, what’s next?” or “I think I may need a minute before we continue.” which greatly reduces the chance of the horse being too overstimulated/confused/nervous & they’re more confident knowing that if they can give this response, I’ll hear them.
My late mare was this. We eventually got along fine, but man was it hard for awhile. She still would have occasional “days” where I would just get something reasonable and call it a day.
She never did improve her trailering issues, no matter what I did. Just anxious about being “forced” to stand still. I was planning on trying to haul her loose in a box stall set up but never got there before I lost her.
I’m sure this is true of him somewhat, he’s always had a little “stranger danger” and can be fussy with new people but he’s calmed down so much since I’ve gotten him. I am certain that someone was unnecessarily rough with him for there to be this much fear, though.
@Dutchmare433 Sending you a PM.
@scislandsprite I’m already comfortable reading the signs that he is getting stressed. I’m essentially looking for someone to fill some holes in his training that I could with time but not sure I’m the best person for the job-- and don’t want to get hurt.
Have you tested for EPM? I had an amazing mare whose only symptom was unpredictable explosiveness. Within a week of treatment I had my horse back.
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