I wanted to add that I was glad that I was there to witness my girl going over. It happened so fast. And the poor trainer was so upset.
I made sure she was sound. Had both the vet and chiropractor look at her.
I was working with an OTTB, just off the track.
We were always supposed to have running martingales and stoppers in the reins.
This one day I noticed when I reached the indoor that one stopper was missing.
I thought, this one time, I will ride and get one when I go for the next horse.
Horse was feeling very good, we were circling at the canter, he shook his head low and the ring on the martingale hung on the buckle by the bit, tying the horseās head solidly down there.
Horse fought that for a second, then flipped right over when the ring turned loose.
I was used to horses acting up some and had already kicked my stirrups off and got off as he flipped and he fell right by me with a big whooosh sound, very lucky he didnāt fall on me.
Thankfully he was fine.
I took him back to the barn and you bet I never, ever again rode without a stopper in the reins.
That fellow in the OPās story is lucky that the horse falling on him didnāt kill him.
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Iāve known and owned one.
He was sold to me as green broke. I didnāt realize his propensity. New trainer I was just starting with right at the same time that I, not through her, bought him (thank you, God, for that timing), took one look at him and told me that he would go over when pushed. She said she recognized the look in his eye from seeing it with one other horse in her lifetime. Her credentials were great, and her other students loved and respected her, so I asked for more info, still skeptical but not dismissing it out of hand. She said she could prove it by putting him in a situation where he would, with no abuse or unreasonable demands required. She did so, on the lunge line. It turned out this was his go-to move when he hit an āIāve had enoughā moment. She did not pull him over. No harsh bit or equipment. She did nothing but work enough that he started to think they should quit (and he had a low threshold for that), and he promptly flipped. He threw himself. And he would do it again.
She really would have preferred to have him put down, but when I hesitated, she said she could try one fix for 30 days, and if it didnāt take, I agreed to have him put down at that stage. For 30 days, WITHOUT rider, that horse went to boot camp. The goal was to have a 100%, this is the word of God, you MUST obey cluck installed. Whenever he heard that, he MUST go forward. Nothing else on the planet mattered. Not optional. We kept him on two lines between two people at first. It was ugly, but he soon did realize that flipping wasnāt gaining him anything anymore (the woman who had started him had stopped work whenever he did this). He tried a few other things and realized that nothing except going forward would be acceptable. After 30 days, we started him back with rider. My go-to response, drilled into me, too, was that if I ever thought ANYTHING was about to happen, cluck and send him forward.
I rode him for a few years after that until his death (unrelated). We did quite well in shows; he was a looker. He also was absolutely the same at a show. He was difficult and had to be managed every microsecond, but a show was no different than home. I never truly felt a sense of partnership with him, though. It was like playing chess with someone who really wants to beat you and not in a friendly way. His mind had the oddest feel to it; Iāve never felt anything like it on any other horse of any personality. I do think he may have had a screw loose or been miswired mentally. The cluck fix worked and kept us safe. He never flipped again after the first days of his boot camp.
If I ran into the same situation today, I would euth immediately. It wasnāt worth it. I am grateful to him, though. He taught me some of the most difficult lessons Iāve had to learn with horses. I will never forget them.
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I hate when people send these horses on without disclosing to new owners and/or trainers. I bought a young green horse several years back. The flipping started once the work got a little more difficult. After ruling out physical issues, I opted to euthanize. Iām not paying the bills on a horse that actively tries to hurt me. Found out later from a former client of the trainer I bought her from, that the mare had been pulling that stunt since day 1. Why pass that level of danger onto another person???
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:lol::lol::lol:
sorry, you most certainly cannot universally apply that statement. At all.
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We had an big show in my neighborhood when I was growing up with hunter/jumpers, three gaited, five gaited, roadsters, walking horses. I had finished showing and was back in the barns so I didnāt see it. My mom and dad were watching a three gaited childrenās class being tied. The horses were lined up in the middle of the ring and with no warning, one of the horses went straight up and flipped over on an eight year old girl. It killed her. I donāt know what happened to the horse. What a sad day that was.
Iāve never seen a horse rear and flip over backwards either. I have heard of a lady who to break on from rearing would, while the horse is in the air, dismount, jump off to the side, and yank the horse to make it fall backwards. I for one could not imagine this to be effective. Thatās asking for a disaster to happen. SO many number of things can go wrong and end up with someone injured or dead.
I would pick a bucking horse over one that rears too!!! Hands down. A little bucking can be fun, but those front feet better stay grounded.
I agree. Horses are dangerous. I do not believe in the ābomb proof, babysitter, dead headā crap. Horses are prey animals and have agendas of their own. Why would you knowingly put someone else in harms way just to make a buck? I am glad you didnāt get hurt or worse. I believe you did the right thing having the horse put down.
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Rearing scares the pants off me. Iāve only had 2 horses go straight up on me - when I was 15, my first horse did. It was a pain issue, not a behavior thing, but it terrified me. Second time was as an adult, on a horse I rode regularly but did not own. He could be silly in his first 10 minutes under saddle, but the silly was usually a leap or buck - which I wasnāt a fan of, but I could stick it out and ride through it. He stood straight up one day and when he came back down I was shaking. It took me several months to really stop being nervous that he would do it again. He never did, thankfully.
If I had one flip on me, Iād never sit on it again. If I saw one flip on someone for any reason, I wouldnāt ride it. Thereās plenty of horses on this planet, I see no reason to ride a dangerous one.
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Speak for yourself. Oh wait, you just did.
I agree with ladyj79, while knowing why may lead to a solutionā¦ you can not always find the why, therefore solve it.
Ask me how I know. <sarcasm>
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Yes, this horse did give warning of a rear - he popped up in the front a few times. And then it escalated to a flip.
Stillā¦Iād never get on that horse again.
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Many trainers know of someone that was seriously injured or killed by a horse flipping repeatedly, as a resistance and just wonāt go there with one that has a history of doing that.
Smart, it is not worth it to take those kinds of chances.
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Palm Beach pushes papers, not wheelbarrowsā¦ so take whatever they say with a grain of salt as it likely doesnāt come from experienceā¦
Rearing absolutely is a big deal - a way worse deal than bucking - and no amount of competence can fix a flipper. Like @dressagetraks said, itās like a very bad game of chess and you really have to be mentally ahead of them every step of the way as it can get ugly, very rapidly.
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Agreed. And even if you find the āwhyā and solve it, a rearing horse usually retains the ārearā in itās mental repertoire and can resort to using it a later time ā even years later ā when āsomethingā doesnāt go quite right for the horse.
Horses supposedly ācuredā of rearing scare me the most. IMHO the rear is still there. Somewhere. Waiting to happen.
On the other handā¦ A friend of mine had her pelvis broken by a horse that flipped, landed on her. This was her own horse ā she owned it from its birth ā had never reared before ā and then WHAM. She was trying to get the horse to jump a particularly big hedge on the Rolling Rock (PA) steeplechase course ā long story that I wonāt go into ā but needless to say the horse was over fenced and she just kept trying. Soā¦ there certainly can be that one time, freak out flip when a horse just doesnāt know what else to do but throw itself over.
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I agree with @beowulf - you have to evaluate whether the horse has a sense of self-preservation. There are those rear but know themselves enough not to get too vertical, those that flip because they lose their balance, and then there are those that do it deliberately.
My first mare would rear every now and then, but I learned to keep her moving forward and would turn her on a circle if she started to get light. When she did rear, it was at random and never high, and you could tell from her personality and thought process, she was going to take care of herself.
On the other hand, a few years ago, someone brought in a small pony (11ish hands), saying it was a leadline pony and needed work on steering. Since Iām a petite adult, my trainer asked me to get on it and just walk around. It popped up once and I pushed on its neck to push it back to the ground, then asked it to turn and walk forward. Instead, it chose to FLING itself backwards. I pushed myself away from it as it flipped, and it writhed on the ground until my trainer ran over and got it up. I had never had one flip on me before - it was scary. In the next two weeks, it would flip at random when she lunged it, long-lined it, etc - she sent it back, told the owners it was dangerous and never to let anyone ride it. We couldnāt believe they were using it as a leadline pony. It had zero self-preservation. If itās not smart enough not to kill itself (or try not to kill itself), itās not smart enough not to kill you.
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Sometimes you just donāt know why they do it.
I knew a horse that had been on the track since it was 10/11ish. Always owned by the same connections (not horse people themselves, but enjoyed owning). Royally bred and very successful. Retired sound. Best vet care the whole way.
For reasons totally unclear to me, after running they decided she should become a dressage horse (?). Restarted very gently and properly. No step skipped. Trainer took her time and gave her a really solid foundation. They were just doing training level work, after almost a year OTTB, and the mare went up and over at home, in the ring, nothing else going on, not being pushed, no apparent reason. Trainer slid off and 100% avoided being under the mare when she landed. Got back on, finished the ride, mare acted like nothing happened.
Vet came out, checked the horse over from head to toe. Didnāt find a thing.
Went back to square one training wise and mare didnāt do it again for 6 monthsā¦ until she was at her first schooling show and went up and over, this time landing on the trainer/rider.
And that was the end of her riding career.
For all the money the owners threw at finding an answer (and they did, New Bolton, full workup, the works) no one ever found an answer. Retiring her to a non-riding career was the right thing to do.
Danacat, that seems to have been Mellyā¦ when cornered and no where to go [ie no one listening to his āI canātā or his āI donāt understandā] up he would go.
I was one of those people who swore I would never deal with a rear-er. I rode runaways, buckers, you name itā¦ not a problem Rearing was a solid no, until Melly. And that was only cause I could see why he was doing it for the most partā¦ he was being pushed and people were not listening to what he was saying.
The flipping was because he wasnāt fit enough, good enough at rearing, to not go over.
Thatās not to say he got his wayā¦ we always went back to what we were doing pre-mightgoupā¦ and honestly when he did seem to āget lightā undersaddle, it was after I had also thought āwe might have asked him for enough of this alreadyā.
Like the time we started LYā¦ and rather than have me come off a circle at the end of the arena, or go directly onto the 1/4 line and do a few steps of LY to the wall and then straightenā¦ trainer wanted a whole length of the arena of LY.
Uhā¦ heās 18. Heās been out of work 2 years, worked some in the fall and then out of work again all winterā¦ and even without all thatā¦ uhā¦
You could feel him start to hit that wall and could feel that the up was being put up as an optionā¦ in those instances I just let the reins go so forward was āeasyā and let him plow along a bitā¦ then we could go back and start to get him on the bit, collecting againā¦ I always kept ārearā in my head so I was ready if it hit his āto doā list.
Sadly the trainer we worked for was just soā¦ stubbornā¦ and insisted on assigning him anthropomorphic reasoningā¦ oy.
And then her āgo toā when he was a bit slow to lead out of the stall was to shankshankshank on the leadā¦ to the point he was backed into the corner of the stall, head in the rafters.
When you have to tell the trainer that perhaps she is encouraging the very behavior that will make him a less suitable lesson horse, is the day you realize the learning from that one [other than what not to do] is probably near the end.
VXF, I believe Mellys āreasonā was the EH-V. He honestly acted so āwhat was THATā afterwards.
He would go from perfectly fine on the X ties getting tacked upā¦ to rearā¦ to what can I do for you now obedient.
I will never know, but he never seemed stressed, like you normally see TBs act stressedā¦ but when you got to know him, and in hindsight, I think the times he went up he was stressed [physically, mentally or both] to a point that he whipped ārearā out of the bag of tricks [it was honestly his only oneā¦ he was SUCH a good boy in EVERY other way].
I would have walked away after the two Esther Williams into the puddle on the lunge line exhibitions had there been more problems or the rearing been more frequent [5 times he reared in 8 months was his total I think] or had the flipping been more than āOops! I canāt do this!ā. IIrc the last time he reared he was on the aisleway and I had the rein lightly in my handā¦he barely touched the rafters and ducked his head away/back downā¦ and thought better of it.
I honestly think there was a neuro-something thereā¦ and trust me we looked. Chiro, massage, Vet,ā¦ 
I had a whip horse rear and flip on me last fall while fox hunting. Iāve been riding my whole life (though only hunting for a few years) and Iād like to say that I had no warning that he was going to do itā¦but itās probably just a case of me not reading the signs/not knowing what they were. He was the first (and dear god I hope the last) to do this to me. Heād done the same thing to his owner earlier in the season, but we all chalked it up to a combination of rider error and circumstance/terrain. Hounds came running at him at full cry and it scared the pants off him, apparently. They were on a hill, so gravity was working against them, too.
Our huntsman worked with him, took the time to properly introduce him to hounds, put a lot of miles on, and had no indication that he would ever do it again. I rode him through the informal season and the start of formal and he was a rock starā¦then, one dayā¦not so much. I was very lucky in that nothing was broken, but I am still not 100% from the accident. I have lingering low back issues and a calcified hematoma in my abdomen that hurts, still. I also canāt really be in the saddle for long periods of time without some pretty nasty discomfort in my pelvis when I get off.
And Iām torn about the idea of getting back on him. I would never hunt him again (even if he had not been banned from the field by our masters), but the part of me that was raised to ājust get back on the horseā is having some trouble with the fact that I havenāt seen him since that day and probably wonāt ever be able to get back on and walk around a ring for some closure.
