Your vet did what?!? There is no way it is legal to put a cattle implant in a mare and then compete.
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She has before but hates them. The last time she rode with them in was with a pro, and I could not touch the top of her head for a whole month before she trusted anyone again. When I show with them it isn’t much different, she is always trying to get them out and shaking her head around. She is not really a noise spooker but instead an environment spooker.
The closest show barn from us is 2 hours away, and we have one other miniature horse at home. I ride by myself unless we trailer over to another barn to school where others are riding. I used to hack out a lot with my friend who has a super broke gelding, and she still acted the same.
Lately when I have been riding her she has started to go on the bit more and listen to me, even when we are jumping courses at another barn next to a busy road. I am sending her to my trainers barn in October for a few weeks so she can get back in shape and tuned up, hoping it works!
Unfortunately she still spooks when I am not riding her, and when I am riding bareback as well, so I am not sure if it is the saddle.
The closest show barn to me with a pro is 2 hours away, and we already did that for 8 months and didn’t see any improvement. We paid for weekly training rides but the trainer was very untrustworthy and I don’t think she rode her very often.
I know you’re sending her to training already so this is just a curiosity question: when she was in training at this place with “weekly” rides, how often was she getting worked otherwise? We’re you really driving 4 hours round trip to get on her daily? Along that line, when she goes to training this time, how many rides are we talking?
I say this because these types often need daily, consistent work. One of the show barns I boarded at did their “training board” at 5 rides a week - owner chose how many of those were lessons and how many were pro rides. Basically the horse was worked at least 5 times a week under pro supervision and it worked great! Consistency, routine, and wet saddle pads really works wonders if there’s no pain involved.
OTOH, if you’re a weekend only rider due to distance, and your trainer is only doing one ride a week, I don’t know if you’d see a difference in MOST horses. That’s assuming the rides even happened, but still. The flighty hotter horses I’ve dealt with did MUCH better when worked with intention 6 or even 7 days a week.
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I came down 4 days a week to ride, and my trainer was supposed to ride her once a week. I usually had 1-2 lessons depending on how busy she was. The whole barn stressed out my mare and both me and my family hated driving out there so we brought her home.
Yeah that sounds super stressful. Fingers crossed this new training situation works out better!
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All of the above, I’ll just add what helped with my guy. He’s super athletic, he retains fitness, he’s perfect 98% of the time. What has helped tremendously- flame suit also zipped- is when I feel his ADHD kick in, and when I see the triggers before he does, or am in a new place- I use an operant conditioning method. I am not a cookie person. He is a cookie person. So I have trained him when I sing (yes sing, the same song over and over and over) I would give him a cookie. Then- when I was on him and he’d start to spiral- sing, give a cookie, he relaxes.
Now- you’ll hear me singing. He associates it with a cookie, he relaxes. It sounds ridiculous, it used to feel ridiculous, but it has deescalated him so.many.times.
It gets his brain back and paying attention to me and my aids.
I went totally outside the box because I can do 10 lessons and nothing (also taught him to stand mounting using cookies). 11 lesson explosion. Scoped- no ulcers. We’re now at the point if I’m hacking around and start the song- he stops and kind of turns his head around - hey mom - you ok up there?
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Ok, now we need to know. What song!
And cool way to think outside the box.
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Big Bang Theory 
I know it by heart, the tempo kind of matches and “it all started with a big bang” is satisfying for me because there’s no explosion . I’ve done this in front of some Olympic clinicians and even they notice his demeanor change and say “keep singing”
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I event my spooky horse who likes to do something similar. What has helped us is tiny, soft, slow circles by whatever he’s spooking at until he softens and stops spooking. Obviously there is a limit to doing this in the show ring, but the more I apply this at home, the better he is at shows where I can’t do this ad nauseum. I have to take my energy level way down and then just softly, slowly circle until he checks back in. The circle has to be aimed pointing back at what he’s spooking at, never letting him migrate away. I think he’s become way less spooky in general because it just gently takes the wind out of his sails. I’ll do this by a scary object near the dressage arena until they ring the bell for us to go in. If there’s a particularly spooky banner in stadium, I’ll circle near that until the bell is rung, etc etc.
Might be worth heading to some new venues and just doing schooling rounds etc where you can do this so that your mare can start to generalize the results of spooking to the new show rings.
Also my guy has been treated for ulcers, gets regular adjustments, saddle fit checked, etc. Treating ulcers helped him check back in quicker after spooking and has stopped his spiral, but he still spooks and stares. It’s just who he is as a person.
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That’s awesome! I actually encourage my more tense riders to sing (quietly) as they ride, as you have a harder time holding your breath while singing. It encourages correct breathing. My sister, who taught music and sang professionally, taught ME this!
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Oooh good point! My mare becomes MUCH more looky when she’s in a heat cycle.
My singing would likely cause spooks. Shame I didn’t inherit either one of my parent’s singing voices.
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And some of the clinicians (including my jumper trainer) have mentioned this, as well. Typically, I am not a tense rider but when he starts to wind up I get tense, that stresses him out and the cylce continues. Now that we have cookie therapy- life is much easier. I threw away dressage points at a local show. he started to amp up so I started singing in my circle. He’s either going to lose points becasue of behavior/error or I can use it as a “life isn’t that bad even though I don’t talk in dressage” and throw away the points. It worked and though I lost points for using my voice, the judge actually noted “good ride on a tense horse. Good training moment”.
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