Trouble turning head in

[localcephalopod]

New here so not sure if this is the right section to put it under but I do ride western so.

anyway i have an ex amish buggy/otsb rescue who i bought over the summer and have been riding him for over a year now. i love this horse and he is the sweetest, quietest, most eager boy you will ever meet and has progressed so much but now i feel we’ve hit a brick wall. now, he’s my first horse and yes my trainer is helping me every step of the way but of course i usually work with him on my own most days. he has awful trouble with turning his head in for turns (on both sides but one is significantly worse) which causes him to turn erratically, he hardly ever collects on that side either because he sticks his head out to the opposite side we’re turning and occasionally even picks a fight to turn to the other side. he’s very head strong about this and would fight with me all day if i agreed too. i think part of the problem is he gets bored just doing laps in the arena, i’ve tried obstacles to make it interesting but it seems he gets bored of everything so quickly. i thought it might be a pain issue but we did chiro and i tried kt tape, massage, no improvement. he’s getting his teeth done in december so that might help but i’m not sure. even if it is pain (which i honestly don’t think it is and neither does my trainer) i can promise he’ll still have some level of issues with his head. he ends up tripping and so many other things when we lope on that side because he refuses to turn inward. what should i work on with him to get him to turn his head in yet still keep his body to the wall? i’ve tried correcting on the lunge line, driving him on the ground, short tiny tugs on the reigns under saddle as reminders to turn his head in but he keeps ignoring it even though he’s usually a fast learner. he flexes fine, granted with reluctance on both sides, but this he just refuses and i’m stuck. i don’t want to fight with him about it anymore i hate doing that.

[Scribbler]

This is not about the head. This is about how horses naturally use their heads to counter flex to balance. His whole body is stiff and he likely is still finding out how to carry a rider. Don’t fight the head. Think about body balance

You need good dressage basics, to balance his body. I would start with shoulder in/shoulder fore on the ground then at walk under saddle.

I would not be even thinking about collecting a horse who is this green under saddle.

If your current trainer has no skills, go find a dressage trainer for the basics.

[TheHunterKid90]

This is a body problem, not a head problem.
If you cut your horses head off, it would fall onto the ground and the body would still be there.
Your horse constantly having his body (and thus his head) turned to the outside is also telling you he’s not even thinking in the direction you’re going. His whole body is saying “I want to go the other way.”
Thus correcting his head is going to do virtually nothing.
With all that said, keep in mind you only want to see enough bend in your horses body so that you can just see the eye lashes on his inside eye. Any more bend than that and you’re disengaging the horses body and he’s probably throwing a shoulder outside and you don’t have control of his feet then.
I guarantee if you work on steering and moving his feet underneath you, it will help to change his mind to want to make his brain think in instead of out.
You’re right that doing laps around the arena tugging on your inside rein is probably boring him and not solving anything.
I’m going to post a video below of my assistant on one of my two year olds teaching her brain and feet to follow his hands. Notice that he doesn’t go round and round. In fact there’s no pattern to where he’s trotting, he is just continually redirecting her feet until she says where next?!?! Instead of make me!

November 26, 2023

[localcephalopod]

so if i need to work on the placement of his body how do i do that? i don’t understand the video really, i can see him directing but she looks eager to follow. my horse doesn’t do that he pushes against the bit to seek pressure and completely ignores my hands, legs, and seat positioning. is it just steering continually as practice? is there other drills or something i can work on? ground or otherwise.

[localcephalopod]

one, there’s not any dressage trainers around here. two, you don’t know my trainer. i was just asking a question in case anyone knew some drills or groundwork that would be helpful. this is something i haven’t discussed in depth with my trainer because i’ve been far too busy lately to schedule any lessons so all the work i’ve done with my horse lately has been on my own where i occasionally ask my trainer a quick question or for guidance if i see her. there’s really no need to be so presumptuous and quite frankly, rude.

[paintedpennypony]

There was nothing about Scribbler’s post that was rude. They were offering good advice to you, which you literally asked for.

Have you had a vet do a neurological exam on him and a lameness evaluation? KT tape and chiro are not medical care. I don’t see your post mentioning that you have had him evaluated by a vet. Refusing to turn inward, turning erratically when he does, and tripping would make me wonder about neuro issues. This would be where I start first, assuming he doesn’t have a health issue I would then have a professional saddle fitter check my saddle out. Then I would go back to ground work primarily and ground drive him so he can figure out how to balance and soften without your added weight/ potentially unclear signals. Again, starting with a neuro and lameness eval.

[TheHunterKid90]

I don’t find Scribbler’s post to be rude. They’re saying “if” your trainer doesn’t have the skills to improve this, you need to seek help else where.

Like I said in my previous post, this is a body control and steering issue…a horses body can get out of wack very quickly when you’re worried about their head or holding them out or in.
Forget about his head and what his head is doing and how he roots on your hands and how stiff he feels in his chin.
You say he ignores all your aids, you need to use them firmly enough that he respects them.
This filly had 10 rides on her in the video. She started by rooting her face down and being generally rude but we don’t worry about their chin and face initially. We only focus on every time we move our hands, their feet have to try to catch up to us. Not drag on us, not lean in or out. So I start with light aids and gradually increase pressure to get the desired result and then immediately release pressure (not all the way, release can be my fingers opening) when the horse gives me even a little bit of what I want.

If this isn’t making sense or you’re having trouble following what I’m saying, you probably need to have a trainers intervention to help you and your horse bridge the gap. You cannot teach something you don’t know yourself.

[localcephalopod]

i appreciated their advice. though insinuating that my trainer has no idea what she’s doing when you clearly don’t know her and only have a quick run down of my issues is pretty rude and i don’t feel like that’s a wild accusation to make. it was an unneeded comment.

the chiro was meant to see if it was partly a soreness issue cause he tends to be very stiff. the vet eval is a good idea. it could also be a saddle issue he has very oddly shaped withers so it definitely could be part of the problem.

[localcephalopod]

it didn’t say seek help elsewhere it said “if she has no skills” not “maybe branch out”. besides the point though, i just felt it was rather unneeded- that makes much more sense to me now thank you.

[Scribbler]

@localcephalopod

it didn’t say seek help elsewhere it said “if she has no skills” not “maybe branch out”. besides the point though, i just felt it was rather unneeded- that makes much more sense to me now thank you.

If someone is dealing with very basic issues common to green horses (or green under saddle even if harness broke), if someone is asking on here for very basic advice, and if they say they have a trainer but they still need to come on here for very basic advice … Well, I’m going to assume that either the trainer is missing in action or the trainer is missing in skills for this particular issue.

It’s great to ask questions here, it’s what the chat group is for! But most of us with trainers ask our trainers first.

I rode Western as a teen and am dressage based now, and the understanding of biomechanics and how to balance a horse is far more explicit and precise in dressage than in other disciplines (Western performance gets some fantastic results but the theory tends to be less explicit so harder to explain).

You have a harness horse that is apparently green under saddle, a broke horse but not a schooled one. You are facing the same balance problems people get on big Colts. There is no “drill” to fix an over all balance problem.

I know what I would do but I don’t have the energy to try to outline a basic schooling program. That’s why I said get to a trainer that has the skills and can guide you.

[SummerRose]

Lots of questions that might help folks who are more knowledgeable than me give you some tips:

Are you direct reining or neck reining?

What kind of bit are you using?

Does he move laterally off your leg at all? Even for the non-forward movements like sidepassing or turning on the forehand/hindquarters?

How is your current trainer recommending that you ask him to go straight or bend to the inside? Has anything worked, even for just a few strides?

I will remark on one thing that stood out to me in your first post - you mentioned that he gets bored doing laps in an arena. Have you been working on figure 8s, serpentines, frequent changes of direction? I would suggest that if you’re working a lot on the rail, get away from the rail and work in the center of the arena. Notice how in @TheHunterKid90’s video, the rider is doing frequent and unpredictable changes of direction? That really helps a horse learn to balance himself correctly and to bend. And frequent transitions within the changes of directions help a horse balance and pick his back up, without the rider having to try to physically pull the horse together.

[Paint_Party]

@SummerRose

Are you direct reining or neck reining?

What kind of bit are you using?

These are both fair and pertinent questions.

I want to also add that the video @TheHunterKid90 posted is demonstrating pretty much how to start a baby on turning and teaching its body to follow its nose with light aids. The rider, although it’s not easily visible, is using his leg and seat bones to push the horse around each turn, so the young horse is learning to use its body to turn, not just bend its neck around a corner.

My horse (a western horse), like a lot of horses, tends to be one-sided. Given the choice, he’d prefer to go to the left all day. He’s just flatter through his body tracking right. That means that although I ride and show in a curb bit, at home I occasionally I go back to a snaffle and work on using a direct rein to focus on bending and collection in ways that I can’t really achieve in a curb bit.

OP, for your horse, I’d suggest not only emulating the video linked above but also getting your horse to “give” his ribs to you through leg pressure. He has to bend his body (in the extreme it’d be like the letter “C”) in order to give you a supple bend through his neck as it seems you want. Simply pulling his head to one side in a turn or circle is not the goal you should be seeking.

[Rackonteur]

I love Standardbreds!

Was he ever ridden in an arena before you got him?
How big is your arena?
Do you ever ride him outside the arena? If so, how does he do going straight?
When he raced, did he trot , or pace?
I’m wondering if maybe the arena is too small for him feel comfortable in. Compared to the track, and to (I’m assuming) road work in harness with his Amish owner/s.

[Alpha_Mare]

FWIW - I am not a trainer - many of the Amish I see keep the head pulled to the outside (side of the road). So this may have been something ‘asked’ of him before, and his understanding and musculature have developed to think that is normal.

My dressage coach (former ‘S’ judge, rider to GP), had a client with a harness horse, who had been in harness previously and bought for new owner to ride. It took my coach a long time, I mean months to start and I think 2 years to eventually get that horse comfortable with the bending we ask of a dressage horse. Because he had been trained to be straight between shafts.

It can take quite a while for the musculature to change, so you need to do it gradually so that it is not uncomfortable for the horse.

The other posters have given good training advice - I would just suggest that retraining a horse taught to ‘work’ in a certain way can take longer than a greenie.

p.s. a small exercise on the ground, walk a square and, at each corner, halt and ask the horse to bend/flex head to the inside and move the hindquarters so that they step around (1/4 of a circle). this helps teach the bending, and the crossover of hind legs should help to supple the back. Do it slowly as it is his understanding of the movement is as important as the physical doing. Each way.

As others have said, it may be harder to get this started under saddle when he is carrying your weight, easier to start on the ground

[Bonnie2]

Sounds like neck arthritis. But could be lameness or neurologic. An ex Amish/ otsb probably has a lot of miles on the odometer. Ideally he needs a thorough exam from a lameness specialist vet. If that isn’t happening, put him on a NSAID that you are comfortable with for a month. Bute works best but previcox if you are worried about his gut. Then work him under the assumption he has pain. Don’t ask for a “proper” bend, ask for just a little more than he’s comfortable with. Cantering is difficult for many otsb. Maybe leave that until the trot improves. Horses seldom set themselves against us for no reason. We have to figure out why they are so dead set on saying no. Good luck!

[bingbingbing]

I know this is a few weeks old, but curious if he can do carrot stretches? Reach around, with still feet, and touch each side and put his nose between his front legs.