Unorthodox Success Stories

[PNWSunnyDay]

Ok- so tonight I decided to ride the mare despite the fact I was wearing the old, worn-out, clearance-rack, should-be-in-the-garbage, “sports” bra. My supplies were not secured, if you get what I’m saying.

I realize that I’m riding SO softly to avoid any excess concussion or jostling. WTC, the BEST ride I’ve ever had on the mare I’ve been riding regularly for over 3 years. I’ve never been able to canter this mare without her head coming up and her getting worried…until today. I guess I should be riding more like I’m wearing a bag of raw eggs and less like I’m packing military-grade tactical gear.

Anybody else have silly success stories to share?

[Foxglove]

I was following a well known DVD series for ground work with my new horse. I was having limited success. The specific lesson that day was to back in hand. I was to cue, step forward, horse was to step back. Not working at all even when tapped on the chest with crop. Sigh. On the last try, just before giving up, I cued, stepped forward, tripped, and fell flat on my face. Horse went flying back like he’d been shot out of a cannon! Lightbulb moment! I needed to make my cue BIGGER until he understood, then make them gradually smaller. The DVD guru was a large man–I am not. His size I think made the cues bigger . Anyway, all my horses have stellar ground manners thanks to that DVD series!

[DawgLady]

What DVD series was it, if you don’t mind my asking?

[Bluey]

Long, long ago, I am young and new to this stable.
They tell me to take the black colt out to turnout, the first paddock off to the right.
I get him haltered and he is obviously full of it.
All lead ropes are plain ones, no chain ones, so I assume they don’t use those, but horse acts like it may need one, he seems fresh and not very responsive.
We walk nicely down the aisle and 20’ in the gravel outside, he takes a huge jump sideways and practically jumps back on top of me, then rears high, high up and paws at me.
I raise my hands and wave rope at him.
As he comes down, his front leg gets caught in the rope and loops around it and he measures his length flat out on the ground, his leg taken away from him, tripping him.

I get him up, look him all over carefully and he seems fine, a few scuffs on his pretty shiny black hide, but he is quiet now, his ears at half mast and his head low.

We walk oh so very nicely to the paddock, turn him out without any more hijinks.
During the time I had in that stable, he was a soft, nice puppy dog to me.
He decided I may be a small human, but had super powers over mere colts.

Later I found out he was horrible for others and they thought someone else had warned me, why they didn’t that morning.

I don’t recommend throwing a horse down, but when it happens and horse thinks you did it, well, that one time, on that colt, it worked.

[clanter]

@Bluey

We walk oh so very nicely to the paddock, turn him out without any more hijinks.
During the time I had in that stable, he was a soft, nice puppy dog to me.
He decided I may be a small human, but had super powers over mere colts.

Later I found out he was horrible for others and they thought someone else had warned me, why they didn’t that morning.

I took care of one Standardbred mare who was notorious for stepping on the feet of the person who had her on lead. We got along very good with each other, she was a nice horse and she seemed to like me. Once, and only once, did she step on my foot …when she realized that she had stepped on my foot she stopped turned to look me in the eye to express “Oh I am so sorry I did that” …then we went on about the task at hand… but she never ever stepped on me again…others were fair game.

[lenapesadie]

Riding a school horse out around the property. I’d taken him to stand in the pond; like cold hosing for older legs. Using random tack to not risk the good stuff in the water. Old western head stall with long split reins. Pretending I’m a cowgirl riding one handed. We are coming back towards the barn. It was dinner time and horse starts fretting to get to barn faster. No horse we must walk. Horse bunny hops a bit. Bring other hand up thinking maybe two hands are better. Forgot I was holding excess of long split reins in that other hand. Tail end of split rein gets flipped forward and pops school horse right on the nose as he tries to bunny hop some more. Put the kibosh on bunny hopping. He never did so again. Usually he would sometimes bunny hop excited going “cross country”. Never again after I accidentally popped him in nose.

[Spudsmyguy]

I was working at a race layup barn on Long Island, Gamboling Farm I think it was called. They had a swimming pool and I worked in the pool building, getting horses ready to go in the pool, etc. There was one horse there, a Standardbred, by the name of Senator Fred, who happened to be my favorite of the lot. He had some anxiety when it came to putting him away in his stall, anticipating, dancing around a little, so the farm owner asked if I would work with him on this issue. In a few weeks I had him walking into his stall confidently with no worries. The farm owner gave me kudos for such a nice job I did with him and I ended up with a raise.

[Displaced_Yankee]

I was working at barn where one horse had a bad habit at turnout time. He was perfect to walk to the, through the gate, and turn around. The instant he was unclipped from the lead he would do a 180 and bolt. One could get dragged if you didn’t get the lead off on the first try (you know, sometimes it catches, doesn’t clear the ring).

One day I lined him up with a lone tree that was about 20 or so feet out. He did his turn and bolt and had enough space to turn on the afterburners and then the emergency brake. Just enough to give him a “half halt”. I did this twice and he never turned and bolted from me again when “released”. A quick turn maybe, but I never felt that I was in trouble if the lead caught.

[Spudsmyguy]

I had a horse that I rescued out of a pasture situation where she was slowly starving to death but once she got healthy turning her out was a challenge as she would rip away as soon as you unbuckled the halter. I had to nip this in the bud so put two halters on her, the top one with a regular lead attached, the bottom one with a chain shank over her nose. She tried to rip away when the top halter was undone while I held onto the bottom lead and she had a nasty surprise. Took a total of two times and she quit the behavior and waited patiently for me to remove her halter.

[eightpondfarm]

very clever.
not so sure i’d do this, but it is brilliant!

I had one yesterday as a matter of fact. I’m working with a new horse, a mustang, who not only did not relish being touched, but wasn’t a big fan of voice either. I just didn’t know until yesterday that he not only is accepting of touch now, but voice as well…! He was eating a flake of alfalfa i put in the feeder and i was standing about ten feet away, and one of my chickens approached. I spoke to her in my normal ‘chicken-voice’ …rather high and sweet and that big ole mustang stopped his eating and came over to me! So now that i know what affects him positively, i’ll be using it all the time. Another one of my trainees has a fondness for a very low voice, the sound of a low ‘come hither’ nicker. Strange. To each his own i guess. I have an easy range of ‘voices’ …now all i have to do is remember what works on whom!

[Heinz_57]

My new kid expresses his emotions via his feet. Stomping his little front feet, little stomps with a hind foot to show he’s annoyed.

Every time I go to dump his slop he stomps those little front feet and crowds me. Hurry up! Despite his bottomless buffet of lovely expensive hay. One day, I started stomping back at him.

A few days later… He no longer stomps at feeding time.

[RedHorses]

You forgot the unorthodox method you used to accomplish this feat!

I had a young horse that started pawing in cross ties. I managed to reduce the behaviour, but not eradicate it.

Then he came in one day with a huge hole ripped into his foot at the base of his pastern. I investigated and found the smooth, high tensile wire fence had a strand pulled off four posts. I speculate that there were kids feeding horses through the fence and mine started pawing impatiently. He hasn’t pawed since.

[2DogsFarm]

@Bluey reminded me of 2:

1. Trainer’s lesson pony escaped - kids usually didn’t latch his stall securely - it’s Winter & he goes trotting out into the yard, me following at a walk, when he hits a patch of ice & does his best Bambi on Ice impression - all 4 splayed.
   Which lets me walk up to him and slip on halter & lead.
   The whole time his eyes are huge & on me.
   I know he’s thinking I somehow Majicked the ground

2. One of the 1st times I longed my Freebie Hackney Pony, so his movement was still as desired by Hackney Peeps: Knees to Ears, Warp Speed.
   I want Long & Low, so I drop the whip. This works, he slows down.
   When I go to pick it up, he takes advantage of my eyes not on him to bolt…
   Hits the end of the line I’m still holding & flips himself.
   I expect him to get up & rocket off.
   Instead he shakes himself off, gives me side-eye & carries on sedately, looking - I swear - embarassed, like the fall was all on him.

[sascha]

Youngish pretty much feral horse. Learnt right quick that pawing in crossties is not tolerated when I was with her. As soon as I was out of sight, she’d go at it again. I abandoned getting whatever tack it was I went for and went back to collect a couple of jelly scrubbers from my grooming kit and headed to the wash stall to wait. Luckily found a couple more jelly scrubbers in there. The pawing began. Just my arm peeked out of the wash stall and hucked a jelly scrubber in her general direction. I stuck my head out into the aisle to see a rather shocked horse and went back into hiding. 3 more jelly scrubbers for subsequent trials erased the behaviour. Never even had to make contact. Couldn’t if I tried, truth be told. She was 20’ away and I can’t hit anything further than 2’ Went and collected the jelly scrubbers and put them away and she’s not pawed in crossties since whether I’m in attendance or not.

Would not suggest this approach for most horses but something told me it was not going to upset her but would also work.

The other day I had someone comment on her outstanding manners and what a good horse she must be to have such wonderful manners. My response, “She was not born that way. Not even close. But she is smart and understands rules and boundaries.”

[chestnutmarebeware]

My first horse as an adult really liked to run around like an idiot when I wanted to bring him in from the field. I had tried all the tricks: rattling the grain bucket, keeping him running till it wasn’t fun anymore, etc.

What finally worked was when he tried his patented race-up-to-the-fence line-and-make-a-perfect-reining-rollback ( he was a hunter, btw). Unfortunately, the ground was a bit muddy one day and he ended up doing more like an “oh crap” sliding-stop-ending-in-an-a$$-over-teakettle” pile at the base of the fence.

Other than a few scrapes and quite a few grass stains, and much lost dignity, he was fine, but he was oddly easy to catch after that!

[2DogsFarm]

See #1 in my post.
I’d bet he thought you’d “majicked” the ground

We are sometimes Wizards to our horses

[Spudsmyguy]

@RedHorses

You forgot the unorthodox method you used to accomplish this feat!

I would ask him to stop at the stall door when he started getting antsy. I’d wait until he relaxed and stood quietly talking to him soothingly and stroking his neck then lead him in. The stall was a step down into it so I have a feeling other handlers were not entering the stall with him but chasing him in so it made him anxious.