Warming up the "quirky" horse - a serious question

[Feliz]

Overandonward – that description cracked me up!

Eventerwannabe – don’t be afraid to do your entire warmup in the other area. For myself, the warmup is for getting the horse listening to me so that we are on the same page. This is sometimes best achieved outside the warmup ring - Fence 1 and 2 have been my warmup jumps a few times.

I had an athletic chestnut mare that taught me all about cunning strategies for warming up the less social equine. She did get a lot better in the year that I had her, but there were venues that I didn’t even bother to enter the warmup area.

Hunting has really helped me mentally with all of this. Many hunters don’t do any kind of structured warmup, as you will generally walk & trot after the hounds for some time before jumping your first fence. The horses haven’t forgotten how to jump since last time and they cope perfectly well. One of the scariest first fences I’ve done was a steep descent down to a small flat space that was just big enough to fit in one stride before a 1.10m upright fence. The clever horse I was on had no problems. Not sure that my eyes were open over that one! It’s not the same as tackling a technical line of show jumps or a bold xc question, but it reminds me not to be too precious – as long as the horse is listening to you and has had a suitable body warm up it doesn’t matter that much exactly what you do.

[phoenixrises]

This is still a work in progress. For P, getting her out of the stall first thing in the AM and just standing (typically I have to have a chain and a normal lead rope) and watching the warm up. She’ll spin herself up (covered in sweat, whites of the eyes etc.) and about an hour later she comes back down. Once she’s gone through the motions she’s typically fine. Now when dressage is first thing and we can’t do that, I either 1) go in the ring with zero warm up or 2) if we can warm up somewhere far far away.

Luckily once she loses her mind for the day it only happens once and after that life is good. I am at an extremely busy pony club barn, we ride with other people all the time. It doesn’t matter she still loses it when we go to shows, even if it’s at our barn (and no it isn’t me, she’s done it with some extremely experienced riders). The few times we’ve been somewhere where she doesn’t lose her mind, it’s been when we’ve either been able to warm up by ourselves or with just one or 2 other horses.

I certainly hope at some point it’s something she gets over. It certainly can’t be fun for her to have what looks like a “panic attack”.

I have also thought of putting a big red bow on her bum to see if it would keep people from galloping up her butt as this sound of feet behind her seems to be what sets her off most (but not always).

[Countrywood]

Put the bow on if it will work!

[OverandOnward]

[QUOTE=phoenixrises;8704929]
… It doesn’t matter she still loses it when we go to shows, even if it’s at our barn (and no it isn’t me, she’s done it with some extremely experienced riders). …[/QUOTE]

Mine does the same - sometimes he’s more outrageous his first few minutes in any group of strange horses at home than he is on the road.

A trainer explained that some horses are, well, outraged, that strange horses dare to come onto THEIR territory. On their grass, near their barn. Some horses have more of a protective instinct displayed at least partly as a lot of showy “you wanna piece of THIS ???” type behavior - agitation, energy, noise, bucking, rampant speed, willingness to collide with other equines – anything to make themselves look bigger and more awesome. From their point of view.

Fortunately all the ridiculousness seems to be too much work for my horse to keep it going very long. It’s easier to just school. :o

[yourcolorfuladdictio]

Having an extremely high strung jumper, I know the warmup woes well. My mare could put Bemine to shame with her antics. Fortunately I don’t often come across rope warmup rings in the jumper circuit, but what has worked well for me is getting her out early once (like 5:30-6 am). Take her for a short hack before the show picks up. Then give her some “quiet time” in her stall, I try to keep her surroundings as boring as possible, hang drapes to keep her from getting worked up by what she can see from the stall. I’ll play some music to drown out the show sounds, I try to make her feel “safe” in her stall, giving her a place she can control.

Around 8-9am I’ll take her out of her stall and graze her by the warmup arena. If she wants to stand there and watch or walk, I will oblige but I don’t accept nonsense. If she is worried, I’ll keep her moving, if she’s being a stinker I’ll ask her to stand still. If we have a morning ride I’d rather tack her up and walk for 30-40 minutes in and around the warmup. Get her to the point where she starts looking for me to find out what’s next. If she wants to jig around, I will patiently wait it out until she is tired of it.

After the walking, I’ll do a fairly short warmup, jump enough fences to get her forward to the base, but waiting not rushing. And then I’ll let her go stand by the in-gate. If there is grass, I’ll let her graze. If she wants to be a pill, I’ll circle her and walk back and forth from the warmup. When I’m on deck I’ll make one lap at the canter in the warmup to get my springy jumper canter and then I head into the ring.

Also, if I think I’m going to need a hand on my horse to get her into the ring (or into the start box) I’d rather have a hand and not need it than need it and not have it. So I generally arrange to have a ground person at the in gate so she has no choice but to go in.

[HealingHeart]

Talk to him…, insure him … “Stay connected to me” , “focus”, we have a job…, if not out loud, in thought

[PrinceSheik325]

My guy hates being ridden around other horses, which makes the warm-ups very challenging. He’s most likely to buck in warm-up, especially before dressage (showing great suppleness, right?). I have found that using the same pattern for warm-up at every show (two trot circles in each direction, then several figure eights, a couple trot to canter transitions, and then walking and repeating as needed) gives him a kind of security blanket. He’s nervous about the other horses, but we’re doing something he “knows.” That and trying to warm-up completely alone if possible have been the two most helpful things for him.

[Feliz]

HealingHeart – rider attitude is so important. It’s easy to become a bit caught up in a worry spiral, rather than being positive and focussed ourselves. I’ve found that I have to get on with an easy, workmanlike attitude. If stuff starts to go south then the attitude has to be very much “oh well, that was exciting, now let’s trot to that tree, then over to there, then halt by that fence” (forward, forward, forward). I try to give us both something to focus on and lots of praise when it’s going well.

[ozjb]

An above poster reminded me that we used to do the same thing with our OTTB. Depending on how he arrived at the event, my daughter would hop on him and gallop him around, then bring him back to the float (we live in Australia, it’s a trailor in the US) and let him stand for a bit while we did stuff. Somedays he might need 3 gallops around before he could collect himself and others only once.

Worked a treat at ODEs. The dressage folks weren’t that impressed with the galloping around. LOL