Weird situation with new horse - rearing

[Peggy]

@mvp

You know what’s wrong with cats? It’s that when you try to show up teach them that life is unpleasant on the counter, they are smart enough to know that you, not the counter, is the independent variable.

Brilliant!

[piperluvshorses]

So interesting…the whole thread. The horse in question has been quite good. The event trainer rides him 2x a week and cowboy rides him the rest. Cowboy works him HARD - as in foaming hard. Event trainer jumps him and is in and out. He did try to pull his business in the corner with the trainer but trainer immediately disengaged his hind quarters and it was done in 2 minutes. He tried again out on a walk around the property when trainer stopped to chat with person going in opposite direction. He just had the person turn around and walk with him to avoid the oncoming conflict. I did ride him yesterday under trainer supervision - he was in a very relaxed mood and was perfect. He’s just started jumping - which it’s funny mvp1 talks about the cows and locking on - he doesn’t lock on at all to the fences and jumps like a stag with knees to the ground. I know this is a green thing - perhaps cattle work will help with at least the locking on. I’m hoping his jumping like a stag improves otherwise I will end up selling him as a dressage horse (of course with all disclosures of his issues). Mvp1 I have a question. Horse leaves in 2 weeks to cowboys place. Cowboy has told me he’s going to work - hard - as in ranch work hard - lots of sweat. A few of my friends have commented they are concerned he will get hurt as they are pretty tough on the horses - out in the fields - cattle hard ground etc. I’m trying to get past this worry - but my question for you…cowboy said horse needs to go learn to be a horse - work very hard. He said he will come back realizing he’s been living at the Ritz Carlton. Do you agree? Do you think mentally going and being a real working horse will change his perception of work? I don’t want to send him as I’m taking a risk he will get hurt if isn’t something that will fundamentally change his work ethic.

[foursocks]

Not MVP, but horses don’t think that way; their brains don’t process and reason the way human brains do. He’s much more likely to end up somewhere closer to this: Hah, it’s this dummy again, I can go back to getting away with stuff because the hard work guy isn’t around. Or: I have no idea what is going on/what I’m being asked to do so I am going to shut down again.

The horse needs YOU to be able to push the buttons correctly because if he has already gone to the rearing stage when he’s confused and/or doesn’t want to work, it is very likely he will zip right back there if the situation repeats.

As for the being worked hard to the point of injury, that is a serious concern and it is why I’ve never gone down the cowboy path. I’ve seen the back end of that with very nice horses coming back in terrible shape and needing rehab. It isn’t just cowboys, though. I was at a barn where a dressage trainer worked his own and clients’ horses so hard several of them broke down. Every day, long, dripping with sweat rides, they just couldn’t hold up. Tough ponies and QHs are very different than a TB or a sporthorse bred to jump and do dressage, but all horses have their limits. Working them hard without recognition of that is not smart or kind and I have never understood how that can benefit their training.

Finally, if he jumps with his knees pointed down that’s something that MIGHT be made better with training, but given this horse’s pre-existing issues, that seems like yet another mountain to climb and it might not be worth it. There are many things that can be improved upon with training but I wouldn’t buy a horse that jumps in bad form to be a jumper.

[mvp]

Well… I think your cowboy’s analysis about why hard work at his place will work gives your horse (and any of 'em) way, way too much credit. I don’t think a horse can make the connection between being sent somewhere and working hard, and coming back to your place and softer ride. Rather, I think the “if/then” connection has to be much, much shorter. Also, I’m really not sure that horses can be more attentive and relaxed because they are grateful to be back that the Ritz. I mean, people can barely act grateful in a sustained way, LOL.

ETA-- sorry this post is so disorganized.

That said, I do think your horse needs (and has probably had in the past) a businesslike, no-nonsense ride where he’s not given the chance to say No or do more than take direction because he’s doing a job on a ranch. The hard part is that you need to learn to ride- and handle him a bit more this way, and he needs to learn to be attentive to your softer ride because, boy-howdy, there is an authoritative leader behind that soft ride.

Your trainer’s ride with quickly disengaging his hind quarters before he could pop up at all was more like the kind of riding that I think you should master. You give him a fair, patient ride, but you have some tools in your back pocket for stopping his taking over and you use them when he requires it. Again, if I have to have this conversation with a horse about whether or not I’m a sucker or a rather untrustworthy, irrelevant partner, I prefer to do that on long-lines.

I think the ranch work will help him, and just going through a period of working hard and being busy for several hours a day can be great for a young horse who is having a little teenage life crisis about how the rest of his life will be total sh!t because no one will let him quit his job and go back to being a kid. I hope he works this out and makes his peace with having to be ridden for a living. I think this is some of how it works when English riders send their horses off to cowboys for 30 days.

As to the jumping. Don’t sell him as a dressage horse quite yet because he doesn’t take responsibility for locking onto a fence. Rather, teach him that finding that fence in space is his problem and then he will take an interest. You should know that I learned how to teach horses to jump in American Hunter World where we do a ton with poles and the shape of fences in order to teach horses how to jump. The idea is to have the conversation be between the particular arrangement of poles and the horse, so that the rider can offer a tactful, non-invasive ride to a horse who is largely getting himself to the fence. The emphasis there, too, is on the horse being as relaxed as possible and I think horses get relaxed when they have a thorough understanding of their job and feel secure doing it. So you have my bias: I’m used to a training system that gets rideability later from allowing the horse to engage with the job of getting to- and over a fence first.

I once was asked to walk a “too casual” horse over a tall-ish cross rail by a pro. The idea was to set him up a situation that he absolutely physically could do, even if he knocked it all down, but where he had not help other than my leg and demand that he go forward and work out how to do that on his own. I don’t think your horse as a reliable-enough Go button on him for you to attempt this or any kind of really complicated cavaletti puzzle that you set him and don’t help him with. But when you have that sorted out, this kind of thing can help him get interested in poles, the outside world and taking responsibility for where he puts his feet.

All this is to say that you can teach him how to latch onto a fence by helping him less and letting him do more of the work in negotiating with poles on the ground and the fences. Of course, the skill in this kind of training comes from the person knowing just what to build for the horse next. But if this horse was always ridden by a very strong and accurate rider, he never learned that he’d better apply himself to finding a distance because someone else did that for him. That might have been just the extension of a similarly commanding, managing ride on the flat, so this horse just learned to abandon his own body a little bit when he was with a strong rider. Of course, he takes control back when he feels challenged and when you don’t give him the same Professional European Rider ride. But if he knows that guy would not have allowed him much room for protest, then he brings out the big guns and rears because that “Go big or go home” kind of resistance is the only one that has a snowball’s chance of working.

He is probably green enough that you can change his mind about how much he should bother to look at the oncoming fence, because he’ll be a participant in choosing how to get to it and safely to the other side. But if he’s a big, goofy somewhat uncoordinated or casual guy, this not locking onto the fence and abandoning his body is his way of managing stress. If he can just not care, his day is better. If he had the kind of rider who was forceful and accurate caring enough to lock onto the fence and perhaps make his own bid for it was not welcome and also not necessary since he had a kind of “helicopter rider” involved.

I’m thinking of something a guy at the track told me when I was looking for my first there a long time ago. He said that some TBs have the right amount of ego for that job and they were OK. But for those who found the job overwhelming, they went in one of two directions. Some became really defensive and had their ears back (or worse) everywhere but in their stall. Other horses who were overwhelmed did the opposite and were tractable and did their work, but they got hurt because they didn’t think they could defend their own bodies so they just didn’t try and let stuff happen to them.

So you have to figure out if the horse who “is too quiet for FEI” but then brings you a rearing problem is a horse who just can’t figure out how he will participate in his work with you. I do think that during his stint at the ranch he will be ridden in a way that, in little bits and a hundred times a day, he has to participate in doing his job without having such a “close” or micromanage-y ride as I’m guessing he had in the barns in Europe. That experience is worth something.

[piperluvshorses]

This horse has actually never jumped before - came from a dressage barn. I’m not so so worried about the locking on as that seems an inexperience thing more concerned with jumping like a gazelle. The good news is he’s willing to jump, in very slow gazelle form. We’re working on adding leg off the ground and really galloping up the jumps - everything is just slow - slow from the ground slow on landing. Not such a bad thing for hunter land except the whole gazelle look needs to be fixed.

So let’s say I sent him with the cowboy - how long would be the shortest amount of time you would suggest he learn this ranch life. I am quite concerned about the possibility of injury. I’ve asked cowboy to put boots on him which I have provided but that lasted 2 days and now cowboy does what cowboys do and just rides him bootless. I guess if this were your horse - and you were me - would you send horse out to cowboy (and for how long)? Or would you find a different path - say with event trainer? I would also like to note - I rode horse today - he was great. The one thing I’ve also noted since this whole fiasco started a week and a half after he came - he’s much MUCH more alert now. He came with literally zero spook - didn’t look at one thing for the first week and half. It’s as if he’s woken up. He’s forward - no longer a kick ride - and he’s spooky at things in the ring. I can 100% handle the spook and we work around it - but it’s just an interesting note of the changes in his behavior. I must prefer this spook over any sort of kick ride to eventually rearing. My guess is the work with the cowboy has geared him up?

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

Forgive me OP if I overlooked something in this fascinating but long thread (I’ve learned a great deal reading it, incidentally). But do you know what the horse’s environment like was before he came to you? You said he’d never jumped before and came from a dressage barn, but what was his turnout situation? Was it a very controlled and unstimulating environment? Is he spooky when your cowboy friend is riding him in the open?

[piperluvshorses]

I’m not sure I’ve tried to ask these questions of the sales barn but honestly the responses are short. What I think is in Europe he went from stall to arena back to stall. I tried to see if they could ask owner questions but not a lot of information given back. Now he goes in a big turnout for about 1.5-3 hours a day. With the cowboy he looks but doesn’t spook - as in move sideways - he’s definitely “up” tho. It’s not dangerous spooking but it’s definitely different than when he first came. He literally did not spook at one single thing for about 2 weeks…tarps blowing - garbage cans…nothing - no reaction. He was also a completely different ride then - a kick, spur, stick ride. Then it was like a light switch went off and things that weren’t scary before are scary but again you cluck and he goes - very forward. Today he spooked at a fence post that had fallen down and polls on the side of the fence - he saw this yesterday but today I guess it was spookier. I’m okay with it as he went forward and sideways…but he went forward…which right now is a small victory. I will say I went out with another horse around the barn today on a mini trail ride. We would definitely have had a moment today had the other horse not been there - he saw something scary and threatened to stop and go up - since other horse kept walking by he fell behind and went forward instead of going up. A bit of a cheating strategy but better than a fight.

[skydy]

I think what you have now (forward, sideways and spooky) is better than what you had before (kick, spur, stick.)

What you had before was a shut down overwhelmed horse, which to me was always more frightening to ride than the spooking sideways type. You just never can tell when the ones that kept that dull lid on their emotions would finally let go, sometimes in a spectacular fashion.

I never had any that were so repressed. You have to fix that before you ever get on them. Of course some are less confident than others but I wouldn’t be so brave as to ride a youngster that was at a “kick spur stick” level.
I wouldn’t use spurs on a youngster,but I’m guessing you are using the term loosely.

Keep on hacking out in company with a steady companion. They will learn to go forward and that is a huge help in teaching them the aids. When they are going naturally forward it is easy to tell them to go even more forward with your leg. They seem to me to understand it more easily this way.
I’ve found that this is a great confidence builder for the young ones, assuming you can sit the spook.

[Equkelly]

@mvp

But the NH guys who are so sympathetic to a horse who considers not doing as we ask because he’s scared, confused or tired, do know that somewhere in his education, a horse is going to have to make his peace with moments of those unpleasant feelings.

Uhhh you and I have not been around the same “NH guys then”.

[TheDBYC]

@mvp

We would not accept the level of “Oh look, a squirrel!” checking out under saddle as that is plainly dangerous. But the way I was raised in English world, we had much lower standards on the ground. You can regularly find grown-ass horses sometimes needed things like chains over the nose in distracting situations to keep them attentive. I am starting to wonder if that’s a training problem that we created because we didn’t bother to take the in-hand stuff seriously after we taught the foal to come along on our right side and we’d muddle through the rest of stuff we’d do on the ground with him.

Ah ha! You’ve hotwired the secret of Western-style ground training to jumpstart an english horse. (Mixed up metaphor there, but you get the idea. ) I got into a discussion about this on a UK-based board recently. Someone asked why US riders seemingly have less tolerance for serious vices – our want ads often specify “no buck, rear, bolt, etc”. Imo, there’s several reasons, the primary being the Wild West influence. When death is the likely result of a non-compliant horse, you’ll go about the whole training process very differently. The Pony Express rider was dead of he got bucked by a bratty horse 20 miles from a relay station. 20,000 head of cattle spooked into a stampede because someone’s horse couldn’t walk calmly & quietly during a multi-day cattle drive? Potentially dozens of lives lost or ruined.

** Warning, gross generalizations ahead in the interest of clarity & brevity** Personally, I think it isn’t so much english riders not regarding ground manners as important so much as it is a tendency to react inappropriately or disproportionately to some common behaviors. We answer the horse when he didn’t even know he was asking a question. He never learns the skills necessary to self-regulate in everyday situations because some human is always jumping in prematurely & preventing him from thinking things through for himself.

I learned to drive horses from an ex-communicated Amish guy. He made his living in the equine industry & was quite gentle & devoted to his horses & watching him was to see very old training techniques blended with the modern emphasis on horse welfare. His horses would’ve stood quietly for hours untied & unattended if you’d asked them to, for example. He taught them to do this simply by tying them to the trailer or fence while he worked nearby. Short periods at first & gradually working their way up. He never left them unattended & would’ve intervened if the horse panicked or did something dangerous. But otherwise, he let them learn to work it out for themselves. Fidgeting & other mild-to-moderate bored young horse behavior was no biggie to him. They learned this was a great opportunity to nap.

By contrast, I work with someone who I think is an excellent trainer overall, but doesn’t have a knack for young horses. Just way too reactive. The horse so much as sidesteps in the cross ties & they’re yelling “STOP IT!” & jerking the lead & asking you to come hold the horse. It never gets better because the horses end up constantly attended to by humans. They don’t get the chance to learn that being bored won’t kill them. And that reactive attitude is so common among english riders/trainers in my neck of the woods.

[mvp]

OP, your ride today, your explanation that he came from a dressage barn and his becoming more alert tell me that you all are actually making great progress!

Before you read my long post, spend some time with @skydy’s great explanation. I think she nailed it.

1. The making of the dressage horse. In that sport, we spend a heck of a long time trying to get a sight-oriented flight animal to turn his attention inward so that he pays deep attention to his body where we deliver fine, subtle aids, to his balance and to his way of moving. You see that ears swiveled-back-to-the-rider for the whole 8 minutes of a GP test, or a helluva long time spent on a 20 meter circle in a lesson and you know that dressage has a very specialized goal in terms of the mental job we are trying to teach a horse. That means that we asked him not to look at the outside world or to size up a fence and make a plan for arranging his legs better. Sure, a good athlete can gazelle it over a low fence we put to him. And since he hasn’t been taught (read: given the experience) of looking at it, sizing it up, picking a comfortable distance and using his body, he chooses the “I’ll figure it out when I get there because before that, I’m really busy listening to my rider’s aids, as I have been taught to do.”

BTW, I thought he had been a jumper prospect in Europe, not a Dressager. In the focused dressage barn, his rearing and backing up as opposed to spooking now makes a whole lot more sense. It also means (at least to me) that the “sulling up” problem was made, not in-born. That’s great news!

2. The fact that he’s much more alert now means that you all are riding him in a way that I consider a whole lot more psychologically balanced. In other words, with your less-strong, less micromanage-y ride, he’s starting to “look out of his body” and see the world. And, being a young flight animal, he’s now investing himself in keeping himself safe from all the stuff out there that has become “his problem.”

Notice how the rearing went before. He seemed good, and you thought, secure enough to listen to you and safely negotiate with the outside world. To you that meant relaxed, perhaps with you giving him that neutral, soft green-horse ride we do in the states. To him, with his experience of being constantly directed by his rider (though probably with more contact and a very “present” leg), he expected that you were the same. To him, “relaxed” is how anyone would be… unless they saw something suspicious and wanted to leave. Heck, if you had just let him leave, he’d still be relaxed. But when he did see something worth avoiding, rocks, a dark corner, the out-gate when he felt he should be done, leaving another body-guard of a horse outside the ring-- he tried to assert himself. I’m sure in the history of his riding, he had tried to assert himself and say “No, I don’t want to go there, I want to go here” before. But if he was primarily ridden in a ring and ridden by a good but firm European-style pro (and one who started dressage horses), that assertion never got very far. That’s both because the ring is a pretty sterile place with not a lot of variety to catch his attention and because of the strong, professional ride and handling he might have been getting.

So when you offer a softer ride and you demand he goes forward with that kicking, but you don’t provide the rest of the strong structure that his European rider (and handler did), he feels he can stick to his assertion but also doesn’t get much security from you. So he’s defending himself both because he can and, sadly, because he thinks he has to since you haven’t offered him an alternative. You didn’t allay his fear and you didn’t relieve the pressure by directing his mind or body somewhere else. So he was stuck and that’s why he first stood up; but the continued popping up or backing up was about his resisting you because his initial problem hadn’t changed and your driving aids were just adding a second layer to his first, still-unsolved problem with the suspicious rocks.

He reared and backed up because his Euro rider had a strong leg and the timing to keep him straight. No one gave him enough room to do the natural thing which is to turn sideways or make a 180. You don’t ride him as accurately and strongly, so now he can go sideways.
I love it that he’ll go forward from a cluck. That’s the kind of signal and obedience I meant for you to install on the ground. So when you are riding him, you can add that signal to your closed leg without having to start kicking. Kicking is a way of intensifying your leg aid that amps him up more than does a layered-on signal like clucking that he knows. That’s because you aren’t attacking his body to get him to respond when he doesn’t want to (and you know he can already feel the pressure of your leg, but he thinks he has a compelling reason to ignore it). Rather, you are tapping into his mind and knowledge with the cluck to get him to make a choice to listen to your leg as he can feel it.

Back to point 2. So now that he feels safe enough or familiar-enough with your ride to know that he can look around and see the world, he does. No problem; that’s really natural. And as @skydy astutely noted, you are riding the more natural, less “repressed” horse. To me, that’s good (and, as she points out) safer because his emotions are closer to the surface and you can read them. Reading a horse’s emotional state is a prerequisite to your setting up situations that teach the horse to manage them. That’s why the “underground” horse is harder to teach. We can’t see enough of what he’s thinking and feeling to provide input that isn’t a non sequitur to him. And every time we do that, we show him that our demands are just one more bit of chaos in his world that he should try to avoid.

What you can/need to offer him now is that magic combination of a soft ride that can be instantly turned into very directing so that your horse can get security from you, no matter what. Your cowboy’s feel and timing are probably really wonderful so that he can go from relaxed and just sitting up there to applying an aid in precisely the right moment. Also, his “intervening” on your horse so that he grabs his attention when it wanders far enough to start to form a suspicious opinion of the rocks or the corner or whatever gives your horse the experience of security. That’s because when your horse was looking at something and getting into fear and suspicion about it, “giving those rocks a hard look,” the cowboy gave him a job to do and the horse’s priority changed to pleasing his rider. When he did that and earned a rest, your horse’s experience of that whole interaction was that his life got safer when he mentally got with his rider.

What the Euro Pro did was never let the horse not stay mentally with him. And gifted pros here in the states do that in ways that are so quick and subtle that we can’t see how much they are checking in with the horse and making split-second decisions about when to get his attention. But the folks who give horses a soft, non-invasive ride–I’d say the sophisticated Western folks who need a horse to look and think about where a cow will go next because it happens too fast for a rider to direct, and folks in jumping world who need a horse to make good decisions–need to figure out a way of riding that keeps the horse mentally with them.

Mull that statement over for a minute. You can ride a horse on whatever contact or with whatever signals you want, so long as he’s mentally right with you. Heck, the liberty training experts do this and they aren’t touching the horse at all!

3. So where you are is good and pretty normal for a horse who wasn’t started by an American/Non-Dressage rider. You don’t have a horse that goes from suspicion to spooking (read: rationally moving his body away from danger without consulting you) to waging a big fight with the rearing because he had his ass kicked in the past for choosing to do some self-care with rocks or dark corners. Now you peeled off that “If you spook a little, be prepared to fight to defend yourself” layer, you just have a regular young flight animal.

4. What would I do in this spot? I’d go with him to the cowboy’s place and learn as much as I could about what the cowboy was doing and try to figure out how/why it was working until I think I had figured out how my horse was thinking and then I’d take him home. Or I’d continue to have the cowboy ride him at the barn while I watched and learned. I hope the guy is a good teacher and can/won’t mind “narrating” the conversation he’s having with your horse as he rides.

If I kept my horse at home, I’d change my program with him while the cowboy was continuing to install your horse’s “listening to his softer rider” skills and install confidence in the leadership behind that less-invasive ride you’ll give him. I’d work on this more basic problem of “keeping him mentally with me” via some ground work and long-lining, and then take some lessons with the cowboy. I’d ride out of the ring with another confident horse as a body guard for him.

One thing that Western horses get is a lot of work with other horses around. That helps their confidence tremendously. They get tied with other horses a lot. They often get started with other colts tied along the wall of the arena so while they are learning to listen to their rider, they still have the security of their herd. They get ponied. In your spot, I’d pony this horse out on the farm or trails all.the.time while your cowboy is doing most of the riding. I’d tie him along the wall in of the arena before and after I rode him, just to let him see the world in there without working and without a rider or handler to help him. Maybe you tie him and a confident horse closer to that spooky corner after he has worked and is tired and relaxed.

Notice how all of these little things that might get done more than once a day and with other horses are the opposite of the way Dressage horses tend to get ridden and managed. Maybe the best way to understand your horse’s behavior is to think that he’s just starting to come out of a system of training that you weren’t really continuing with the way his European riders had. He was just having a hard time figuring out what the new rules were. So your job is to gently, and with precision and clarity, set up situations that have him mentally stay with his handler or rider without you having to be as hand-holding as his European Pros had been. Your second job, as is true for plenty of horses, is to build his confidence. And these go together: The more a horse understands his rider’s signals and rules, the more confidence he has that he will choose the next right action that will earn him safety and praise. When he knows how to get these nice things and good feelings from his rider, he’ll want to mentally stay with his rider better.

ETA: I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so, but I think the strategy of really galloping him down to a fence and making sure he leaves the ground at the distance we picked is the wrong thing to do. I know that some eventers feel this way of teaching horses to jump is preferable to the way show hunters do it with their poles and grids and stopping at the end of the line and fussy. But here’s are the problem with only convincing a horse that he must always, always go and take direction from his rider: Y’all have convinced him that he must leave the ground, but you haven’t taught him very much about how to address the fence so that he knows he can always figure out how to get safely to the side of any obstacle. I’d hate to be taught anything that way myself.

And it works until it doesn’t. This horse will let you give him this strong ride to a fence because that goes with his Euro Dressage way of being ridden. But what happens when his rider someday screws up? Usually, we punt and want the horse to suddenly step in and make a decision that gets us both out of trouble. But how is that fair if we spent a ton of time picking his distance for him and insisting on rideability right up to the base of the fence, only to abandon him in the most complicated and high-stakes situation where we were not accurate and got him in really wrong?

Also, I think the logic of riding a horse more and more controlling-ly the closer he gets to the base of a fence is tough. That’s because you set up that psychological “squeeze” between the fence that has the horse’s attention and which he’s trying to size up so he can keep his body safe, and his rider who is asserting her own demands. If you can promise him 100% accuracy, he might have enough presence of mind (and repeated experience) to notice that listening to you gets the job done. But that’s asking a helluva lot of skill from his rider and screwing him pretty bad if we don’t deliver on our end of the bargain.

And the more we gallop, the less time he has to size up the fence and figure out what to do. The more way pressure him to keep coming if he slows down to look, the less time we give him to think. The point of all the cavaletti and well-placed poles and low fences or grids is to set up a bunch of low-stakes but complicated problems about placing his feet that invites the horse to look and think. And the closer he gets to the obstacle, the more he needs to keep his mind in gear and think. I would guess that your horse is doing his slow jump because he’s a circumspect, careful boy by nature and he’s trying to give himself more time to look and make sure he gets his legs in the right spot for this new feat. So give him that chance to learn to figure it out! We can use our minimal ride-- just keep him straight and coming at whatever trot or canter he chooses-- to free up his limited bandwidth for engagement with the poles. This is so much like the way you put your eye on the cow and then let the horse put his eye on the cow and move his body where it needs to be better and faster than you can tell him to. I don’t know much about making cutting horses, but I do know that we can’t ride them fast enough to have them move the cow; they have to do that and we just help them with their balance. Also, choosing the right cattle-- not too dull, not aggressive, not accustomed to being chased-- is key for training those horses. Again, you have to set up a problem in the outside world that is tailored to your horse’s stage of learning and then you as his rider just support him, You are his TA in section and the world is his O-Chem prof giving him a really hard, confusing, overwhelming lecture to digest.

Again, sorry for the unsolicited opinion on starting a dressage horse over fences. But think about what happens the first time he does get in wrong and scares himself? Are you going to be able to double-down on your driving aids and accuracy to give him a better experience next time that will perhaps pave over his memory of learning that fences can cause him problems? That didn’t work with the rocks…

So horses who will take that driving, controlling accurate ride to the fences will accept that and it will seem to work for a while. But when it doesn’t work, the backward-thinking horse will resort to stopping, just to keep himself safe. If he hasn’t been tortured about this, he’ll be “honest” and tell you he’s afraid of the fence and thinking about stopping a few strides back. If he has been really screwed up, he’ll stop “dirty”-- the equivalent of keeping his emotions under wraps until he makes a quick move at the end. The game, forward thinking horse who finds himself worried at the base of a fence will be the one who becomes less and less rideable there. You see this a lot in eventing because people buy the game, brave horse and I think it’s considered pretty normal jumping ride. They do leave the ground reliably but with some sturm und drang that you don’t see in the American hunter ring. For your horse, installing a Go button and teaching a horse that he has a role in the job we’ll do together AND teaching him to think on the job ends up being safer over fences.

The good news is that I don’t think your horse has been ridden in a detrimental way (of any style) long enough to make him “dishonest” or “backward thinking” in the sense that he can’t be made more sensitive and obedient to the whatever degree of leg and hand (contact) that you personally like. He’s green enough that he’s still malleable. But I think teaching him to look to the outside world and engage with that while taking direction and security from you is where you guys are right now. I think ponying on the trail and some cattle work right now would both make the most difference.

[Ruth0552]

This horse has had A LOT of new experiences in a pretty short amount of time. Personally, I wouldn’t send him anywhere else right now. And like @IPEsq said, I’d think hard about having some more vet work done to rule out any kind of physical/pain related cause of the rearing. How long as he been on the ulcer meds now? I’d give him some time for those to work too. And as for the being “more alert,” how many times have we read a story about a horse turning into a completely different animal at its new home? Personally, I’d up the turnout on this guy, and look at his feed. While it’s good that you don’t need a stick/spurs, he shouldn’t be acting like he’s had too many espressos either.

And I agree with MVP. You need to add what this event trainer is doing to your skill set. I’m guessing what the cowboy is doing is keeping him so busy he doesn’t have time/energy to even think about rearing. Which is fine, that’s another strategy, but it’s not going to let you have a nice hack. I think the other suggestions you’ve gotten here from MVP and others is great. Re: Jumping. Perhaps try letting this guy figure out jumping without a rider? Lunging or longlining over some small jumps? He should be doing poles and caveletti undersaddle before getting thrown at a real fence. He needs to know where his feet are.

[Caligirl83]

Wow what an awesome thread, thank you @mvp . You really gave me some AHA moments in your reflections on general horse training and how to blend American hunter jumper training with European young horse starting with cowhorse work with natural horsemanship. Hilariously, that is the exact sequence that my riding has evolved in during the last 30 years. I am now learning about natural horsemanship and your post made a lot of sense about why it is helpful - but I too can’t figure out how helpful it is to roundpen for hours or constantly turn your horse in circles in the context of my hunter jumper background. But you are right, as American English riders taught by your average huntseat riding school (which I have also worked at as an instructor) - we do a horrible job of teaching groundwork and that the horse has to pay attention to us every minute on the ground and under saddle. We as American hunter jumper type riders (and I’m super stereotyping) are overly focused on what goes on inside the arena and kinda think of outside arena time (whether its hacking or hand walking or hand grazing) as “fun” time with our horses where we can relax and chat with our friends. Anyway, I had so many lightbulb moments reading your posts, because you helped clear up several confusing points about the many different ways I’ve been trained to ride and train young horses & problem horses.

And whoever wrote about different breeds/personalities having different reactions to “oh god there’s no free lunch, I have to work” - you are spot on. How you address the different way a horse reacts to confusion or says “I don’t wanna” is not a one size fits all answer.

@piperluvshorses your dilemma about whether or not to let your horse leave the property with the cowboy and your concerns about him getting hurt are real and valid. I would get insurance on this horse if you can for everything under the sun for those 2 weeks to 30 days just in case something happens on the cattle ranch. I am a hunter jumper rider dating a cowboy and am now often rounding up cows in my Antares saddle lol and I agree with everything the cowboy & mvp have told you that cowwork will help this horse. BUT… I do have to say I have seen a lot of accidents and near accidents out on the range. If the cowboy is not putting boots on him at your place then he’s not going to do it at his ranch - and the reality is that many cowboys are of the opinion that boots are unsafe if you are range riding for multiple hours (they can get water logged, thistles, rocks, could get tangled up in wire, could be something that a cow could hook with a horn if things get really hairy, etc.). I have ridden our cowhorses for as short as 15 minutes to get the job done, but I have also gone on horrific roundups in the middle of nowhere where everything under the sun went wrong and we started at dawn and ended at 1am in the morning. (TRUST ME EVERYBODY WAS OVER IT by that point, and 20 hour days are not typical. But cowboys don’t quit until the job is done when your livelihood depends on getting every cow out of there that day because you have 8 cattle trucks waiting on you).

I guess maybe can you answer some questions about the cowboy’s ranch? Have you been there? Where is the horse going to be housed - a separate corral or in with a herd of cowhorses (which then raises concerns about pecking order issues hurting a young horse who may not have been in a herd situation since being a young foal)? Is the ranch pretty flat or is it treacherous terrain? Is the cow work mostly in a pen sorting or range riding to gather herds and move them between paddocks or most likely both? What kind of cattle will he be working and how aggressive are they? Are they horned cattle? (The majority in the western US are polled Angus but we for instance do raise a breed of horned beef cattle). Roping steers & team sorting cattle are very different from big breeding bulls or a cow/calf pair herd. What’s the fencing like - many cowhorses do just fine in barbed wire (I know, I know - I am always horrified) but I would not trust a young imported warmblood gelding who is already having emotional reactions to know not to run through it if something goes wrong. There are just going to be so many variables you cannot control. If the cowboy is a cutting horse or reined cowhorse guy and there is no range riding involved the likelihood of accidents goes down a bit vs a working cattle ranch with cow/calf pairs.

If I were you, I would take a week off and treat it as a clinic and ride with the cowboy on his ranch while he rides your horse. You hopefully should be able to work something out where cowboy puts you on a broke cowhorse that knows what it’s doing while he schools your horse. I think this is the only way I personally would be comfortable with this situation. Or I suppose you could randomly drop by to see how it’s going, or you could try asking for regular progress updates in video form… but that may or may not be feasible and will likely annoy your cowboy. And I agree that overriding and laming a horse could happen if you ship him out to any trainer of any discipline - there are plenty of hunter jumper riders that ride their horses into the ground as a way of “training” them. But there are also just freak accidents that can happen anytime. So I’m not trying to pick on your cowboy or cowboys in general - it’s just that the horse is a tool more in the working ranch world than to your average ammy where it’s a pet or a boyfriend/husband/child substitute. A good rancher/cowboy takes care of his tools especially if they are borrowed, but the philosophy is just totally different than how the average ammy takes care of their English horse. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been told I’m babying or worrying about our horses too much by the cowboys we work with. They are coming from a different POV.

Hope that makes sense, I feel like I’m babbling. Anyway Good luck! Thank you for the thread.

[Caligirl83]

P.S. I have found this book incredibly interesting and insightful for thinking about how we approach horse training and why different methods exist and work because they are working in different contexts.

Horse Brain, Human Brain: The Neuroscience of Horsemanship
by Janet L. Jones
https://www.amazon.com/Horse-Brain-Human-Neuroscience-Horsemanship/dp/1570769486

[mvp]

@Caligirl83 also nailed the benefits and risks and solutions (go there, insure your horse) of sending him to the ranch. That was a full and, IME, accurate description of how horses are treated on working ranches.

And an ETA on the “he jumps like a slow gazelle” bit. Again, this might not be his real form over fences, but it could be, too, that the way y’all have started him jumping is producing it.

For these young, gangly horses who are on the quiet or circumspect side, slowing down to think comes naturally to them. Yours had the additional dressage indoctrination (sorry for the rather rude shorthand but you know what I mean), that makes him not just make a bid for things like a brave TB XC machine. But his instinct to think and try to make a good decision a great feature that is life-preserving for beast and for man. Yes, install a Go button, but also appreciate and exploit his efforts to be thoughtful. That horse can be developed into a good, fun student and partner better than the one who is averse to thinking and doesn’t care about protecting his body. As a hunter girl, I just adore a horse who wants to be slow in the air, so I’ll defend that kind or horse. It’s a gift that you can’t teach, or at least I don’t know how. But I also think that when this horse develops a jumping technique that he trusts, he’ll be less tentative and he’ll jump with more gusto and confidence.

If you have not set up a grid or jumping chute that has a 9’ “cheat rail” rolled out in front of a rampy oxer with it’s own ground line, and perhaps another cheat rail after the fence, can I suggest that you work up to that before deciding what his natural form will be? You would do well to build up to that level of complexity and “big” obstacle. Send him through with just poles on the ground and then build a cross rail and all that. Let him trot in, but cluck or close your leg and always have him canter that last step after the cheat rail. He should know that you’ll get him to the cheat rail (and that is your only job), but after that, it’s between him and the poles and he’s got to go.

When I say “send him,” that sounds like a jumping chute. That would be awesome, but a PITA to build. You can mimic this with a minimalist ride that just aims, keeps him straight and perhaps adds a little well-timed leg if he wants to just trot over the little cross rail or even stop. If he’s crooked, fix that with a pole on the ground, a steeper X, or even a pole laid up on one side of the fence if the stuff on the ground doesn’t fix it (and it should since he’s not experienced enough to be some kind of rogue, inveterate twister).

The point of the poles on the ground is that they determine the right distance for him. Neither of you has to be a rocket scientist to get this right, so he has a reasonably fail-safe way to meet his fences. The cheat rail also causes him to look down at it to figure out where it is. The point of the rampy oxer and its ground line rolled out is to give him a long time to rock back, fold up his big, baby-boy gangle legs and create a nice front end and bascule as he figures out how to clear the back rail of the oxer. The rail after has him look down as he’s over the top of the fence to see where he should put his feet when he gets back to Earth. Again, you are just setting up the shape of the fence and directing his eye in a way that causes him to choose to use his body the way you want. But there’s plenty of complexity in this puzzle of poles, so build in its elements gradually.

If he’s built like caca with a straight shoulder and a crappy-short humerus such that he’s got worse reach with his upper arm than he does with his hind leg, then I’d conclude with you that he was built to jump badly with his knees pointing down. But most WBs aren’t allowed to have that conformation and I’ll bet you didn’t buy that. So I’m not convinced that he’s actually a flat, Pepe Le Pew jumper.

But if you tell a horse that he’s got to get over a low fence, and he sucks back so you add speed to give him the inertia it takes to just keep rolling and not stop, he will get over the top of it. But if he feels chased and he’s still willing to try and please you, he’ll most likely get close-ish to the base and then jump out over his front end. He gets close to the base because he’s trying to give himself as much room/time possible to figure out where the top rail is in space and perhaps because he doesn’t really want to spend too much time in the air where he knows he’s got no way to correct any big balance problem. He jumps out over his down-pointing knees because there’s not enough horizontal distance left between his chest and the top rail to fold up his legs. So he just springs a little higher into the air and clears it that way.

See how slowing down to think isn’t the same as “gonna stop”? But it seems that way or feels like it might turn into that if you don’t have a response to your leg that you trust. And might become that for a young horse who doesn’t yet know that He Has Got To Go.

If, on the other hand, you make the new athletic feat of jumping into the air into a gradual thing AND you teach him proper technique for arranging his legs so that he knows he can not fall over throughout the whole process, I think you’ll find he’s plenty good-enough at the job you bought him for.

If you use the pole puzzle and a passive ride to make the jumps easy enough for him and inviting, then you won’t need to be so defensive about making sure he doesn’t stop. The job of figuring out the pole-and-fence puzzle will be familiar enough to him and a place where he feels successful, so he’ll start to give you that latched-on tractor beam feel because when he sees some poles or a fence in front of him, the way to get through that with success every time is to take a look at it, feel where your hooves are and think.

Again, just appreciate how new this is to him and find a way to break it down into small pieces before you decide he’s a bad jumper on top of the other stuff. These various problems might all be a bit more related and solvable if you guys go back to some more basic stuff and make sure those are solid habits and well-understood by young horseling.

[piperluvshorses]

I love reading all your posts. It gives me hope and tools. Jumping wise when I say gallop I mean we’ve been asking to keep going forward. I’ll definitely be more cognizant that he needs the time to figure out where his feet are going. Grids and poles sound perfect. I have a pretty good eye but am trying to let him figure out by not micro managing the distance (which honesty is my greatest downfall - boy do I love micromanaging that perfect distance). So with regards to the cowboy - it sounds like a good experience for him. It’s at a nice-ishhh ranch. The cattle I believe are used for roping and team penning - as it’s a big western boarding barn with lots of nice western horses from what I understand. I believe he would be ponying him a lot and he would live in a stall next to the cattle shoot. No barb wire and I don’t think he would be out for long cattle drives - more working the cattle. I can try to go out but I will say I think it would annoy cowboy if I’m asking to come watch everyday. If it did send him I would have to just send him and say a little prayer. He said I could come visit after a few weeks. It’s a conundrum for sure as I do fear he’ll get hurt (he is fully insured). Thanks for the reasoning behind no boots Caligirl83 - I couldn’t figure out why he doesn’t put boots on. Also Caligirl83 he does train reiners and breeds some of his own - so perhaps that’s a good thing. MVP you give me so much hope - I get so down when I think of how I’ve imported this lovely horse and we have these issues. I agree I like this wear your emotions on your sleeve much more than - SURPRISE I actually hate those rocks and I’m going to throw a tizzy fit. MVP - after getting a better picture of the horse - do you have a theory on why it was SO bad when we trailered to the event barn for an outing a few weeks ago. The whole outdoor arena - went around for 5 minutes then said hell no on the opposite side of the arena and started rearing for 15 minutes with trainer by the mounting block? Was it just too much too soon - mind blown - situation?

[Caligirl83]

@piperluvshorses I think trailering off property to an event barn just somehow was too overwhelming and blew his mind. Were you riding him or was the event trainer? Although honestly at this point don’t worry about that. He will have a similar experience at the western barn when he shows up and hopefully the cowboy will nip any shenanigans in the bud.

Your description of the western barn makes me feel better - reiners are often very expensive and thus there is a lot of incentive to take good care of them vs a working cattle ranch on the range with cow/calf pairs or bulls (we have both lol). Reined cow horse cattle are usually weaners or yearlings and not that big - he will outweigh them and gain confidence in a new scary situation. He will be OK. You have insurance if disaster strikes. You put him on ulcer guard. Maybe ask the cowboy if you could ride him at the western place after 2-3 weeks ? Do you think he would go for that?

Re jumping… so I too misunderstood and thought he came from a jumping young horse sales barn in Holland. So the people in Holland sold a failed FEI dressage horse to an American eventing home? I’m curious why they/the owner decided he was not cut out for FEI dressage… I would assume they hit a wall with him which may or may not have resulted in a rear but at minimum was a huge EFF YOUUUU to work. I think ultimately your eventing home will be good for him - he won’t be overdrilled on the dressage, he will have a variety of experiences (including working cattle lol!) on x-country & jumping. I would be careful with drilling this horse ond ressage. He is going through a period of extreme confusion right now about his job/safety/confidence that has unfortunately escalated to rearing… but I think you have the people around you to help you solve this from everything you have described.

When you get him back from the cowhorse field trip… take him back to basics on the jumping. Build a jump chute on a Monday when there are free arenas. In Europe for the warmblood breed inspections they are all jump chuted to get a score. Do you have any data on his inspection? Or were you sold an unapproved European warmblood (ie failed his inspection and is thus a complete reject from their breeding program)? Get him solid and confident and taking you to the ground poles. Do the exercies @mvp suggested. Assess his jumping talent after 6 months to a year of solid jump training.

I am curious… what made you buy him if he had no jumping experience? Did they have videos of him free jumping?

You can do this! We are all rooting for you.

[piperluvshorses]

I actually do hunter/jumpers. I did see a jumping video of him - they lunged him over small jumps. I’ve bought a few dressage horses turned hunters in the past - I will say the other 2 i have did come with a naturally better initial form over fences. I also saw the other 2 in person. So for him I just didn’t have the budget for a lovely moving hack winner already jumping - couldn’t find anything stateside - so took a chance as he was quite willing to jump just a bit awkwardly. I was also told he was a unicorn of sorts temperament wise. Trusted the broker and the facility…I like you, was also curious why they were selling him. The answer was he wasn’t enough horse for FEI level - broker described this as he wasn’t hot - responsive - enough. Riding him now he’s so responsive I’m not sure if that was the real reason. Good news is we do not drill dressage work and incorporate lots of different work every day - caveletties poles etc. He hasn’t said no ever to any jumps. I’ve free jumped him in the round pen over very small jumps - just to let him work on it himself. He jumps better free than under saddle - still not tidy with his knees - still very slow - very Pepe Le Pew - BUT I love what mvp said - it’s like he’s slow off the ground and in the air to figure out where his feet are. The other two dressage turned hunters I have - who started with better form over fences - both liked to rush in the beginning - down the lines. It took a long time for them to comfortably lope around a course. They both liked to land 5 miles away from the backside and shoot like a bullet down a line. This horse has absolutely no interest in changing his rhythm jumping - even thru a gymnastic - ever - even if it means adding. It’s an interesting change of pace - not sure what I like riding better for starting teaching jumping - the freak of nature amazing jumper who lands 5 miles from the backside then bolts down the line or the Pepe Le Pew - ears up your nose - hang in the air but add 500 strides between fences. Good news I’m learning something new everyday!

[mvp]

I think Caligirl83 has got you covered on how to send him to the reining guy. But I think you-- and he-- should want you to come watch and ride him some, even with cattle, before y’all send him home. You need to learn the new set of rules this guy taught your horse.

Also, I’d be psyched to have one of mine live in a stall next to the cattle chute. OMG, my horses need that.

As to the blow-up at the eventer. Yeah, you just blew his mind. But it’s worth considering that in a bit more detail so that you can figure out what was your part in that, and what is his response to extreme pressure, or where the pressure was that you didn’t realize was there.

BTW, how long had you had him when you took him on that little field trip?

What stands out to me is that he is a quiet, perhaps even a little stoic by nature. If that is so, you need to know that he naturally keeps his emotions under wraps; that’s just what occurs to him as a coping strategy for hard situations. Do more to invite him to show you his emotions-- fear as well as self-esteem (praise him effusively and robustly when he shows you that he knows he did something right) or even celebrate with him (like after he shakes his head after a line or jump that he really nailed) and do stuff like play tag with him (safely, and in a game you can turn on and off). Just do stuff to show him that he can be emotionally “with” another being and have it work out for him.

On the rearing for 15 minutes (?!)…

At the mounting block (where he started his ride) so one might hope that staying there would help end it…

And far side of the arena (so no horses nearby on that side the way there perhaps were on the barn side?)

He was in a strange place.

He didn’t know his rider. She didn’t know him. (No offense, but there is very, very (very) rarely a training conversation with a horse that takes 15 minutes. That is an exceptionally long time to be unable to create some kind of change or de-escalation in a horse. I don’t think these flight animals generally have the ego-strength to be in a filibuster or stand-off with us. That 15 minutes of rearing makes me I think your pro really couldn’t figure him out. And that means it went on for so long because, from his perspective, he had no help getting back to security. If he can’t feel secure, he won’t be compliant because everyone puts their personal safety above turning themselves over to someone else… until they learn trust.

He tried to hold it together, but it wasn’t just 5 minutes into the ride. Rather, it was much longer because his uncertainty started when you led him out to the trailer at home. So little baby horse was building up his set of things to be afraid of for longer than just the ride.

He didn’t mean anything by rearing, per se. Another horse might have bolted and another one would have laid down. It’s just that when he feels stuck and overwhelmed, this is the strategy that his build, his mind and perhaps some past experience with strong, directing riders and riding suggested to him.

He chose that “Kamikaze” move and stayed there because he was just out of cards and figured he should defend himself from the chaos of not knowing how to find security from his rider on this battlefield or he would die trying.

And again, why would a young horse “go to the wall” like that to say No to a rider for 15 minutes? It’s because he has a very important question about his safety that needs attention. He doesn’t have the experience to know that his rider will answer his safety question. He’s not smart enough, or desperate enough), or lucky enough to just try submission and then discover that it works out. And he might have tried that for a split-second in that 15 minutes somewhere, but his rider missed it and didn’t make it clear to him that he had just discovered the path to pleasing her and allowing her to ride him with to so much logic that he’d find predictability and safety if he’d just turn his attention to her. (I don’t mean to diss your pro here; all of us sometimes miss that moment when a horse was changing his mind and we were late in our release from pressure for him. It’s a bad thing but part of the mistakes we all make with horses.)

Of course, more experienced horses face this conundrum all the time, but they can bring with them the experience of getting safety from staying with their rider and having the threat to them feel brief-- like just some rocks to go by. In this case, in the strange situation where everything had been hard since he left home and now he has a new rider on him, he doesn’t have anywhere to retreat to.

I put all these factors in a list so that you could see the ingredients that got you guys to some behavior from him that looked extraordinary. It’s not if you consider the background and try to infer his thought process or experience.

But know that when you take him to a horse show or somewhere that would make a horse insecure, you need to think critically about that supposedly relaxed hack he’s giving you around the schooling ring. Maybe it is and “what you see (in his behavior) is what you get (in his emotions).” But you have to be a good enough horseman and rider to instantly be able to “pick him up” and address his insecurity if he shows you some. That means gently, politely putting him to work when he starts to look at things. Do a smaller circle away from those proverbial rocks he didn’t want to trot by, with contact and direction. Then do some good-quality transitions and then soften your ride again. The idea is that when he starts to experience some suspicion about something he’d spook at, you solve his emotional problem, his rising fear, by taking his attention elsewhere and giving him a relatively simple, familiar job to do. Essentially, you distracted him away from the rabbit hole of fear that he can’t manage himself while also obeying you. You got what you wanted-- obedience and no spook-- but the good horsemanship part of that is that you got that by offering him security and a a solution to his problem in obedience. Again, you are teaching him that when he feels unsafe, he should put his attention on his rider and she will bring him through it OK.

And frankly, I think this is all the NH guys have or do: 1. They are relaxed, balanced riders who are good athletes with lots of feel and timing. But girls in English saddles can have that, too. 2. They think more explicitly about how to teach a horse the general pattern of looking to his rider when he needs to. 3. And they install some very small signals that gains their horses’ rapt attention. In other words, they can get a horse who goes around in a leverage bit with no contact to give them that “Grand Prix dressage horse with the ears swiveled back for 8 minutes” focus when they just raise their hand or sternum. But the attention is that full in a finished horse.

I think lots of this comes from the way, in working with cattle, you need your horse to alternate between paying attention to you so that you can put him just where you need him, and fast and in balance, and you turning his mind loose to focus on the cow because you can’t ride him fast enough to direct him. I think we do this with the hunters a bit: We want to be able to subtly intervene and change their length of stride, but we also want them to hunt the fences. But dressage never gives the horse quite so much time to do things on his own. And he never gets to choose his gait or direction!

So when you take baby horse away from home next time, you might prevent that “I had 2 hours of dangerous unpredictability before an unfamiliar rider swung her leg over me and started telling me things in a foreign language” by giving him a short, familiarizing bit of work that gets his attention on you so that he has the experience of finding peace when he turns his attention to his handler or rider. In fact, this is what 5 minutes of ground work before you mount up is for.

How to do it and how to give your horse practice with finding security in his job when you take him to the battlefield of Somewhere Not Home?

My new favorite thing is to take my young horse to the edge of the schooling ring (or wherever, just into some chaos of the show) and do some ground work in my full on, western-ass rope halter and 14’ rope. I love that because I don’t need a lot of space, so I can keep the eye-rolling from others to a minimum, and because I know I can get complete, surgeon-level focus from my horse in that mode. After all, I have done that at home and he knows not only the signals I’ll give him and the moves I’ll request, so he’s primed to get lots of right answers, praise and self-confidence. He knows the level of precision that I get with him before I quit at home. What he doesn’t know is that I also won’t quit until I have the same level of focus in the chaotic or unfamiliar situation. And it always takes them longer to get there in chaos. But stick to your guns and your 100% focus because the act of the horse giving you his full attention-- not what he’s doing with his body-- is the action of his that you are rewarding. It’s kind of “meta,” of course, but it’s a key to making a really well-trained horse who is the same ride everywhere.

The point of this session is to have my horse achieve that total attention on me amid chaos. If I don’t get his focus and I don’t have chaos, I didn’t make the point. I need both. And notice how safe for me and low-mileage for the horse this is. I barely need to have him trot during the 5 or 10 minutes I might be out there. What counts as good enough precision that we stop? I am able to move all of his feet, or even one, by signals I give with my body position and posture, always with a loop in the rope.

When he’s walking around at the end of my circle (I have a 14’ lead), his rhythm should be even and relaxed, but I have (or should be able to get) is inner ear turned toward me without having to move the rope enough to feel his head at the end of it. That spot-- where you can raise your hand with the lead and get his ear on you-- is akin to what you should have when you are hacking him with that non-invasive hunter ride and he feels relaxed. He is, but you can bring is attention to you in a split second with a very small signal. And he won’t move his feet out of the path and rhythm you guys were in without moving an ear first, so in your ground work, keep track of his ears and fix any spooky mistake when it happens in his ear movement; you don’t need to wait until he’s scooted 7 feet sideways. There was a precursor to that.

After I get his focus, I stop, pet him and stop paying attention to him. I let him hand graze or walk at the end of the rope somewhere far-ish away from me to another place. In that interval, he took his mind back and started considering the chaos again, as any flight animal left to his own devices would to. Perfect! I can repeat the exercise of asking him to refocus on me.

At some point, I’ll up the ante and long-line him in the chaos. That’s harder because he’s farther from me, so I have to work harder to get his focus (or rather, he has to work harder to overcome the distractions around him and focus on me when I demand it). It’s also harder because I can make him go faster so that I introduce his own adrenaline as a factor he has to ignore and focus on me.

If I really want to poke the bear, I do this in the corner of the warm-up area at a dressage show, LOL.

If he’s a great student and solid citizen, he’s ready to do this at some down-home western event like an informal barrel racing nite. There will be a ton of chaos there (and you might not want to subject him their warm-up pen). No one will give you a second look or the stink-eye after they ask themselves WTF about your booted-up moose of a horse. People on horses will have much smaller bubbles, so he’ll have to cope with the new problem of random horses buzzing him. (Of course, I think he’ll get this at the cattle ranch, too, and if you teach them to pony, their first rodeo full of horses isn’t their first rodeo next to a horse they didn’t choose and while taking orders). If you can, try riding with traffic first when those horses do their drive-bys rather than having them come at you.

Then, when he has focused on you and gotten tired but relaxed and full of understanding, he’s ready to be tied to the trailer for a stint. The great thing about this at a western event is that there will be other horses also tied to their trailers nearby, and those guys know how to do it because a horse could be tied there for hours on end. If he is jumping up and down, he’ll be the only one in the herd doing it. Again, you’ll tie him up to chill when he is already pre-disposed to want to chill so that he guesses that right answer. Half the battle is setting things up so that what you wanted the horse to try, and will reward, is what he guesses to try.

On his jumping. I think his natural desire to find a rhythm is going to be another one of those in-born talents of his that helps you. And your desire to pick a distance? I’d suggest that you try your best to change that for making up a green, ammy-friendly horse (whether for yourself at a horse show when you might be less accurate, or for your wallet when you can sell him as a horse anyone can ride). I think you would do well to exchange the emphasis on distance for the mantra of “rhythm and track.” Help him find a comfortable lick and stay straight, then be prepared to the leave the ground whenever the fence happens to get to you.

If you must find a distance to something, then you are only allowed to do that to the first pole. If you want to improve both of you faster, make the first pole in the series a (comfortable and modest) stride out from the 9’ cheat rail. But you must discipline yourself to stop helping him after that. You need to let him negotiate the fence himself. This is like the cutter putting the horse’s eye on the cow he wants and then turning the horse loose. Your horse can balance himself up for the distance he sees better and faster than you can in that last step. You need to let him do that so that you don’t scare him at the base of the fence because you are screwing with his balance while he is already On It. And if he doesn’t take so much responsibility at first? Meh, let him “bask in the consequences” of that by crashing through some of these low fences and pole combinations. Remember the steep X I had to walk over? That was the wages of sin for me letting my hunter get behind my leg and then me taking responsibility for getting us both over the fence. That was not a ride I could have sold to someone else. The pro set up a situation that would teach him that he best take over there.

I think we have bred WBs to be a bit literal-minded. (After all, draft horses were selectively bred to be willing to walk in front of a plow or cart 10 ours a day). And then we lightened them with TBs (so we infused their physical sensitivity but that stock came from horses with enough commitment or ego-strength to keep running after their lungs had started to bleed…) so did we breed back in intelligence or the ability to see a pattern of pressure and release quickly and to latch on to that? I don’t know; it has been a while since I had a WB baby and I have some Arabian-influenced horses now who are herding-dog smart (for better and for worse). So a TB-infused WB will have Emotional Needs that he can’t ignore as a hotter horse. I think any horse can be taught whatever we expect them to learn, if our pedagogy about creating a clear pattern of pressure and release is excellent and if we can read them well.

Last but not least, I think the rather pyrotechnic problem of rearing you had was just a horse who was stuck and using his body to try to get out of that because no one had yet taught him that he could think his way out with less risk to everyone. That takes a long time to teach any student, and you have to teach them the performative process of how to keep working on something like a hard math problem rather than just rearing and quitting algebra and all of school when they see an ugly-long equation on a test.

This kind of over-facing thing and a horse not yet having enough security in you, and your not yet being great at reading him are all SOP for getting a new young one. In 9 months, I think this chapter will be just a couple of good stories about some shitty rocks, and you’ll feel mastery of the “whys” of what was going on inside his head. You are right to ask for help. Not quitting in the middle of the river of this tough intro period is hard, too, if you can’t see where the other side is, how to get there or what tells you that you are making progress in the middle. But you will get the greatest and permanent improvements to your horsemanship in these kinds of crucibles where you think you are out of solutions and you have no choice but to keep at it and try.

[tohorse]

@BostonHJ

I think a lot of horses come over from Europe only having been ridden by very strong riders that ride with a ton of contact in the bridle and between their legs and easily get nervous with a softer rider - they feel a little abandoned, slash “oh… what happens if we try it my way?”. A cowboy is a great bridge to the lighter contact favored here by saying look Dobbin, you can do this on your own, but you have to play by my rules.

European rider here, who has to re-educate her (with mixed results) to have much subtler aids here in the US. A long time ago I used to exercise ride competition horses on the regular for a pro as a fit 16 year old girl… Even years into it I’d feel sore in calves and arms while riding 60-80% of those horses, so I think you’re definitely onto something.
I’ll caveat this by saying that there are variations in this between countries/riders/barns. But generally if your future horse’s sales video features a big business-like dude pushing your future horse through a course with big sticks… I’d take the hint. Europeans are not stupid - if the horse can be reliably shown/ridden by a kid or a lady, they’ll show you that on video because that quality sells like no other.
If I were shopping for American clients, I’d probably not look at GP horses riden by big dudes, but horses that have demonstrated that they can cruise kids/amateur ladies around the 1.10-1.20, maybe 1.30 level. That’s the ride most of us are probably looking for.