What Happened to this Gelding?!

[SuzieQNutter]

You rode the horse once a month and expected him to stay the same.

That only happens with a bike.

In the mean time he is eating and going into the realm of overfed and underworked.

This is not something you can blame on the previous owners.

[2DogsFarm]

Pls let me correct you.
At least in my part of the Midwest, Amish do ride & most of the Buggy horses are also broke to saddle (generally Western).
There’s an annual all-night ride through Shipshewana that has a large contingent of Amish riding, as well as driving.

Annual Benefit Moonlight Ride — The Michiana Event Center

[endlessclimb]

That 1000 yard stare.

I knew a pony that was housed in an area where the hunt would come through a couple days a week. That pony NEVER settled at that property. Was always on edge and staring off into the woods. Could hardly ride her anywhere on the property because she was so jumpy.

She ended up getting sold to a totally different part of the country, where she is back to being kid-safe and totally normal.

The hunt just really really tripped her trigger, and she could not get over it.

[Belmont]

I agree that it’s likely medical.
Very unlikely the color of your clothes triggered anything traumatic.

When I lived in NV, our property perimeter was unfenced due to just renting the house. So we set up panels for the horses & panels around our hay (as advised by neighbors due to bands of mustangs ran through the area). While we did loose a ton of hay one year and a few panels, the worst was when a herd stallion and my gelding got into it over the fence one night.

I heard the commotion but couldn’t see it. When we went outside and flipped on lights, everyone was standing and the wild horses were already running off. I didn’t think anything of it until the next morning when I went to go catch my gelding to haul him to the barn down the road for a lesson.

He was totally out of it. He presented incredibly neurological. You couldn’t catch him. He could barely stand up. He was terrified of people. Got the vet out. The best she could say was head trauma, we put meds in his food incase he ate, and she said if he wasn’t better in three days that we’d have to put him down. Miraculously, he came out of it, but he was never quite right after. He did eventually go back to work, but everything seemed to overwhelm him. I eventually gave him to a woman that used TBs casually ranch on - riding fence and checking cattle.

All this to say - sh** happens. Horses are so unpredictable. It could be neuro, it could be EPM, or he could have bonked his head overnight. I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. It’s never easy.

[Paisley_Pony]

Chiming in to vote for neurological causes, too. We had a young mare once that was given to my daughter. She worked with the horse at the breeder’s farm for a while before bringing her here and never had any problems. As time went by, the mare became increasingly unsettled on our farm, never seeming at ease on our property, eventually resorting to rearing under saddle. The mare went back to the breeder, and we later realized that the dam had neurological issues as well, rather than simply being “sensitive” as she had been portrayed. The horse had been on the breeder’s property her entire life, and she was evidently unable to process the change in location or landscape.

I’m glad you weren’t hurt!

[candyappy]

@Bluey

Or they sold him because he was too unpredictable, losing it at some times.

I don’t think an Amish man would put any 7 year old boy on an unpredictable horse, especially in an auction setting.

Could be a medical issue that gradually came on but I think this (quote from OP) is most likely the reason the horse changed so drastically

@LeatherLover

I thought he would make a good gentle trail horse. So, I road him, maybe once a month, for the first year, by ourselves through the fields

MAYBE once a month for the first year…