When your relationship with your horse is toxic...but you love them

[spacytracy]

I can’t even believe I’m writing this, but I feel like I am now at the point where I need to make a decision that is best for both of us.

Before I go further, I know this is a classic “green+green = blue” but we haven’t thankfully gotten to “blue” because I am not green-green, just a middle age person who likes to live.

Quickie backstory, 3 years ago I bought a lovely horse that was pretty green. Spent the winter just getting to know each other. Horse has anxiety and I did not help the situation. Because my horses are at home, I was alone alot and self-preservation was my #1 goal. So when things got sticky, I would back off and keep myself safe. Well, you can predict how that went.

Fast forward, its been kind of touch and go since. Some days are phenomenal, and to our credit we never just gave up. I took her places, sometimes it would be great, sometimes a disaster of nerves on both our parts. But we still carried on.

Its caused a lot of mental stress over the years. Constantly questioning whether this was a good fit. The thing that is supposed to be what helps my mental health!

The kicker is, I love the horse. I do, I can’t help it. I wish I didn’t. I wish I was more detached. I wish we could work this out. She’s not dangerous, per se. But more unpredictable than I know how to deal with right now. I want so badly to make it work. I sent her for 30 days training, and trainer loved her. Never had any major issues. Others ride her and its not so bad, sometimes shes goofy but she settles. That’s the hardest part. Its not a horse that is rearing on everyone. She just is nervous and she makes me nervous and we feed off of it.

Its breaking my damn heart to think about selling her. Except, objectively, I know its probably the right thing for both of us.
I know that the goals I have would take a lot of effort from us, and I’m not sure I have that in me. And even with that, I’m worried I’m always going to have the same “type” of horse at the core.

As I type this, I guess this is just a vent, and maybe looking to see that people have had happy endings after making a decision like this. Or, if they did have a horse like this, what they did to overcome it. Groundwork programs, confidence building stuff, psych stuff (because I know this is just as much about me as it is about her!) I want to come out on the other side with the kind of horse I can do a little bit of everything with, in a low-level fashion.

[McGurk]

I think it was very brave of you to type all this out and be completely honest about the situation.

You have already answered your own question.

@spacytracy

Its caused a lot of mental stress over the years. Constantly questioning whether this was a good fit. The thing that is supposed to be what helps my mental health!

But let me validate the answer for you.

You’ve given this three years. It may get incrementally better over the next couple of years, but what you’ve got at 6 is pretty much what you’ve got.

I suspect she’s a horse that thrives in a program, that needs wet saddle pads 5 - 6 days a week. Which unfortunately makes her unsuitable as an ammy horse you keep at home.

I owned this horse like this once. Lovely type, talented and athletic. Not mean or naughty, just playful. I was a working mother with a toddler, and riding more than twice a week was not possible for me.

The clincher was when he playfully bucked me off GOING HOME after a long hack. I was late for the babysitter, late for work and had an anxiety attack about him galloping home and crossing a major road.

I sold him to a show barn as an upper level lesson horse, and a kid immediately leased him to show. He got all the saddle time he needed and the life of a show horse he wanted. I found another, low maintenance, fun horse that was exactly the same whether I had ridden last week or last month and a much better fit for my lifestyle.

Remember that this is supposed to be fun, that it’s supposed to bring us joy, and ask yourself when was the last time you felt riding was fun or joyful.

Send the mare back to the pro and get her sold and find something that better suits your needs.

I know I’ve made it sound easy, and I know it’s not. But it’s the right thing all the same.

Best of luck to you.

[aregard]

I don’t want to sound flip, but in some ways horses are like dogs. There are thousands out there, and they’re all pretty lovable.

If you love this horse, consider that there is a more bold/educated/strong rider out there who will also love this horse. So the horse won’t suffer.

And if you love this horse, you will love another horse that comes along who is safer/saner/quieter/better trained, whichever additional facet it is that will keep you comfortable that the current horse doesn’t have. That horse will be lovable too.

Personally, I think people limit themselves with this notion of love for one animal, when we have more than enough love for dozens. We are more limited by available time than by available love, so find a horse you can confidently spend your limited time with, and you’ll love him/er just fine.

[spacytracy]

Thank you both. You both hit some major points that are my sticking points.

• I need that assurance that I will find love again lol. These are mostly my pets…they’re literally in my yard. I need a bond. I need cuddly. I need a bud. And I want her to be loved by someone. To be cherished the way she deserves.
• I also agree, she would probably be far less reactive in a busier situation, with more riding time. Right now, her environment is a little TOO quiet. So every little thing, whether its a “normal” thing at our house, she reacts.
• And yes, my ideal horse is something I can do a little bit of everything with, but also can let sit for weeks if life necessitates.

[endlessclimb]

I’m dealing with “too quiet” right now with my young mare. She was nearly bomb proof at the mega busy boarding barn, but now that she’s at a private quiet place she’s aggravatingly reactive. I can handle it, but it’s unpleasant. To be honest, I have thought about selling her.

So, all that to say, you are not alone. It is possible that your environment makes it hard for her to thrive.

This is supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, you must reassess.

ETA: The only reason she isn’t for sale at this moment is that she’s coming to live at home with me in 6 months or so. Her living arrangement will change from being turned out for 9-12 hours a day to being out 24/7. The barn she’s at also follows the same schedule on the DOT every single day, and I think that amps her up way worse than me saying “screw you, I’m too comfy in the warm house, you’ll get grain when I feel like it” type management that I’m planning.

I’m hoping that will reinstall her brains.

[Willesdon]

Any relationship with a person, human or horse, is two way. Sometimes a relationship just doesn’t workout and everyone is far happier after a separation. You appear not to be the person your horse needs at the moment. Your horse appears not to be the person you need at the moment. Sell her on. There are other horses out there waiting to be loved by you.

[Posting_Trot]

You shouldn’t keep a horse that you don’t want to ride, or maybe even are afraid to ride, particularly if you’re riding mostly alone.

But, if you love the horse enough that you want to give it one more try, have you thought about taking weekly lessons on the horse? I know you sent the horse away for training, but a lot of times that won’t “fix” the relationship. You really need to have the trainer on site working with both of you.

Good luck with whatever you decide. As one poster above said, if the horse is lovable, it’s quite possible that someone else will love her as well, and you won’t have to sweat about the horse ending up in a bad place if you decide to sell her.

[Heinz_57]

@spacytracy

The kicker is, I love the horse. I do, I can’t help it. I wish I didn’t. I wish I was more detached. I wish we could work this out.

I can 100% identify with this. I am considering selling 1-2 of my horses right now because I want to focus on specific goals, and it’s slightly terrifying, because they aren’t just vehicles or sports equipment, they are part of the family. I don’t think anybody would think less of you for selling her and looking for a more reliable horse, and it sounds like she is probably fairly marketable at this point.

I will say that I seriously considered selling one of my geldings from the time he was 5 to roughly 7. Not because I couldn’t handle him, but because he was hitting the “teenager” phase HARD and it was just not fun to deal with the near-constant nonsense. It was rough. He would rear and leap just being led to his pasture. But he did grow out of the unpredictable behavior, and now at 8 is pretty darn reliable.

If you want to sell, that’s totally OK. If you want to attempt to learn how to better handle her and be more confident yourself, that’s also OK. Maybe one of the groundwork programs that is geared towards teaching the horse to manage itself (TRT Method, Warwick Schiller type stuff) and teaching the human to manage themselves would be helpful. I have a TRT method lifetime subscription that I got the winter the above horse was 5 I think it definitely helped ME, help him, in new ways. Sometimes we just need different tools in our toolbox.

[Scribbler]

If no one sold horses, what could we buy to ride?

If the horse is obviously happier with the pro, let her go. Acting up is a sign of being unhappy in a situation.

We can get very attached to horses that aren’t working for us. Part of its guilt, part of its shame, part of its feeling we just need to try harder, part of its an inability to let go, part of its thinking we will.create this problem with any horse. None of that is love, per se.

Truly loving a horse means finding the best fit for her

[pompeiii]

I could have written so much of your post to the point I was thinking, is she writing about me?

While my situation is different (my horse isn’t going anywhere as he does have health issues and could easily end up in the wrong place, I could also never ride him again and just be happy just hanging out with him as he brings a smile to my face on daily basis), I don’t think it’s wrong to consider your options. Is it the job that’s not working or the horse? I found that we just needed to step away from the H/J stuff as neither of us were happy and we’re just playing around with trails right now. We’re learning. Does he stress? Yes, but we’re taking our time, doing it slowly, and working around the stress. In our case, doing things this way he’s growing in confidence and the confidence is growing each time out. Do we look crazy going out to a park and doing ground work? Also yes. But it’s working. In the spring we might try dressage lessons because it should work for mr. busy brain.

If it’s not the job but the horse (or it’s just time to find her a new home which is 100% ok too), then finding her a situation where she can thrive is fine! She may like busy. She may like 5-6 days of work a week. She may like a kid who can keep her busy with adventures or just doesn’t care if she’s having a moment (by not care I mean it doesn’t register that her moments are something that the kid should stress about vs an emotional adult like me who stresses about my horse stressing which in turn causes him to stress even more).

Anyway, wishing you the best, regardless of the direction you take!

[2DogsFarm]

@Posting_Trot

I know you sent the horse away for training, but a lot of times that won’t “fix” the relationship. You really need to have the trainer on site working with both of you.

/
THIS

I had a WB, who at 17’3 was a handful when he said Nope. His sticking point was canter depart - got explosive & when I tried to slow him, Up was his GoTo. Never a full rear, just light in front, but scary enough.
I’ve always had horses I could school myself, whether boarded or at home, but I was older (60 at the time) & lived by myself on my farm (still do).
Fortunately, I had my Dressage trainer coming to me every other week.
But she got on him once, experienced his problem & said she wouldn’t ride him.
I got that - her job is train, not deal with potentially dangerous behavior.
Working together, we got him fixed.

If you can’t get trainer to you, or you to trainer, then maybe selling this horse is best.

[VolteSomeday]

Just a slightly different angle here–I have a horse that someone who sounds a lot like you (conscientious, kind, thoughtful) agonized over selling for a long time. She too was worried about where he would land and if someone would appreciate and care for him like she did, as well as if she’d find something she would truly enjoy. Long story short, it’s been many years now that she sold and he’s been with me, and we have so much fun together–our personalities click and we don’t make each other anxious. I’m grateful she sold him! I send her pictures and updates periodically and she got a very different type of horse she is also having a blast with. So I just wanted to add that there can be a very happy outcome for both of you, and it doesn’t have to be together. Best wishes, I know how hard it can be.

[FromTheGalaxy]

Absolutely this. I sold two horses this year and had many sleepless nights worrying about them leaving my care and going to a new home. But I am currently very happy with the homes I found for each of them and honestly feel like they are better suited to their new owners than they ever were with me. You of course have to be diligent when selling a horse to make sure they are going to the right sort of people, but its good to remind yourself that lots of owners love and take great care of their horses.

[Scribbler]

“No one else would ever look after my horse as well as I do” is also one of the points on the slippery slope to hoarding. It’s true that if you have a horse with career ending injury or age you need to step up for retirement care. But if you have a nice horse other people can ride, who just isn’t a fit for where you are at right now? Sell to.someone who really suits her and suddenly she’s a high value horse that they will love are care for.

[TWH_Girl]

There is no magic answer. I sold my horse like this after I tired training and lots of lessons. Once that confidence is shaken, it’s really hard to get over- sometimes in the same way as when indefinitely affects a relationship- you just don’t trust each other.
I have a new 5 yr old who is very kind and sane and I feel very comfortable on him.

[quietann]

Agree with others that you and the horse need to both work together with a trainer to figure this out.

Otherwise, the horse is 6 IIRC, seems to have some skills under saddle, and is sellable. It’s OK to sell a horse – seriously – if it’s sound and that age. (Most horses are probably OK to sell, although people trying to sell off their “useless” old horses – 20+ year olds, barren broodmares who have never been trained to ride etc – does annoy me.) You would want to be careful to get the horse into the right hands, though.

On a more personal note, Feronia did not appear to be a good first horse when I bought her – but she was nearly 10, professionally trained, had shown, etc. She had a spook and would occasionally get a little light in front. She frankly scared me. So I gave both of us 6 months in full training, with the trainer understanding that at the end of those 6 months, I’d probably sell her. Six months passed, and the trainer and I both forgot to re-assess because things were going well. Not that Feronia was perfect – she’s complicated but actually pretty safe, if one can sit a spook and deal with a certain amount of silliness. She is now 25 and retired, much quieter and definitely lazy, but still has her moments!

One trainer told me that Feronia and I are simply too close in personality. We both are introverted and anxious and have a pretty strong startle response. And we both love food! I think that’s a fair assessment, but I kept her and did at least one lesson a week for years, had training rides or more advanced riders on her regularly, and somehow managed to train her to be a solo trail horse with not all that much help. So we ended up a “good enough” match.

This is 9 years into our partnership:

[OnAMission]

One of our horses now is a high anxiety, spooky sort. He’s highly trained, someone put a lot of time on him but his core personality is anxiety-ball. I bought him through a friend from people that did not know what to do with his spookiness, it scared them and then that would scare him again and everyone was just spooky all the time. If they had kept him any longer it would have totally fried his brain; he was in a constant state of “what’s going to happen next?!?” In the wrong-for-him hands he was going to be an ulcer ridden dangerous horse to be around. He’s vastly improved with us, not b/c we ride or even handle him a lot but b/c his spooks don’t bother us, I’ve done some Warwick Schiller voodoo with him and he’s with very calm non-reactive herdmates. He’s never going to be non-reactive but he’s comfortable in his own skin now at least and his former owners gave him that by trusting our mutual friend that knew he would do well with us.

All that said, I don’t like to ride him. haha My husband does great with him but he can ride a spook a whole lot better than I can. If I had to ride him all the time he would be for sale; it would be quite a project to find his next home but you never know what buyer is out there if you don’t look. My gut check is always imagining the perfect person shows up and wants to buy; would it be a relief?

[dmveventer]

I would sell. You might be able to push through it if you were boarding in a consistent program where there were at least people around for safety if something did go wrong, but since you’re alone most of the time that’s not a risk I’d be comfortable taking. You can’t train effectively if you’re not confident yourself in whatever situation, but in this case I think you’re right not to be comfortable given the safety risks. At this point you guys are probably just spinning each other up and I’m not sure you can break that cycle without more regular access to a trainer and a safe place to work through problems.

I have a green horse that’s well within my wheelhouse to handle, but I’m still somewhat risk averse with him because a) I don’t wanna die, and b) I don’t want to create a situation that undermines his confidence or spirals into a bigger problem. We still try new things and push out of our comfort zones, but I’m smart about when I push and when I decide to pick my battles another day. This is a hobby, it’s supposed to be fun! And the inherent risks are enough even with a sane, well-trained horse that we don’t need to pile extra ones on unless we want to. I’d rather regret not pushing myself but coming home safe than regret pushing myself and potentially getting us both hurt.

It’s very easy to vet and keep in touch with buyers these days through social media; you can’t rule out a bad situation but you can do so much more to get a sense of who the person is. I bought my horse from someone who was similarly overhorsed and I gave her my phone number and added her on social media so she could keep track of him. You could still love this horse and enjoy seeing her thrive in a home that’s a better fit, while you get to befriend a new partner that’s better for your situation right now.

[Demerara_Stables]

I’m a pro, and I’ve known my mare since the day she was born, bought her as a yearling, and have done 100% of her training. For a solid 3 years as a 5-8 year old, I was terrified to ride her (and this was during a point in my career where all I did was ride “dangerous” horses).

Other people would get on her and have no issue, but I knew she was going to spook at one thing or another so I always anticipated, got tense, and then she’d blow up (she spins and bolts - great fun). During those 3 years I even had a fellow boarder ask why I didn’t sell her because I fell off pretty much every week.

Still to this day when she gets tense it’s because of me. If she stops at a jump it’s 100% because I thought she would.

I wouldn’t trade her for the world. It took years and a lot of deep breathing to get to a point of being an enjoyable ride, but she has taught me so much about how I influence horses.

If your mare isn’t dangerous, and you have access to regular (weekly or more) help, AND you want to put in the work (there’s absolutely something to be said for just wanting to have fun), I’d stick with it. The relationship I have with my mare will never be topped. We read each other’s minds and trust each other implicitly.

[EmilyM]

Cue irrational horses are my pets response:

I’ve been in this situation, and I’ve worked through it. but mostly with A LOT of time and having access to riding several other horses regularly so that my confidence was strong.

I’m a collector. I have horses that are not athletic enough to really help me with my riding, but I still have a hard time selling them. So I totally get being attached. I have always been. I remember my eq trainer telling my mom that I needed a different horse, but that I loved my horse too much so he didn’t see me selling him. that horse died on my family farm. I can’t help it. i also like the puzzle of figuring out what makes a horse tick.

Is it possible to send this horse to a trainer, take lessons as well as have her ridden/trained by a professional? Then possibly lease a confidence builder that isn’t nervous? that’s an expensive solution, so perhaps not possible, but having lots of good riding experiences on others can help you translate good experiences to the mare.

Selling her is clearly a more normal response, but I am a collector as I said. hahaha