Yearling avoids pressure by flipping over

[MunchingonHay]

I was just sharing how much walking and standing we did with our 300+ yearlings every year. We did not have time for such shenangans. Our babies all stood for the farrier regardless of age. Sure, some of the colts would misbehave, but not the crap your yearling is pulling and allowed to get away with.

You asked with walking helps with:
building respect
building trust
keeps her engaged
looks to you for help instead of flopping over.
greats a bond between you and her

You then state that she was hard to halter break by the breeder to Montanas Girl. She has holes in her training. Walk her. For 30 mins at a time if you have to. Over poles, uneven ground, different surfaces, hills, etc like DJones mentioned. Giving to pressure, mover her hindend over from side to side, ask to walk backwards. etc.

[Djones]

perfect is the enemy of good enough, and you can’t get better if you don’t try.

[StarPattern]

I feel like you’re offended that I asked how hand walking helps with the flopping over. I didn’t mean to offend you, I was genuinely curious how the two connected since I’m not able to make the connection in my own brain on my own.

[MunchingonHay]

Its ok and thank you.

Walking is the most important gait next to whoa you can instill in your horse. Ground work is the foundation of a safe horse. Its good that you walk her around, she needs more. You (general you) can expose so much to a yearling on the ground before you even think about backing them. Think of all the despooking you are going to do! She is going to be the safest horse ever. And you know what your doing when you doing all this walking around, left, right, back up, up hills, down hills, putting pressure on her face.

Repetetion is key along with positive reward. Moving forward is a reward as well.

[RhythmNCruise]

I haven’t read all of the replies, so forgive me if I’m repeating some things. First, though, I’m happy to see Steve Young being praised. He really is good at what he does.

I’ve raised a few babies in my day including my current 16-year-old gelding. He flung himself over backward in slow-motion when he was a yearling and first learning to lead (I bought him as a basically unhandled but friendly yearling colt). In his case, we were out in his turnout pasture and it was nice, soft grass, but he bonked his head enough when he landed that when he went to right himself he kind of laid there for a minute and shook his head like “What just happened??” If he had been a cartoon character (and he’s close!) he would have had little stars and birds circling his head.

He never pulled back again until trailer loading started. He bonked his head on the top of the trailer (wearing a head-bumper thank goodness) and that was all it took. Never did that again.

But some horses aren’t that easy, and they can seriously injure or kill themselves with such shenanigans (not to mention the people around them).

I’d do something like a blocker tie-ring. I’d put her in a bedded stall, maybe with a head-bumper on, NON-breakaway halter, and I’d start with the blocker tie-ring. She should be able to get enough slack from it that it won’t give her the resistance she’d need to fight and flip. Eventually, she’ll figure out that pulling back will get her nowhere.

I’d work with her on giving to pressure (the way Steve Young does…asking her to lower her head when she feels the pressure at her poll) every single day. And when she’s getting her feet done or anything else that might make her feel trapped, right now she needs to be allowed to retreat (take a foot away or step back if it’s obvious she’s going to escalate) without any resistance. Walk with her, don’t give her a chance to pull, and when she’s quiet again, pick up the foot and go again.

This really needs to be addressed and nipped in the bud ASAP. She’s learning something that could kill her or anyone who is behind her or heaven forbid, on her back once she’s grown. Because what’s she going to do if this never gets solved and someone puts a saddle on her? Or a leg over here? Or pulls on a bit in her mouth?

She’d be in a stall with her “helmet” on, attached to a blocker tie-ring every day for an increasing length of time were she mine. She might fuss a bit, but she should be safe and should learn to be patient.

[Montanas_Girl]

You say she leads well, but is she really leading in response to halter pressure or just following you along?

I ask this because my 2022 filly came out of the womb cheerfully following me wherever I went and never needed a butt rope, even as a newborn, to do so. But that isn’t the same thing as leading by giving to pressure. My filly has a bit of diva in her and actually quite disliked real pressure at first, and we spent quite a bit of time in her first year working on that. I had to fix it before I could even think of asking her to stand tied, load on a trailer, etc.

I suspect your filly might be doing a bit of the same. In other words, she’s happy enough to follow you around as long as you don’t apply pressure and ask her to lead somewhere she doesn’t want to go - or do something she doesn’t want to do, like stand for the farrier. If the breeders mentioned her being difficult to halter break, it’s possible they never really addressed this fully and you need to repair that hole in her foundation.

[CBoylen]

Most horses do this once as a baby. Maybe twice if they get unlucky with slippery footing or an unfortunate series of events. The ones that do it repeatedly are usually mares, and they usually keep doing it because you can try to prevent it but there is just no good way to correct it. The horse’s natural instinct is supposed to correct it.

[Ajierene]

I have ridden two horses that reared and flipped. The mare, would go kind of up and over but she also kind of checked out and it was directly related to some sort of trauma. She was a perfect angel, was sold, came back about a year later with an issue taking the bit and even going over poles. So no jumping and floppy reins. Now she could speed up/slow down and turn off purely seat/leg, which was awesome to ride - just don’t try to take up real contact.

Another gelding is the one that screwed up my back and he would rear and flip as a part of a temper tantrum. He especially didn’t like going to the riding arena without friends and once reared up while I was walking him. It was so sudden and violent and he pulled the reins out of my hand, flipped over, got up, jumped the 4ft gate and ran back to the barn. He did the same thing with me on him for something like not want to turn right when I wanted him to…I ended up in the ER and my back has not been the same since.

Given the above, I would say never try to ride this horse…to me, once a horse has an inclination to rear and flip over/fall over without being concerned, they will keep doing it and can be VERY dangerous.

I know it is just the farrier now, but I caution how she will react when she’s getting started under saddle and encounters something she doesn’t want to do.

[endlessclimb]

This is what i was thinking. This horse is either a genius in the worst way or has a screw loose. Either way, this needs a “whatever it takes” approach to make it stop, pronto.

[sascha]

Have a good vet check this little dude’s neck and poll area out pronto.

Next, get a dang figure 8 butt rope on and teach it how to lead properly - not by just letting it follow you, and not by putting pressure on its head until it complies like in the video.

Put almost no pressure on and then use the butt/chest rope to show the little creature what that tiny pressure means without having to pull at all on its head and neck.

If you have a sit down/roll back over incident with a future 8 rope, try a belly rope … once. If you still get hysterics, it’s probably time to pts or move this one on to a professional who has experience with stroppy little sobs. This type of behaviour can be extremely dangerous. It needs to be erased 100% if the horse will ever be ridden or driven and 99.9% if not.

Rearing is one thing (not fun, but can be fixed is many cases), but launching over backwards/sitting down to roll backwards is another. Neither are any fun to fix. If the horse carries this behaviour into its adult size it’s going to be an unhappy and very dangerous horse.

This type of horse needs a very “strong box” to live in when it comes to horse-human interactions. Imo, and ime, this type of horse may take years of perfect behaviour to gain small privileges. Example - any pushiness, nippy, or crowding type of behaviour means the horse is not allowed to seek to touch the human ever until it 100% understands there is not paying, biting, or crowding allowed ever. The human is allowed to touch and love on the horse, but the horse is not allowed to seek these things from the human by touching the human. If you can’t be absolutely consistent day in and day out with your expectations and with implementing those expectations, with the idea of training a horse and NOT having a pet horse for a very long time, if ever, move this horse on now before it becomes big enough to be dangerous to not be able to safely (for human and it’s own sake!) moved on.

[MsM]

I think this is what is meant by a belly rope. I only have seen it used for trailer leading myself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DddkQEvVjGI

[fivestrideline]

I just want to reiterate that the sitting down and rolling/flipping onto her back is NOT normal - most horses do NOT want to go over backwards like that. This should scare you.

Honestly, I think it’s time to send her to a pro who does special case colt training. Someone said above that this happening once accidentally isn’t that uncommon - baby usually gets up a bit chagrined and doesn’t do it again. The fact that this is becoming a confirmed habit when she’s asked to do something she doesn’t want is CONCERNING.

[Montanas_Girl]

@fivestrideline

I just want to reiterate that the sitting down and rolling/flipping onto her back is NOT normal - most horses do NOT want to go over backwards like that. This should scare you.

Honestly, I think it’s time to send her to a pro who does special case colt training. Someone said above that this happening once accidentally isn’t that uncommon - baby usually gets up a bit chagrined and doesn’t do it again. The fact that this is becoming a confirmed habit when she’s asked to do something she doesn’t want is CONCERNING.

Quoting for emphasis.

A horse that is willing to repeatedly go over backwards is not normal. I’ve known a couple of horses like this, and they are among the MOST dangerous. I personally would never feel comfortable riding a horse that has demonstrated this much disregard for its own safety.

[Paint_Party]

Lots of good suggestions here already, so I’m going to cobble together some of the points with which I strongly agree.

1. This is a dangerous habit. Your yearling could flip and break its neck and be dead in an instant, flip and take out whichever human is nearby, or keep this handy trick in her repertoire for when you start her under saddle and maim both herself and you. In fact, I’m not sure I’d ever ride her myself unless this behavior is eradicated very soon.

2. It sounds like she was never really taught to lead properly. As mentioned, leading is not simply following the human because they happen to be going in a not-so-awful direction. Leading is giving to pressure, and that’s why a butt rope (a “come along rope”) is a mainstay of teaching foals and babies to lead. The butt rope reinforces the cue to “step ahead” from the lead rope. It sounds like this part is missing in your yearling’s training.

3. The suggestion of doing lots of walking is a great one. Think of it as preparatory ground work. It’s not just taking a stroll around the farm. It’s walking over logs, backing up on cue alongside a fence, going past scary objects, etc. All of these require, little by little, that your filly responds to your directions and yields to pressure.

4. Do not tie this filly until she understands to come ahead/step forward in response to a slight tug on the lead rope, and will lower her head on cue, as the crownpiece of the halter presses across her poll. This is all part of yielding to pressure, and it’s perhaps the main building block of training a horse.

I wish you luck, perseverance and safety. I’m glad you seem to have a trainer who has experience in addressing this issue.

[Bluey]

Very long ago I was in a stable that received OTTBs to train.
This one beautiful gray mare came to us off the track, trained but never raced.
When we started to work with her, put her on the longe and she would occasionally just do that starting slow and then flip herself, then get up like nothing happened, scary.

The vet came almost daily and we longed her for him, he examined her, said not to try to ride her, she was dangerous.
He though maybe at some time she had some illness like sleeping sickness or accident and her brain just was not working right, caused those out of the blue flipping incidents, that she didn’t seem to know happened.

I would be very careful until this has been sorted out, plus consider that every time that happens it can cause injuries to the flipping horse and anyone around it.

[Bonnie2]

Re-read fivestrideline and bluey! This is not a normal resistance. If she bucked under saddle everyone would say get a vet. But it’s a baby so many are saying train/restrain her. Get her checked by a good horse vet.

[candyappy]

@Montanas_Girl

You say she leads well, but is she really leading in response to halter pressure or just following you along?

I was wondering how well she leads when it isn’t someplace she wants to go. Her extreme overreaction to just being held ( i thought she was tied) really scares me as to what may happen as she gets older and ready to ride.

I would start working on leading her places where she has to depend on her handler to be her leader. Places away from the other horses and areas she has never been and eventually out of sight of them all where it is just the 2 of you and work her there.

[candyappy]

@sascha

Put almost no pressure on and then use the butt/chest rope to show the little creature

It is a yearling Quarter horse filly so unless she was starved and stunted too I don’t see how you are going to ( safely) butt rope her into going forward as you would a very young foal?

[Montanas_Girl]

@Bonnie2

Re-read fivestrideline and bluey! This is not a normal resistance. If she bucked under saddle everyone would say get a vet. But it’s a baby so many are saying train/restrain her. Get her checked by a good horse vet.

Medical problems and training issues are not mutually exclusive. How the horse reacts to whatever (physical or mental) discomfort it is experiencing, though, says a lot about its inherent character, which is why an experienced trainer with a track record of reforming dangerous horses is also required in this kind of situation.

Whatever the root cause, a horse that flips itself over backwards as its go-to evasion is dangerous. Full stop. That behavior has to be addressed before the horse kills itself and/or its handlers, regardless of why the horse is doing it.

[sascha]

@Montanas_Girl

That behavior has to be addressed before the horse kills itself and/or its handlers, regardless of why the horse is doing it.

Agreed … With an exception. If there is something going on in the neck, it needs to be addressed immediately. If there are bony abnormalities, they may lead to more frequent/violent reactions.