Hi need help and advice. Just recently purchased a 3 year old friesian mare who is only about two months under saddle. I am a college student and was planning to bring her along with full time help from a professional rider. I had a tight budget and wanted to learn how to train a young horse myself while I am still relatively young as I may possibly want to be a trainer some day. I was looking for a sweet easygoing horse, green was okay but dangerous not. The seller said she had never put a foot wrong. And when I tried the mare two times, I was able to walk trot her, she was an angel, brave and kind. However, the second we moved her to my barn I board out (only about two weeks from the last time I saw her) she started acting rather scary undersaddle (bucking and rearing trying to get rider off). She has only been with us for four days and only my trainer has ridden her twice so far (not me). We have lunged her and prepped her ( was great and relaxed on lunge) and the second my trainer gets on she tries to dump her, can’t even walk a circle on a loose rein. My trainer has sucessfully brought along and broke multiple young horses and is an FEI dressage rider. I contacted the seller, and the seller claims she has never done this before and believes this could be due to caps and wolf teeth pain. As apparently, she started throwing her head recently before she came. Still, I am confused on how this sweet sweet girl could change in such a short time period. I am getting her teeth done ASAP to see if that is the problem. But I am unsure if the teeth would result in such a fast negative change especially when I tried her two weeks ago and she was fine. ANY ADVICE or similar situation experience would be appreciated. I don’t want to part with her but I can’t risk me and my trainers safety either. Also, she is a dressage horse in dressage training programs.
Generally if the mouth/teeth hurt, they will rear to avoid the pressure. Bucking is usually pain in the back, hips, hocks etc. Did you have a PPE? Did you draw blood? If she’s not had her wolf teeth removed, they could be bothering her but I’m not sure she’d be bucking. Not all horses have wolf teeth and not all horses with wolf teeth are bothered by them.
With a young horse, teeth do change quickly and could potentially create a problem. Good for you to have that checked out. However, IMHO this seems extreme for normal teeth changes.
My thoughts, in order of likelihood from my own experience and other situations I have seen here. I don’t have enough information to eliminate some of these possibilities, but OP can address as needed:
The saddle doesn’t fit well enough - Friesians can be tricky to fit. Check for back soreness.
A change of barn environment, feed, and training could cause ulcers, which may make her act out.
A change in feed could have introduced either a food that she is sensitive to, or has too much sugar for her.
She needs more time to settle into the new environment before being asked to do more.
Trainer may be a professional rider, but not all riders are good with young horses. Has trainer started young horses before?
Did you do a PPE on this horse and pull blood to check for tranquilizers/sedatives? Could she have been tranquilized when you rode her previously?
Tranquilizers were my first thought. MissAriel gave you a good list, though.
My mom’s half Friesian mare hallucinates on alfalfa hay. Friesians frequently do poorly on anything high sugar, but even only getting a few pounds a day, she gave every impression she saw monsters - including screaming and fleeing them when in turnout, not just misbehavior under saddle. She was fine within 3 days when alfalfa was removed from her diet entirely.
I highly doubt the teeth are responsible for such an abrupt personality change. I have had horses who were bothered by wolf teeth, but it was pretty clear that the issues were originating in the mouth. IME, bucking and rearing (or other fractious behavior under saddle) isn’t a normal “teeth” sign. Or I suppose it could be, but I would only consider that a possibility if the behavior had been going on for a while. Sounds to me like the seller is grasping at straws to try to help? Could she have drugged the horse and be lying through her teeth? Sure. But I’ve seen similar transformations from one barn to another and normally my workflow of problem solving is in some combination of; feed > saddle/tack > feet. I generally give sellers the benefit of the doubt if I trusted them enough to hand a bunch of money over to them in the first place…though that is no comment here on whether the seller was a good egg or not.
I would suspect feed or saddle based on what you’ve described. Like netg, I’ve had a horse who did a complete personality change when he was getting alfalfa as well. And that could be a change onto some other type of feed as well (i.e. from alfalfa to grass or from one grass hay to another or addition of a new-to-her grain or supplement). And yes, ulcers are absolutely a possibility with a move. Tough to predict how a young horse will deal with change. But putting her on an ulcer product would not be a bad idea. If she’s a bit dramatic that could be enough to elicit the type of change you’re talking about.
And/or…the difference between lunging and saddling sounds like something about the saddle could be bothering her too. Or silly little things like a differently shaped girth. I had one horse that I brought over from Germany who went dead lame the one time I put her in an anatomic girth. After my stomach hit the ground I thought about it for a minute, walked her back into the barn and swapped out the girth for a straight one and she was back to 100%. I don’t know why that happened (and I had my vet comb over her to no avail), but it just goes to show that little changes can be not-so-little to the horse.
Aside from what others have mentioned, how long had the horse been under saddle when you tried her? I started a three year old last year and when he went on to his next step, I told the trainer to definitely start him back on the longe, as I had brought him a few places and he could be a bit wild and/or forget his training. So at home he was WT w/ steering and sort of reaching to contact, canter he would do but without the steering. She said, of course, he’s three! And he was fine, but tentative and the steering flew out the window for the first little while he was there.
So all that is to say that if this is a 3 year old with 30-60-90 days under saddle, you might need to back up several steps because the horse is with new people in a new environment. Longing–long-lining–laying over her back–walking around with a ground person—maybe getting longed a few times with a rider up before you go off and just ride.
A minor clarification - alfalfa is very LOW in sugar. It is very high in protein and calcium.
I had several Friesians and Friesian crosses over the years, and found that they are easy keepers, so a high octane feed may not be needed. Many horses (not just that specific breed) are sensitive to feed changes - alfalfa, grain, all kinds of things can set them off.
I would also wonder about drugging? When the prepurchase was done, was blood pulled? If so, I would have that looked at.
Then, hate to scare you, but I know of at least FOUR horses that had similar issues, one a young WB mare I bought (similar circumstances, 60 days under saddle, very green), who started bucking and rearing (and other assorted unpleasant issues) when I bought her - again, I don’t want to scare you, but she ended up with a neuro issue.
A friend had similar issues with a young WB mare - turned out to be a front leg soreness issue - very slight, very hard to diagnose, minor, minor soft tissue injury. That one was fine after 6 months off.
Third one, TB was further along with training - owner tried it several times and it was fine, the minute she bought the horse and took it home - it was dangerous. VERY capable trainer finally told her the horse wasn’t safe after working with him for a few months. Highly suspect that one was drugged - PPE didn’t pull blood so no way to confirm, but the new owner spent a LOT of $$$ on diagnostics which turned up nothing.
Fourth one, and a much older case, about 20 years ago - also further along, a lovely WB mare - and that one WAS drugged. Jumper trainer sold her, and apparently thought it was perfectly OK to drug a mare every day to ride her AND to sell her to a kid! PPE did pull blood, but by the time the new owner thought to check, it was several years later. However, same jumper trainer got caught selling other horses on drugs - so pretty easy to guess what happened. I actually ended up with that mare - she just died at 30 years old this past Spring!
So, diagnostics are good, and I’d agree, mouth (and back and front legs/feet) are probably your order of go, but if you had blood pulled in the PPE, I’d also ask the vet to do a quick screen of that blood.
I hope it isn’t anything serious, and I hope you can figure it out!
What have you done to ensure your young horse has a solid foundation of training? What things are on your list that a young horse should know how to do on the ground and under saddle before beginning in discipline specific work? Do you have a specific set of objectives you can check are in place?
