RE: Alpha Mare - New to endurance

[Marlene Moss <MARLENE.MOSS@WCOM.COM>]

Kim,
I have a similar mare.  She is very competitive and has done endurance in
the past.  I am working toward endurance and doing CTR in the meantime.  CTR
gives you a little more incentive to try to find a way to communicate with
your horse as you'll get marked down if you bunch up behind other horses and
that sort of thing.  We are still a work in progress, but I've found a
couple things that helped.

The first is actually luck.  If you can stay out of the main traffic flow
and find a nice window to travel in, you can work on your communication
without the distraction of the other horses.  She'll still know they're out
there and want to catch up, but if she doesn't see them, she'll be more
likely to start listening to you.

The other thing that helped with my mare was a big major argument in the
middle of a ride.  I spent the first day of a CTR trotting behind horses
that were walking, right on their tails.  The second day, we got a break and
left a water stop before everyone else.  My mare hates constant bit contact
and will shake her head and rear a bit if she wants to go and I won't let
her.  Since I was alone on a wide trail, I had room to fight and she was
slightly more willing to listen.  I just talked and talked and tried to have
my actions demonstrate what I was saying.  What I was saying was "you get as
much rein as you want if you walk" and "if you walk when I ask, I'll let you
trot when it's reasonable".  If she reared, I pulled her around.  If she
pulled and broke to a trot, she got a long heavy pull on one rein, til she
was bending, then release and do the other.  It worked.  I can now keep her
at a walk while another horse trots by.

I'm still working on keeping the trot under control, but we'll get there.  I
like the suggestion someone else had of making her work hard if she's in
front.  I think I'll try that with my mare when we do our first endurance
ride - but  at this point, I think I'd chicken out before she does!

Good Luck,
Marlene

-----Original Message-----
From:	guest@endurance.net [mailto:guest@endurance.net]
Sent:	Thursday, August 17, 2000 1:46 PM
To:	ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject:	RC:  Alpha Mare - New to endurance

Kim kdekany@custom-edge.com
I am new to endurance this year, and have only done a couple of 25 mile
rides...on someone else's experienced 18yr old gelding (Rhett
Butler)...awesome horse!

I really want to do this with my mare and am hoping some of you experts can
share your experiences and knowledge on how to handle my situation...which
is this -

My mare is only 6yrs old and she likes to consider herself the "alpha mare",
especially with me!Little background - The first two years I owned her she
was in and out of training, last year I pulled her out and the battle
began...she had absolutely no respect for me, and challenged me every
opportunity. Needlesstosay, I stopped riding her out of fear:-( Well,I
finally found a trainer/instructor I like and since February of this year he
has been giving us lessons, what I like about him is he has me
training/riding her. In the last 60 days we have really started to come
together, and my confidence level has sky rocketed...she will test me
occassionally, but I have been winning the battles:-)

In September I want to take her on her first ride, actually a competitive 15
mile novice. Any trail rides I have done my mare likes to be the lead
horse...and will fight me until she is up front. I love to be the lead too,
but I want her to learn that it cannot always be this way. In addition, the
start of a race scares me to death, I am not experienced enough to take off
in the herd, so I am searching for advice on how to handle my "alpha" mare
at endurance rides until we are both experienced in the sport?

Sorry so long...thank you in advance.


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