working with a kicker

[Marlene Moss <Marlene.Moss@wcom.Com>]

Hi,
I just found out that my 4 yr old is a kicker.  So we'll be riding with a
red ribbon, but I want to know how I should handle this.

Here's the circumstances:

Sudan has just been started and is generally very bold, but obviously there
are situations that a young horse has never seen or is wary of.  So this
horse will stop dead when he sees something that he is unsure of.  Since
he's young I don't have a problem letting him stop and figure things out,
but I do want to be able to ask him to go forward at some point too.  What
I've found out is that if I encourage Sudan to go forward when a gelding (so
far 2 for 2 on geldings and 0 for 1 on mares) is bunched up behind him since
he stopped, then he will get pissed at feeling trapped and kick out.

I want to avoid creating this situation, but there's no way to avoid that on
a ride 100% of the time.  So I need to figure out how to reprimand him.  I'm
hoping that the scenario will go away as he gets more used to things, but I
don't want to allow the behavior to seem acceptable.

I am carrying a crop as I've found that a light tap on the shoulder is much
more effective to ask him to go forward than me using my legs (well, I'm
working on translating his understanding of what I'm asking with the crop to
an understanding of my legs) so I did give him a pop on the hindquarters
when he kicked - but I was hesitant because he is a young horse and we were
surrounded by water and rocks and I wasn't really wanting to create a rodeo.

So I need some ideas for 1) safely working on him handling horses on his
tail and 2) how to reprimand him when he kicks.  Unlike my mare he doesn't
give any warning of being upset by pinning ears, he just lets fly.

All ideas are appreciated.

Thanks,
Marlene