My suggestion is to pony him for a month or so
saddled, with stirrups hanging and flapping and stuff on sides.....
during this time, get on and off horse with someone
holding him.....and leading him (forget giving leg cues at this
time)., but give voice commands........when he is
okay and relaxed doing this....then start very little leg cues along with the
voice commands. Quit early (5 to 10
min)....give lots of rewards....goal is to have him go forward carryhing a
rider, even if being led.....
then start having a rider hop on him during one of
the ponied rides.....(after he is relaxed and a bit tired)....have them sit
on
him with no awful things happening....once he is
okay with this, you can start little leg cues while still being ponied....but
the main thing is that he is accpeting a rider while going forward then the rest
can come later.....
The above is sort of a condensed version of how I
trained my now 5 year old (over several years) ....no bucking so
far....
I came to the best place to get some advice
guys...so please give me some good tips!
Horse is a 4 yr. old paint. >From what we
have gathered he was owned by an elderly man, sold, and was not put under
saddle till possibly these last 3 weeks (to our knowledge) anyway, he was
getting ready to go thru a sale barn.
We can take him over obstacles ground/saddled, we
have flopped things at him, taken willow branches, ran over his body, under
belly, over the top, over the ears, etc. both ground/saddled, and he does
nothing. But when you go to get on this horse, he will run his butt
under himself and is nervy. We've poked along his back did all kinds of
things trying to find ouchy spots on his back and there is nothing.
Anyway, once you've gotten on him the initial time, you can then get on and
off, but if this horse feels any "leg" what so ever he flies into
bucking. So I don't know if the getting on, he feels like something is
getting him in the belly and therefore that's why the mounting is the same way
the first time or not. He's been backing fine, but the other day he
"locked up" and my husband gave him a squeeze to get his feet moving, and he
reared up. You can have a saddle on him, and stand there run your hands
and poke, prod, whatever in the belly, and he won't do anything. It's
just all in the saddle. We thought that possibly since he hadn't been
broke and possibly sold to a person to go in the sale barn that maybe someone
had gotten spurs on him, and was trying to get him sale ring ready.
Do any of you all have any suggestions?
We've been trying to do a lot of desensitizing, serpentines, suppling,
backing, that's all going well. It's just seems to be limited to
mounting, then legs. Any ideas???????
