I recently got a horse at our barn that I am working with
for a client. The horse was reported to be fine in the arena, but not
really endurance material because he was nuts on the trail. I’m
used to calming down the jigginess in horses, so I thought this would be a good
challenge.
However, it isn’t that there is a difference between
arena and trail, it’s just any new place. So he was totally nuts
for 2 days in our round pen, then fine. Nuts the first time I took him in
the arena, then fine. I thought it was my amazing training skills!
Actually I thought it was using a hackamore to bring his attention to me, which
was 99.9% elsewhere before I tried the bosal. I’m doing this all on
the ground right now because the horse is off – possibly because he did
donuts all night long his first night here.
I recently took over training on a 2yo that had never been
handled – the trainer didn’t have a clue what to do with a young arab
that had barely been haltered. He was dangerous, attention always
elsewhere, would jump on his handler for safety and would frantically nip
because it seemed he didn’t know what else to do with himself. I
worked with him for about 6 weeks and now he’s really nice and one of our
boarders bought him to eventually do endurance with.
This new horse is just like him – only he is 13 and
does not have the excuse of immaturity or never having been handled. He
works himself up in a total sweat, head straight up in the air, flips around,
will only stand still if focused on something in the distance. If I bring
his attention to me, he just wants to walk on top of me. He gets pissed if
I poke or punch him in the shoulder to keep from running me over – I’ve
never seen such a look except for this other 2yo.
I have no intention of riding him until we figure this out –
it doesn’t matter if he never becomes a trail horse, he still needs to
handle different environments in his life. My current plan is to start in
his safe areas and slowly move out stopping to work on his attention and
ability to stand still. I did that last night, trying to find a “half
on” spot where he started to have problems but it wasn’t so scary
that he totally shut down, but it was like a light switch, either just fine or
a complete lunatic.
I’m hoping I’ll have the same success I had with
the 2yo, but this horse almost completely shuts me out when he’s afraid
and he’s probably been doing this his entire life. I don’t
think 13 is too old to learn, and he does seem smart. He moves
fantastically (oh, I’d love to see that walk out on the trail!) and I
hate to see smart arabs stuck in the arena forever!
Any advice on how to begin with this guy would be greatly
appreciated – as well as any similar experiences. Time is not a
huge issue, he’ll be boarded here long term, but I do want to keep him
safe for his new owner and she would enjoy being able to go out of the arena
some day!
