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Am I a bad rider or is he just a difficult horse?

3K views 21 replies 10 participants last post by  Horse racer 
#1 ·
I've been working with a 23 year old QH, and he is...difficult. He won't stay on the rail, I'm constatly dragging him back to the rail and sometimes he fights back a little, hebreaks gaits and I always have to give him a good kick or smack him with reins he doesn't really listen when I ask him to go into a trot or a canter and I have to kick him real good to get him to go. But the most frustrating thing is keeping him on the rail! He won't stay on the rail! I have to pull him on to the rail and he will stay for a couple strides and then try to cut into the middle...after riding him today I feel really discouraged and just want to quit. Is it me? Is he being like this because of me? Or is it him? I'm not too soft ot too gentle with him either and get on him for acting up but he just won't learn!!! :-(
 
#3 ·
He also hasn't been ridden in like over 5 years. And I've been riding him for over a month. I can try to get a video...

My instructor doesn't comment if I'm riding bad or not so I'd assume I'm riding fine. But, how can I keep him on the rail? How can I train him so he'll stay on the rail. I don't want to keep my foot on him constantly either (which I don't because I want to keep his sides as sensitive as possible). Any ideas?
 
#4 ·
what does he get out of leaving the rail? I mean, is the center where you stop and stand around while the instructor talks,? so that is where he gets rest? or is he trying to cut across the arena to get to the gate, or just shorten the distance he will travel?

every time he leaves the rail, start him to working hard. Fast trot or canter with you leg popping him, not super hard, but irritating. if he turns back toward the rail, stop the leg popping. let him choose: inside you will keep popping him with your leg , until he chooses again. if he chooses out toward the rail, stop bopping him. YOu'll work on getting him to choose the rail, so when he's on the rail, let him walk. I think you might have to work solely on this and not do a lot of trot or canter work ON the rail until he can accept being there and stay there. you have to figure out how to make being on the rail nicer than being in the middle.
 
#5 ·
First, it's never a fault of the horse. That leaves the rider. :) Yet, it'd be wrong to shame you for it; to find a horse who's beyond your present skill level is normal, & can be a gift to you as it provides the challenge for you to improve your skills!

If this horse is unmotivated, calmly ignores you, calmly & deliberately goes against what you want (moving off the rail), you've got a Left-brain introvert. (the first thing is to see if a horse is doing what you don't want calmly or from fear/adrenaline.) To get into a fight/kick him/pull him won't work; seems that you've discovered that. So, you're left with what will MOTIVATE him, & since LBI's are food-motivated, FOOD gets this horse's interest. It's not a food reward EVERY time he complies, (that teaches him to demand a treat EVERY time) it's surprise food rewards, when he thought you'd blow your cool, & randomly spaced rewards for complying. Eventually, you'll phase out the treats, because he's gotten interested in your leadership ideas, & will even offer moves to you!

He's trying to frustrate you, because prey animals are experts at frustrating humans so that they'll give up, so if you get emotional, he chalks up one for himself. I hope that you can see that no one should deal with a LBI who has no sense of humor!

Parelli has detailed info on this & the other 3 main "horsenalities". There's clicker training, too, which is great for food-motivated horses.
 
#7 ·
He sounds like a difficult horse and as far as your riding, I would just be guessing. Even the worst rider could get on my horse and he would try to please.
 
#8 ·
He's trying to shorten the distance. I don't stop working him and let him rest until we get outside the arena gate. Then I hop off of him. He was gate sour and everytime we went by the gate he'd stop. But I've fixed that and he won't stop anymore. He's definitely a horse that is a little beyond my skill level in riding, but it is a good learning experience, but is also frustrating at the same time. And when I start to get discouraged I don't slump my shoulders and hang my head I tend to get a little more harsh with him. But here's the weird part...when I'm in a canter he stays along the rail just fine. He may cut a corner every couple times around and I'll correct him, but he only has problems in a walk and trot, more the trot than the walk.

He is for sale and when I was working him today some people came by to check him out and ride him and he was doing the exact same thing he does with me when they were riding him. But they also let him get away with a lot of things that I've trained him he can't do so I have a feeling tomorrow we're going to have to go back over stuff I've already worked out of him (I thought). For example he liked to stop when we were walking or trotting and start grazing on grass sticking into the arena. I never let him get away with that and trained it out of him and he won't do it anymore. Today when the other people were riding him he'd try to do it and they'd let him and sit and run him a minute then start him off again. A little frustrating when I've worked to get him out of that, and now he might think it's ok again. We'll see tomorrow :/
 
#10 ·
The trot is actually a lot more work for a horse than a canter. I find if a horse is going to get lazy it'll be at a trot. The horse I take lessons on is pretty lazy. She knows that the lesson people let her get away with stuff. I tend to not be as firm as I would be with my own horse because I am still feeling out the instructor. Thankfully she is usually of the mind that I need to tap the horse with the whip (when lunging) or give her a kick when riding.

For my own horses, I don't do a lot of ring work (we don't have an arena or a riding ring). So I might not be much help there. I tend to work my gelding while riding down the road. We'll stop and do some hind quarter yields, or giving the shoulder. I need to do more training and less 'riding'.

Maybe break up your routine. Instead of just getting off when you leave the riding ring work him outside. And then bring him back into the ring to unsaddle him by the rail. Just some things that I would try.
 
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#11 ·
Yeah, that's a good idea GallopingGuitarist. I'm also going to try to not get off of him in the same spot every time too, different spots each time to keep him from getting the habit. And I'm the only one who rides him, I'm basically training him to be sold, which I had no idea until today. I'm a little sad because I've worked hard on him and I hate to see him go. I know it sounds like he has problems, but he was much worse. He had no ground manners and loved to buck and was cinchy and liked to raise his leg at you when walking behind. Now he's a lot better, he just has a few riding problems that need to be worked out. All this hard work and he's leaving :-(. They didn't say whether or not they were buying him, and I don't think they will because they were buying it for their teenage daughter and when she rode him she had more problems than I did! You cannot be gentle or passive with this horse. You have to have a firm hand with him, I mean I'm not really rough with him, you just have to remind him you're the rider and he's the horse.
 
#12 ·
How often are you riding him?

Sometimes horses just need work. I know when I used to ride my horse after a long break he wouldn't do anything right, but given some regular work they get it back pretty quickly.

I'd probably work on lots of circles rather than just trying to keep him to the rail. Too many horses seem to "learn" to ride to the rail (or away from it when suits them). Get him going where you want him to and keep him guessing, keep changing so he has to pay attention and when he tries to drop out then ride him harder, change things up.
 
#13 ·
The arena is exactly big, I mean it's not really small but it's on the smaller size so he needs to ride on the rail in order to make a good circle and give me plenty of room for maneuvers, and his version of a circle is small haha.

I ride him almost every day, but he had all last week off so that could be the problem too. We'll see how he does tomorrow. And someone said he could be dropping his shoulder, he could be and think thats one of the problems. I don't think it's my legs because I am conscious of my legs when I ride and where they are and where my toes are pointed because I do use spurs.
 
#14 ·
And someone said he could be dropping his shoulder, he could be and think thats one of the problems. I don't think it's my legs because I am conscious of my legs when I ride and where they are and where my toes are pointed because I do use spurs.
That was me. My horse used to act like a broken trolley. He was just dropping his shoulder cause he didn't know any better. It's kind of like asking someone that also slouches to sit up tall. it feels weird and takes awhile to enforce the new posture.

Same with dropped shoulder. You need to get him more balanced on his feet, instead of putting it all on the inside.

How I worked with Sky when I went home to visit was to tap his shoulder with either a whip, or (my method) my foot until he was straight and then leave him be. If he slipped again I'd just tap him again. Eventually he got better in just a few sessions. I even noticed him straighter on the lungeline.
 
#15 ·
He seems to stumble every now and then too, so I think you're right about dropping his shoulder and I'll work more on that tomorrow. I felt kind embarrassed today too because the lady and her daughter watched me ride for like 30 minutes and me trying to get control of Dusty and getting frustrated. It put me in a bad mood and it was irritating. Honestly today was the worst he's acted in a while and he had to pick today to be really bad of coarse! Haha, When people want to come watch me! it also irritated me because the lady yelled down at me "you need to keep him on the rail! That's your job!" I was kinda like "No kidding!!! What do you think I'm trying to do!?" Rrrrrr....made me feel stupid :/. But I guess this is all part of becoming a trainer....
 
#18 ·
I want him on the rail because like I said, it's a small arena. And when he's not on the rail he just runs around aimlessly. He doesn't go in just a smaller circle, he cuts across the middle and cuts corners and goes here and there and most importantly won't listen and he tries to resist the rail for some reason. I don't work him on the rail all the time and he can do circles and things without support of the wall. I mean, I don't want him against the rail completely, but I really want him to follow the general pattern of the arena instead of cutting the corners and trying to go through the middle. He needs to stay in a consistent circle or oval, not creating his own path that is different each time around the arena. Kinda make sense?

I'm going to try what you suggested tinyliny tomorrow when I work with him and also see if he really is dropping his shoulder and try fixing that.
 
#20 ·
what is going to be his dicapline? is he going to be a childs horse or dressage? or trail?

QH live for ages we have a 30 yr old thats in work (dressage) and small sporting events is his limit now, he can jump and do barrals but its not fair on his front knees as he has arthritus
he will be in retirement this yr.
see if this was my horse, i wouldnt be botherd in what he can do in the arena,
id be focused on taking him out on trails, relistically hes 23 yrs old and is a senior, depending on his health and work is whether he will be in retirement early or late, but this is just my opinion
 
#22 ·
He was just going to be a trail horse.

Well, today I figured out that his disobediance goes beyond his grumpiness and being difficult. Today whenever I cued him into a trot he wouldn't go into a trot and would start sidestepping or moving his forequarters and turning and spinning acting like he was trying to everything he could do to stop me from putting him into a trot or canter. I called my instructor to come take a look at him and showed him what he was doing and we both came to the decision to stop working him for the day and have him checked out because he was acting lame. At first I though the was getting his cues mixed up, but I think the problem goes beyond that. What do yall think?

My instructor has a new horse to train and is putting me on him tomorrow, so I'm excited for that. He's a nice looking paint horse, he only has one spot of white on his leg and he's all black everywhere else.

If Dusty is unridable, I'm going to miss the old guy. Even though he was difficult he taught me a lot and made me a better horseman and trainer.
 
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