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how to stop a runaway horse

18K views 38 replies 18 participants last post by  NorthernMama 
#1 ·
Hello,
I have been riding horses all my life. I am an experienced rider. I have been training horses for 3 years now, mostly just my own. I received a belgian/quarter horse cross about 9 months ago. He just turned 4 this year. He was 3 months into training. He was doing so well, until this saturday.

I have been riding him with a double band side pull, mostly working on collection at the trot, and stopping. He has only been cantered a hand full of times and only after he mastered the stop at a fast trot. I have good control of his hind quarters at both the trot and the canter.

This saturday, while training in a large open field, we were working on collecting his trot and stopping at the trot. This horse did not spook. Again, HE DID NOT SPOOK. He made a decision that he wanted to be home. He ran away from the other horse that my friend was riding in the field with me. I mean he galloped as fast as he could. We were over 3 miles away from home. He ran out across well traveled roads (of which i clenched my teeth every time). He ran through several empty corn fields. There was nothing i was able to do to stop this horse. He was going to take me through the swamp to go home. The only reason we didnt make it home was because at an all out gallop he made a 90 degree turn into the swamp and fell ontop of me.

Now i tried every method of stopping this horse. He knows how to tuck his rear under him and come to an immediate hault with no reins, just by simply rocking my weight to the back of the saddle. So it is not as if he did not understand the command. I also tried rocking the reins. Pulling his head around (this is where it gets interesting). I dont know if its because of his size or what, but no matter how hard i pulled or jerked on one rein, i could not get even his nose to budge. It was as if he locked his head, neck and nose in place. I even tried reaching toward his nose and grabbing the rope haulter to pull his head arround. NOTHING worked.

I could not get back up on this horse. We had been running for several minutes and i could not breath. When he fell on me it tore the rotator cuff in my shoulder and injured my knee. I know this horse will do it again, because i could not get back up on him. He now knows what to do to get someone off of him and get back home.

Please if anyone has any suggestions, please offer them up. This horse put my life in danger as well as the people driving on the roads i crossed. If i cannot fix this, I am not sure of what the outcome will be for this horse.
 
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#32 ·
So you're saying people shouldn't barrel race, or anything that involves turning a horse at higher speeds? Just trying to understand your line of thinking here, especially since horses will turn and burn even in turn out...
 
#33 ·
When did I say that? How can you equate a horse trained to run barrels within the confines of an arena with a horse that is in a dead run and determined to get straight home whether there's a highway in the way or not? The barrel horse knows he's going to be turning 3 times in the span of his run. I'm not a western rider, but I'm assuming he is taught to do this at slower speeds and knows to anticipate slowing down and balancing himself before the turns. I'm also hoping that most of the turning is done on his haunches and not being pulled around on an inside rein.

A horse who is bolting isn't anticipating squat. He's just running as fast as he can. No, I wouldn't dream of pulling of bolting horse's head all the way around to my hip. Below is a pic of my horse traveling at roughly 38 mph. Which technique would you use to stop him? Pull his neck around or straight line leverage?
 

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#34 ·
Since he was a race horse, pulling on him wouldn't have done any good anyway, am I correct? They use something like the pulley rein to slow them down I think, right? This is not your normal runaway horse, though, but one that is trained to run a certain way, so again, a different thing than highlighted in the OP's original post

I mainly stated what I said since you said you would never turn a horse at high speed; trust me, I have seen alot of barrel horses who have not been taught how to turn properly, and they are still able to turn without slipping and falling...so there is still risk even there.

I still think it comes down to that "life or death" instance, and what you can actually get the horse to do, in order to get him TO slow down or stop.

As I've mentioned, I have slowed horses by slowly turning them into a circle, and then being able to utilize the ORS effectively on a runaway horse. BUT I also know how to ensure that the horse remains balanced as well. I've never had to use the pulley rein to get a horse to slow down or stop, but I do know how to implement it if I have to. I'm not trying to argue over this, either, so please don't take it that way. :D
 
#35 ·
Unless you have a special reason for keeping him in a side pull, I'd pitch it and put him in a bridle. At 4, in my experience anyway, horses enter what I call the "what-will-happen-if-I-decide" stage and this is when they start testing you. They are over the "I'm-not-sure-about-this" cautious stage, through the routine "I-get-it" stage and into the figuring out what they can and cannot do with what they know stage. And this horse has just learned that, if he chooses to, he can out-horse you - and he's likely to try it again - not because you didn't get back on, but because you couldn't control or stop him. Unless he's a psychic there is no way he could know that you couldn't get back on, only that you didn't. And let's face it, if you had of been able to get back on, would you have had any better control of him than you did before he bolted? I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not always a good thing to "get back up there" if nothing has changed. Did he take off after the fall, or did you lead him home? If you led him home, then he still didn't get home on his terms, but yours. If he took off and left you, then he made it home on his own terms, without you. Most horses don't realize how their riders got on the ground, they don't make the immediate connection between dethroning riders by bucking or bolting until it happens again. Because of this, I don't blindly subscribe to the "get back on them" mentality. I judge whether or not I can address what went wrong and work the horse through it if I remount. If I was badly shaken or hurt I usually won't remount as I don't want to risk a repeat performance which would be worse! The last thing I want to do after losing control or being thrown is remount simply to "show him whose boss" or because I "can't let him get away with that". If at any time I feel like I have to prove something to the horse, I step back and address it another day…on my terms and my time, not his. At other times I may know what went wrong, remount and work through it at that time.
 
#36 ·
Just a thought, why don't we go back in the horses training and see what is broken. Everyone seems to want to look for a mechanical fix to the situation. I do not want to take anything away from the person that trained this horse, but something in the foundation is lacking.
I have been training for years, and to blame the horse is human nature. We all have time constraints, "Git her done" but that usually comes back and bites us on the ***. This is an example and I am very sorry you got hurt.
What if we go back and look at the basic training, something there is slightly out. Maybe the horse got the idea was not pushed hard enough to make it go pop so we could fix it. When we train we need to push our horses to find out what sets them off. This does not need to be mean or nasty, it is more about setting them up so we can correct.
Years ago I had a mustang gelding I was training, he was a huge brute that was well trained. What he was was a ticking time bomb. So long as he wanted to do what you wanted to do he was a great horse. The instant he got bored, he headed home and there was nothing anyone could do.
Gor three days I rode this horse in a corral, doing the exact oppisite of what it wanted to do. If it wanted to walk we went to the trott, or lope. It wanted to go left we went right. You get the idea.
At the end of the three days this big old boy lost it, it5 was the explosion from hell. He reared, took off on his back feet and I was not sure if he was going all the way. When he decided to come back down, he was the nicest boy you could want. To this day those folk still think I created some miracle. All I did was piss their horse off and showed him that I was still there. Soon as he realized I was not going away he stopped all the attitude.
 
#39 ·
I thought it would make them rear too, which is why I tried it. I have a mare that has reared on me and I didn't want to encourage it. It doesn't. And if you think about it, when you use it, you are in forward motion. For the horse to rear, he has to come to a stop and then rear. Well before he stops you release the pulley rein anyway as you have accomplished what was needed. Having tried it, I don't think even at a stop that the PR would encourage a rear.
 
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