kick stance...

Junior just recently started this new thing where when I go to tighten his saddle he spreads his back feet apart and tries to cow kick me. He usually doesn't kick me but stays in this stance or pose and it does make me kinda cautious and not really want to tighten his saddle. He started doing this after I started riding english and I thought maybe it was because I have a hard time tightening his saddle since i'm not used to tightening the english saddle but I rode western today since my friends horse still had a messed up leg and I was going to let her ride some. Well when I tightened the saddle he did that stance again.

I think it had something to do with that stupid girth my trainer gave me :roll: Now he seems to have this stance every time I tighten a girth on him and its annoying me because of the fact that he could kick me. Not that he does kick me but just that possibility annoys me. He already almost kicked somebody else tightening his saddle once but I kicked him in his leg before he got to the person and I kinda got part of the blow but it didn't hurt because I was so close. That might be why he doesn't kick but what if he wanted to?

Well basically getting to the end of this I just wanted to know how many other people had this problem and how do I fix it?

Sounds "cinchy" to me.

I wish I could help...when I've know a horse is cinchy like that, I've always just been aware of it and been careful not to get kicked. I'll be interested to see if anyone has any solutions other than tightening the girth slowly in stages and watching the horse's body language.

With our cinchy gelding, I like to cinch up just a little bit, walk him, a little more, walk him, and so on about 3-5 times depending on how cinchy he is being that time. I give a lot of re-assuring pats the whole time.

If he were to threaten to kick (ours doesn't kick, but rather seems to jump and dance in place) I would probably turn his head toward me while spanking his but away from me with my hand, and then make him circle a couple of times before calming him and trying again. Our guy is 20 this year, and this was a hard, set habit when we bought him at 8 years old. I am sure a habit like this could be broken, but we just ended up calmly coping with his "quirk" (I am assuming is associated with some mental trauma he received at a young age - possibly when he was being backed).

Oh wow...

Yea I think it was just because the girth hurt him or something. I am currently trying to save up money to get a better more confortable girth and maybe that will help. He never kicks me though but he will try to kick other people when they tighten it and it worries me because some people other than me do ride him at times and I don't want anyone getting hurt.

I usually go somewhat slow and as strange as this sounds I keep as close to his leg as I can that way if he kicks I can pop him real quick and I wont get hurt as bad. I found this to be a good technique but I wanna make him stop fully.