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The one problem I can't fix - He has to lead.

3K views 45 replies 18 participants last post by  Smilie 
#1 ·
So the biggestish problem I've had with Jax since getting him almost two years ago is he insists on leading on trails.

Hes a very confident leader, he moves out at a good pace and sets a good example. So technically its usually not an issue BUT a well trained horse should be able to follow as well.

He is gaited, so naturally has a faster walk.

He WILL follow behind faster moving horses pretty well without a fuss, but when I'm riding with my QH friends? Its the biggest fight in the world till I just give up and let him lead. Then he drops his head and just walks out nicely and calmly.

I've tried circling, backing, riding it out just nothing seems to work. He just gets hotter and hotter until I just let him get in front.

It just always feels like a losing battle every time I try to work on it. Do I just throw in the towel?

Last night we did a parade, I started in the back with my friends....ya that didn't last long. The rushing/head tossing started...so I tried circling, he gets hotter...and circling doesn't work well in a parade...I gave in and let him get to front of the pack behind a wagon...then he was happy as a clam and cool as a cucumber (lol). I just don't know what to do.

I mean I'm lucky he is at least a very good confident leader but I always feel like a bad horse rider/trainer (I only work on my own horses) when I can't make him calmly follow slower horses :( He just gets SO FRUSTRATED THAT THEY'RE SLOW!
 
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#2 ·
Personally I'd train him to follow as well, but he's not my horse. You say he's learned that by pitching a fit you'll give in and allow him to lead. You also say he's a good leader. Teaching him to follow now, after learning that you'll just give in, is going to take a lot of hard work. You may decide it's not worth it.

Whenever a horse of mine doesn't want to go somewhere, I make that place a place to rest and work him hard everywhere else. This way you make it "his" idea to go where you want him, and I find it works very well. Start out at the back. If he pitches a fit, and he will, a lot, in the beginning, let him go to the front. In fact push him, trot him up there. Then when he gets to the front, circle around the lead horse a lot, at a fast trot. Change directions frequently, but keep him trotting fast (or gaiting fast since you say he's gaited. Just make it a speed that will make him sweat). If there are multiple horses, weave him in and out among them. Circle each horse a few times. Then take him back to the rear, and walk. Let him relax (or try to anyway). If he wants to lead again, push him to the front and start working again.

You will have to stand your ground and be consistent, but this has never failed me yet. Depending on how ingrained the "I must lead!" behavior is it might take an hour or it might take a few days. But he'll come around, and eventually he'll realize that the only thing he gets being in the lead is hard work and he won't be quite so excited to be up there anymore. But like I said, you'll have to keep at it and outlast him, and you'll have to decide if it's worth it for you. Personally I can't stand always having to twist around in my saddle to talk to people, so I wouldn't stand for a horse that always has to be in front, but again he's YOUR horse. Do what works for you. : )

-- Kai
 
#3 ·
Thanks! What you described is what Clinton Anderson recommends too on a video I watched. I gave that a try...and sadly...he was excited to work out front LOL! Maybe I just didn't give it long enough though. Hes just turning 7 and LOVES to gogogo. Mind you he will walk when I ask him to but if I ask him to move out? Hes in heaven. If I can find a wide enough trail I could try adding obstacles maybe?

Well if I ride with other gaited horses or horses that CAN walk out, he will follow. Its mainly the slow pokes that he gets so frustrated to follow and then yes, its lots of yelling behind me or stopping and circles while they catch up lol. Thats just one of the joys of riding gaited with non gaited I guess :(

Just have to make him realize it doesn't kill him to walk like a turtle sometimes :(

I'll have to try working on it more in a good environment. Some of our trails are very narrow/rough terrain so I really do have to pick and choose my battles.
 
#44 ·
Well if I ride with other gaited horses or horses that CAN walk out, he will follow. Its mainly the slow pokes that he gets so frustrated to follow and then yes, its lots of yelling behind me or stopping and circles while they catch up lol. Thats just one of the joys of riding gaited with non gaited I guess :(

.

I'd say it's the speed that some of the non gaited horses are travelling at much more than his position in the line that he's objecting to. I'd be working on getting him slower although it is so easy for a gaited horse to cover ground.
 
#4 ·
I haven't seen you ride so I can't really say, but ... I would hazard a guess that you're giving up too early. Like I said, you've taught him to stay the distance, so now YOU have to stay the distance. He may love to go, which sucks for stuff like this (I had a Quarab when I was younger that took me 30 minutes of fast trotting to get to the point where I felt she was ready for a break) but I promise you can sit in the saddle for longer than he can have a spaz attack. You just have to stick with it. He may get hotter for a while, but he doesn't have an unlimited supply of energy unless you're feeding him jet fuel, and eventually he'll run out of air and plateau. ; ) He'll get tired. But you have to stick it out. That's why I brought up the fact that it may not be worth your time, since he leads fairly well.

I should mention, in the beginning when you're doing a lot of circling and weaving and so forth, it's much easier to teach this to your horse in an arena or an open field, instead of a tight narrow trail. Obviously that would present some problems.

-- Kai
 
#5 ·
Ha! Yeah I'll have to put on my big girl pants and see if I can outlast him!! I know my friend and her daughter wont mind "helping" with their horses.

No arena at home and I wont ride at more then a walk in my fields :( My fields are small so I'm way over protective of what little grass I have lol!

We do have lots of rail trail though....very wide! And nice open stretch, I bet that would be perfect.

Thank you!
 
#7 ·
Honestly not really. Unless he's having bratty moment because he isn't interested in where we are going...his average me not asking for anything walk is about 3.3-3.6 mph. Which technically isn't that fast but some horses just don't even do that :(

That's just his normal comfortable pace. I have tried working on slowing it down big again he gets pretty frustrated. I guess j rationalize it as "well I guess I would be pretty annoyed too if I was just trying to walk my normal stride and someone kept making me go slower..." Maybe that's a bad way to look at it though? I know as a human I have a comfortable pace I like to walk and when I go slower I just feel awkward and uncomfortable sometimes?

Best ideas for slowing down his walk? Again circles or backing or going back up trail just make him hot. One thing I have found effective is zig zagging lol! Or if he tries to rush I start zig zagging him.
 
#8 ·
Jax sounds like he's related to the horse in my avatar.

TWH Duke was also a very strong leader, fearless, and tough-as-nails.

He was only 14.3H and had a tremendous reach - jaw dropping tremendous for his size. Horses hitting 16H couldn't keep up with him, even when he wasn't trying to out walk them. My other Walking Horses couldn't keep up with his "dog walk" in the pasture. His long stride kept him from slowing down too much.

He would start out in the top ten in an all day, organized ride and finish in the top ten.

Being an alpha and taking that role seriously, Duke was a horse whose brain was always five minutes ahead of his body. I could always see the smoke coming off those wheels, lollol.

Duke was a very well mannered horse, polite and respectful. Never once in his 27 years offered to bite, kick, rear, buck or otherwise be pig-headed, so I left him have that one little walking quirk that was powered by those huge over-reaching strides he had.

The day Duke did start to slow down was when he started to get sick with Equine Metabolic Syndrome; he was around 16-17.

Try and find a happy medium with Jax since, from what you describe he can't slow down:)
 
#9 · (Edited)
My gelding is the same way or rather, was. He walks, trots and canters faster than the quarter horses so it could be an issue, on top of his need to lead.

He just had to get over it.

You have two problems to solve. The first is that his natural speed does not match that of the other horses. The second is that he gets frustrated.
Last winter we were on a ride with only two riders and after a half hour, my horse took some faster steps forward and then actually nudged the horse in front of him in the butt with his nose because it was walking so slow!

It was my fault for not keeping my mind engaged enough to rein him in quickly as well as allowing him to follow closely enough to close that gap so quickly. In our defense though, it was a lady who does tourist trail rides and her horse is not allowed to trot ever. Her horses are trained to walk much slower than normal as a safety precaution. It was so slow that I could have walked faster! My horse wasn’t the only one frustrated.

That was the bad news. The good news was that his nudge, was actually an improvement. Before we started working on his need to lead, like you described, he just would have gotten really hot and tried to take the lead. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have actually bitten that horse in the butt instead of nudging or simply have tried to push that other horse out of the way. He also lasted a whole half hour before getting squirrely.

Normally the people we ride out with will do walk, trot, canter and they are all out on QH’s with the exception of one lady who rides a TWH. They know that left to his own he moves really fast at all three gaits. If he trots, they have to canter, if he canters, they have to gallop to keep us in sight.

Because I had never really worked with him on rating that much, the first step for us was learning to rate speed at all three gaits. This was done in solo format first, to take out the competitive factor, which only complicates things and distracts his mind onto other things. I wanted to set him up for success so this is where we began, solo. Once I knew he understood what I wanted and was capable of doing it, all that was left was to take control of his ‘tude and his need to always be first/win.

Our solution on the trail was to switch up leading horses (My horse is not the only one in our group who has a need to lead). He got to lead for five minutes or thereabouts, then we dropped back at a good place (sometimes 2nd, sometimes in the middle and sometimes all the way to the back. We dropped further back the better he got at this, as he was ready to handle it) and someone else took the lead.

He only got to go back to the lead again if he was calm. Don’t wait until he has gotten so in his head about it that he is showing signs of acting up. Wait for him to behave and then, he can take the lead. This might mean that you are only out of the lead for a minute or two at first. Again set him up to succeed and then make sure that happens.

We also employed a tactic of leaving the group if he started getting to show signs of wanting to pull rank and get “hot”. We would just take a little jaunt off alone for a couple of minutes, keeping the group in sight but far enough away that he felt separated (we were bush riding off trail at that point. Might not be allowed everywhere). When he calmed down, then we could return to the group.

This was not a quick fix, but over time it was quite effective with him. He still prefers the lead if he can have it but has learned that getting pushy (literally) is not the way to get what he wants.
 
#10 ·
walkinthewalk thats Jax exactly! He never bites or kicks, horses can literally sit there rubbing their faces on his butt while he leads them through scarier obstacles. When we went on the railtrail with tunnels the first time, my friends on their older QH's could NOT get their horses to go in the tunnel, Im sure eventually they could have...Jax fussed for a second about it, and I said "No, you're going". Then he walked right in and lead the other two through. This was a train tunnel, literally couldn't see my hands holding the reins. I always know his brain is moving though, at the trailer I HAVE to give him something to keep him busy or hes looking for things to play with. Hes not the type of horse to just stand there boredly he always likes to be engaging in something (I swear its going to kill me one day he can be so needy).

Reiningcatsanddogs your horse sounds a lot like him!! Is funny if I'm not paying attention he too will actually nudge the other horses to try and push them faster! Its not meanly, no biting involved.....hes just like "Come onnnn you can do it!".

I like your ideas a lot, we do ride solo a lot and I do try and practice rating him quite a bit actually. Still have trouble rating his canter but I'm doing decent with walk and his gait...well besides getting him to snail speed (lol). He is VERY competitive with the other horses, I think its still partially a young horse thing? He stays controllable but its like, if we're cantering, and the horses get "eye to eye", Jax all of a sudden shifts into another gear.

I like your idea of separating him though. Hes a very social horse, LOVES being with his friends...so I know he wont love it to branch off, but he'll do it. Hes very smart so I'm sure he'll put two and two together. "Oh man if I try to pass my friends mom takes me away...I must be good boy so I can stay with them" I swear thats what will go through his head when it clicks for him. Obviously I'll have to pick and choose my battles and when to work on this though.

Will have to have the right trail conditions and right horses to work on it with, but I'm excited this is something all new to try! Jax is a very smart horse and sometimes its hard to find what "works" for him. When I was training him to stand still for mounting, I tried so many tactics before finding the way that he liked best. Making his feet move, backing circling all made him hot. But getting on the mounting block and slowly asking him to line up by tapping him with a dressage whip..and giving him treat when he got it right? Worked like a charm. Just have to find what will make it click for him!
 
#11 ·
I had a donkey who demanded on being the leader. The previous owners said even when he packed had to be first one down the trail.

I rode him an horrendous amount all by himself. Had to be extremely creative in riding as to never ride back the way we went out as he would bolt and head home. Even getting him to head out by himself was a battle at first. I had to be always outhinking him.


Anyway, all the creative riding on our own he finally gained respect for me and would head anywhere I pointed him. in group as the caboose, middle or first.
 
#12 ·
The hard part with this, because it is not a quick fix, is that for a while, trail rides for you will be of the working variety rather than for the enjoyment factor. It is really important to be consistent, thinking, have excellent timing and methodical until that lightbulb goes off in his head. You have to focus so he can learn to focus. At least that was the hard part for me!
 
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#14 ·
you will need to get a couple , or at least one, friend to help you work on this. you do the leap frog game. you start out leading, and then you turn your horse around (tell those behind you which side you are going to do your 180. "turning left!" and you go back toward the end of the line, while the next in line takes the lead. they ride forward for a minute or so, then they peel off and head back, and you are one horse closer to the front. the idea is that no one horse leads for very long, they are riding the trail in both directions, passing other horses, and changing their positions regularly. they soon learn that they don't have to endure long in the position they don't like. this also helps for horses that dislike leading.
 
#16 ·
It is possible, I mean miracles do happen! My walker Cello was an absolute nightmare as he just had to lead. The problem after that point was he wasn't a very confident leader (he's better leading now) and our rides usually meant I fought him the entire time, and I was always frustrated. So, with help from a friend we started trying some things on the trail. One of them being he wasn't allowed to go past my friends horses nose. Every time he did we turned around and he had to be in the back. If he lost his mind I'd get off and work him on the ground. It took so much effort on my part to make sure he didn't sneak even the tip of nose past the other horse. I'd also work him in circles, back, back, back and back some more. We also did the leap frog game, which worked really well. We tried lots of things, and I'm honestly not the best at explaining them. What I can tell you is it took two riding seasons (I don't get to do much riding in the winter) and we are finally at the point where I am not fighting him the entire ride.
I'm the one with the palomino
 

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#17 ·
Groundwork!! If he doesn't respect you on the ground, he won't respect you when you ride him! That is the way it is with all horses. A little discipline won't hurt. I bought my horse when he was 3. He was a complete nightmare! But I put him in the round pen and messed with him on the ground before I rode him again. Made a HUGE difference! Now that he respects me on the ground, he respects me when I ride him. You need to show him that you are the boss, not him. Rides will go a whole lot better if you work with him on the ground!
Hope this helped! :)
 
#18 ·
We actually have done quite Of ground work and he does respect me. He will go anywhere I point him at any speed (except turtle). I let a friend ride him and he flat out refused to even walk over trees. When I rode him two days ago, it was terrible trail, he had to walk over at least 100 downed trees, some even 2ft wide probably. At one point he smelt something and was scared and wanted to turn and bolt the other way, I told him no and asked him to keep going so he did. I feel like if he didn't respect and trust me he wouldn't of done that.

I mean I'm happy to do more ground work with him, but not sure how that's going to teach him to walk slower like a qh lol! His natural gait is just faster then he gets frustrated when he has to try and walk slower behind slower horses :( behind faster horses he does great.

No round pen or access to one, so our ground work is always on a line. I've done the Clinton Anderson fundamentals with him though. I just have never been able to safely practice the riding exercises because of places I ride.
 
#20 ·
I mean I'm happy to do more ground work with him, but not sure how that's going to teach him to walk slower like a qh lol! His natural gait is just faster then he gets frustrated when he has to try and walk slower behind slower horses :( behind faster horses he does great.
I certainly wish you success with this! My mare is Arab/Saddlebred. She doesn't mosey. I had a goofey thought that she might mellow as she aged. HA! She is 24 and that has not happened. Some may say that she really isn't broke. Whatever. It is frustrating for a rider, and I'm sure the horse, but she is never going to be a QH. It does help if your horse can learn to relax but it's hard to change what they are.
My husband rode a Paint. I actually ended up buying the ball of fire in my avatar (a Paint) in order to make our rides together more enjoyable, especially for him.
Given a choice, personally, I like a horse that wants to move down the trail, but they can be a trial in a group.
 
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#24 ·
MY solution for horses like yours (and like our TWH's too who also out-walk all the other horses) is to play leap frog, where riders move their horse up to the front for a while, then another rider move in front, and so on down the line. I start with just 2 horses, so the headstrong leader doesn't get too antsy being second, then as he settles down to being behind, we add another one so eventually we have 5 or 6 horses and riders playing leap frog.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Haven't read replies yet but sounds like the issue isn't the following (or only very slightly) but is being held back to the slow pace, which if not natural for him I don't really blame him fussing. Isn't it annoying to have to walk really really slow? Like walking with your grandma in a wheelchair for example. Horrid!

I don't have a TWH but I have two gaited horses and don't find them to be any faster, but if your horse is then I would work with what you have.

If you want to "fix" this I'd practice the "walking painfully slow" without other horses around. Personally I'd just leave it, sounds miserable for him and not a training issue, just something that is genuinely difficult mentally and physically.
 
#26 ·
If you want to "fix" this I'd practice the "walking painfully slow" without other horses around. Personally I'd just leave it, sounds miserable for him and not a training issue, just something that is genuinely difficult mentally and physically.
Been thinking more abut this problem. And I think the above poster is correct.

I am a fast walker. Always have been. My youngest dd has leg issues and she walks much slower. My dh is a slow walker.

It Just. Kills. Me. to walk slowly. I just cant do it. I walk a horrendous amount, been married to dh for 19 years and I still cant walk slowly. Dh and I walk 4-5 times a week and I cant walk next to him.

When I fist got into donkeys all but 1 where much slower walkers than horses. They did learn to walk faster.


Makes me wonder if slow walkers can learn to walk faster but maybe fast walker cant learn to go slower?
 
#28 ·
I have been following this with interest. I just got a new TWH last month- and she is very forward and usually leads. She does not HAVE to lead but her natural gait is much faster than the other gaited horses I ride with (another TWH and a Fox Trotter) we do leap frog but she ends up walking on the heels of the horse in front of her. She is not tossing her head or being disrespectful - and where I ride there is no circling on the trails.

I see no reason to penalize a horse for walking out at a speed that is natural to them. My family and I have learned to be OK with me riding quite a ways up front - eventually the horses seem to sort it out themselves and by the end of our ride we are fairly close together on the trail

We all just moved to gaited horses this year and I will tell you it is much better than riding nose to tail on our stock horses like we used to do.
 
#31 ·
Thank you! That's what I've been trying to decide all along. I thought about it the same exact way.

I do still want to try a few of the exercises though, especially leap frog. If I can get him at least a little more comfortable going a tiny bit slower it could help a lot sometimes. I pretty much always dread going on really big rides (10 or more people) because I know he'll want to lead and what if they won't allow that? Happened once and it was a nightmare. What made it even worse was then little kids come coming cantering past us, then stop, get behind again...and repeat. I never want to relive that ride lol.

Last year I did a ride with 30+ people. Started in back wth my friends but quickly ended up towards the front. We ended up staying being two QH's though that actually boogied! He seemed happy there. But if I tried to move him to the back with the slower peeps? It was no longer enjoyable.

Like behind slower horses he'll get fussy, he won't do anything bad to the horses, just tosses his head and lets me know he doesn't like being here as I try to hold him back from riding up their butts...second he gets to lead? Head drops and he just does his natural lovely walk...and we usually leave my friends behind lol! He has no issue what so ever with stopping to wait or doing circles around them. Just when I try to hold him back while walking (he's not trying to bolt) he is not a happy boy.
 
#33 ·
Yes I do love actually MOVING down the trail sometimes lol! My horse before was soooo slow. I like actually getting down the trail and then getting on with my day after the ride!

My mare is slower, I'll just make more of an effort to take her on slower rides/big groups lol! Jax is a tad bit buddy sour when I take her and hes my baby so I always want to take him :(. He usually just calls for 30 minutes or so according to my husband then goes back to eating hay, so nothing dangerous. Orianna is an amazing mare though I do love getting to ride her too so I'll do that more I think!

Proof of how much Jax likes to go riding though, if I walk in the field with his halter, he literally stops anything hes doing to come over and put his head in the halter. If he sees me hooking up the trailer? He stands there staring, excited to go on adventures. If I try and halter Orianna? He's like a little kid "Wait mom what are you doing?! THATS SUPPOSED TO BE ON ME". Orianna will usually walk away from me 10-15ft then decides its not worth it because I'm going to catch her regardless lol! Jax...helps me catch him. He absolutely loves going down the trails.
 
#34 ·


From our ride the other day. We were alone, completely lost at a park I've only been to once before...pouring down rain. Thats about his natural walk though, happy as can be to be going down the trail on loose rein. The trail was so overgrown I couldn't even figure out where we were supposed to be going...he amazingly kept finding the way though, neither of us had ever been on the trail we were doing. Poor guy had to walk over at least 100 downed trees. He got a GOOD work out thats for sure!
 
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