The shame of a nappy horse!

This is actually quite embarrassing. Over the years I have enjoyed the perfect trail riding horse. I have waxed ecstatic on how perfect my horse is. "Oh Phoenix is perfect!! She Never puts a foot wrong!!! I can do anything with MY horse! I can take her anywhere!!!" Blah, blah, blah.

Any way as some of you know we have had a change of location. At our previous home Phoenix lived on the lawn and was very much part of the family. At our new residence we can't do that with her so initially she was very isolated from company. Then my sister (who lives just down the road from us) suggested that I put Phoenix in with her horse, Arlia. Which we have done. Arlia is the top dog in the paddock and Phoenix is absolutely submissive to her.

Since putting them together I have had problems riding Phoenix away from Arlia. One day I battled with her for 20 minutes before I just backed her down to the beach because I couldn't get her to go forward. Once she was away from Arlia she was OK. Our leaving Arlia battles, have progressively got shorter as I have won every one of them. However now I am finding Phoenix is an absolute bitch to ride.

She just will not calm down, she will not stand still, I can barely open a gate from her back at the moment because she just won't listen to my legs and wont stop fidgeting. I can barely open a gate from the ground because she won't stand still and pushes into me and walks all over me. She is constantly grinding on the bit, she just won't listen to me.

Yesterday we had only gone about 500 yards from her paddock and she was sweating like a necrophiliac in a morgue. And of course there is the constant screaming for Arlia and the crapping every 50 yards.

It got so bad yesterday that I ended up in the first flat paddock I found, schooling her for nearly an hour. Round and round the paddock trotting and cantering, just to try and expend some of the nervous energy she has. By the time we were finished she was dripping with sweat and heaving for breath. She behaved better for a bout 15 minutes then progressively wound herself back up again.

Will this get better? This herd bound crap is doing my head in. I want my nice riding horse back.

Necrophilia is an erotic attraction to corpses.....I think you meant Necrophobic as in Necrophobia. LOL Sorry.....just made me laugh

Roflmao to funny. I am sorry about your horse problems, but that just made my day!

No, I meant necrophiliac. Have you not heard the saying? Let me paint you a picture. A necrophiliac in a morgue...sweating because he is so excited and spoiled for choice. Do you get it? No? It must be a cultural gap.

LOL I got it.. made me laugh... Hope your horse smartens up !

Yeah.....guess I missed that saying somewhere along the line.

Kiwi I feel your pain, My mare flo is a total bitch! Napping, bucking, bolting, biting, she is aggressive toward other horses but yet if she's on her own in the field she'll get very distressed! Iam at my wits end with her. I will be completley honest and say that I did let her get away with it at the start, I was 15 when I got handed this big strong 16.2h (night)mare and am not afaird to say I was scared of her, but my trainer at the time just kept saying aw she'll come around, tuffen yourself up. See the yard I worked in I was in charge of breaking most of the 3yr olds so they just presumed I could handle her.

So my advise to you would be to nip this behaviour in the bud asap! For your own sanity! Trust me it really gets to you emotionally after a while. If you have access to another field away from this other horse Id get her outa there now, Get a donkey/mini/ even a goat to keep her company if your worried about that. Id give her a day or2 to settle back in and then start her into a serious training regime for the next few weeks. Lunge her before you get on to get any fiz outa her. And when you do ride her be really firm and don't let her away with anything, even the simpilest of things, you need her to realise that your still the boss. Id keep this up until you see a real difference in her behaviour, always reward her after she's ridden out well, make a fuss of her. Horses arent stupid she'll soon cop on that she was only making life hard for herself.

I really wish you the best of luck with her, speaking as a person whos had a horse nearly 9yrs with those problems, its not fun. Would do anything to go back to the start and re-wire her brain!

You did this to yourself you know! You went & bragged about how perfect your horse was, big mistake. They record this in their equine brains then proceed to make liars of you. Fact - happens all the time. All animals do this, they swore some sort of oath regarding this. Now you have a job ahead of you, make her behaviour back to what it was. Good luck!

What are you feeding her? Is it anything diffrent? I have this issue now with my arab and my rescue colt. But this is how I have always gotten rid of the problem both horses saddled up two ridders ride away from one another come togeather again and ride away... repeat takes days. But it works.

Oh the shame! You are so right waresbear, I should have kept my big mouth shut.