ok this might get a bit long so please bear with me. a cup of coffee and a biscuit or two might be in order for this lol
here goes:
in other posts i have touched on the situation with my green broke qh. in short the story is...4 weeks ago i sent my 4 year old qh off to be broken. he was only sent so old because i got him as a 3 year old that was in bad shape and undergrown. i had to wait until he had grown and developed a bit more before i could have him broken.
anyways, i bought him home from the breakers early because they were complaining about how difficult he was which confused me as i had had him saddled a dozen or more times before he left and he had had the bridle on just as many times. they said he was putting on a right show with all this stuff too which my reply was basically 'what did you do to make him like that?' of course it was apparently my fault even though he was an angel for me. anyhoo, somewhere along the line he became girthy and incredibly head shy. oh yeah and for some stupid, idiotic reason they were hobbling him to lunge him ???? then wondering why he was arking up when they asked him to move forward ???? needless to say when i turned up to check on all this and they were once again lunging him hobbled, i pulled him out and bought him home. maybe not the brightest idea in the world from a training perspective but i felt it would be more detrimental to him to leave him there. he had been backed twice at this point so i figured as long as that was done i would be ok.
and until today i have been. he obviously knew next to nothing but in the last couple of weeks ive been working on leg aids, getting him to follow his head and perfecting our whoa he has a great stop! thats one thing i suppose.
anyhoo, getting off track a little. he has a SUPER soft mouth which is fine but at this stage i need a little something to work with. i dont mean i want to hang off his mouth or anything as thats not what i want but when you have no leg aids or recognition of weight distribution in the seat you need something. so far though i have managed to get by with working him in a large round yard where i can focus more on getting him moving off my leg etc without worrying about him taking off and me having such a soft, fresh mouth to try and work with. but, all in all, we were doing well. ive been doing lunge work in loose-ish side reins so he gets the feel of a little more contact with his mouth. before that i would only have to put the tiniest, and i mean tiniest, amount of pressure on his mouth and he would lift and throw his head around (have had the dentist check his teeth and they are A-OK). after a week and a half with the side reins he was giving to the pressure a bit more and last time i rode him he was SUPER!!! i had a little more mouth control and combined with starting to work off my leg and following his head i felt we had made a little breakthrough of sorts.
then came today!!! until today i have been trailering him around to my friends place to use her round yard but during the week hubby built us one and today i got to try it out well...he had no mouth and i mean, no mouth. i had nothing to work with. absolutely nothing. he might as well have never had a bit in his mouth before today. i controlled him for a while using my legs but he isnt far enough along to be completely controlled by legs.
i know all horses have bad days but ive been on first time rides with breakers and never found the problems i found with arizona today.
different things that MAY have contributed to the problem:
1) at home i ride him in an aussie stock saddle as i dont have a western saddle YET. at my friends place i use her western saddle. the few times i have ridden him in the stock saddle he has been a little more agitated. the saddle fits him fine though. ive done all the saddle fitting tests and it actually fits him really well. i used to work for a saddlery and they put me through a saddling fitting course with our saddle fitter which was great. learnt EXACTLY how to fit a saddle.
2) he is a colt and here he has the mares he is used to and is always pining for. at my friends place her horses are kept far away from the round yard and he doesnt know them. even though he was a fair distance from my mares maybe he was funny about them. dountful but maybe
3) our round yard is open on the sides. maybe he feels a little more out in the open therefore a little more toey???
4) it was a little windy. he has worked fine in the wind before but maybe something else had him agitated at the moment. i know working in windy weather can often be hard but where i live its windy like 95% of the time. most of my horses are pretty much used to it now and unless its blowing a gale i can pretty much work with them like normal. even arizona is normally fine in the wind.
5) he is a little girthy since he came home. ive been working with him on this and he has been getting a lot better and today we managed to get an extra hole up on the girth without him cracking it. his girthiness does transfer to saddle work but considering i got the extra hole without him taking off and bucking around the joint i was under the impression that he was starting, slowly to get past it.
6) hes a colt and therefore unpredictable. please no harassing me because he is a colt. he will be gelded but we have had some issues. gelding pending
these are all options maybe however i dont feel that many of those are really going to give me no control on his mouth. its just like he was never mouthed
help!!!!!!! lol most things i can work through and maybe we just had a bad day but i prefer to get on top of things before they become major issues. out of all my horses this boy is my baby and i only want whats best for him
i may have missed something vital but im going crossed eyed from reading through and through trying to make sure i havent missed anything
here goes:
in other posts i have touched on the situation with my green broke qh. in short the story is...4 weeks ago i sent my 4 year old qh off to be broken. he was only sent so old because i got him as a 3 year old that was in bad shape and undergrown. i had to wait until he had grown and developed a bit more before i could have him broken.
anyways, i bought him home from the breakers early because they were complaining about how difficult he was which confused me as i had had him saddled a dozen or more times before he left and he had had the bridle on just as many times. they said he was putting on a right show with all this stuff too which my reply was basically 'what did you do to make him like that?' of course it was apparently my fault even though he was an angel for me. anyhoo, somewhere along the line he became girthy and incredibly head shy. oh yeah and for some stupid, idiotic reason they were hobbling him to lunge him ???? then wondering why he was arking up when they asked him to move forward ???? needless to say when i turned up to check on all this and they were once again lunging him hobbled, i pulled him out and bought him home. maybe not the brightest idea in the world from a training perspective but i felt it would be more detrimental to him to leave him there. he had been backed twice at this point so i figured as long as that was done i would be ok.
and until today i have been. he obviously knew next to nothing but in the last couple of weeks ive been working on leg aids, getting him to follow his head and perfecting our whoa he has a great stop! thats one thing i suppose.
anyhoo, getting off track a little. he has a SUPER soft mouth which is fine but at this stage i need a little something to work with. i dont mean i want to hang off his mouth or anything as thats not what i want but when you have no leg aids or recognition of weight distribution in the seat you need something. so far though i have managed to get by with working him in a large round yard where i can focus more on getting him moving off my leg etc without worrying about him taking off and me having such a soft, fresh mouth to try and work with. but, all in all, we were doing well. ive been doing lunge work in loose-ish side reins so he gets the feel of a little more contact with his mouth. before that i would only have to put the tiniest, and i mean tiniest, amount of pressure on his mouth and he would lift and throw his head around (have had the dentist check his teeth and they are A-OK). after a week and a half with the side reins he was giving to the pressure a bit more and last time i rode him he was SUPER!!! i had a little more mouth control and combined with starting to work off my leg and following his head i felt we had made a little breakthrough of sorts.
then came today!!! until today i have been trailering him around to my friends place to use her round yard but during the week hubby built us one and today i got to try it out well...he had no mouth and i mean, no mouth. i had nothing to work with. absolutely nothing. he might as well have never had a bit in his mouth before today. i controlled him for a while using my legs but he isnt far enough along to be completely controlled by legs.
i know all horses have bad days but ive been on first time rides with breakers and never found the problems i found with arizona today.
different things that MAY have contributed to the problem:
1) at home i ride him in an aussie stock saddle as i dont have a western saddle YET. at my friends place i use her western saddle. the few times i have ridden him in the stock saddle he has been a little more agitated. the saddle fits him fine though. ive done all the saddle fitting tests and it actually fits him really well. i used to work for a saddlery and they put me through a saddling fitting course with our saddle fitter which was great. learnt EXACTLY how to fit a saddle.
2) he is a colt and here he has the mares he is used to and is always pining for. at my friends place her horses are kept far away from the round yard and he doesnt know them. even though he was a fair distance from my mares maybe he was funny about them. dountful but maybe
3) our round yard is open on the sides. maybe he feels a little more out in the open therefore a little more toey???
4) it was a little windy. he has worked fine in the wind before but maybe something else had him agitated at the moment. i know working in windy weather can often be hard but where i live its windy like 95% of the time. most of my horses are pretty much used to it now and unless its blowing a gale i can pretty much work with them like normal. even arizona is normally fine in the wind.
5) he is a little girthy since he came home. ive been working with him on this and he has been getting a lot better and today we managed to get an extra hole up on the girth without him cracking it. his girthiness does transfer to saddle work but considering i got the extra hole without him taking off and bucking around the joint i was under the impression that he was starting, slowly to get past it.
6) hes a colt and therefore unpredictable. please no harassing me because he is a colt. he will be gelded but we have had some issues. gelding pending
these are all options maybe however i dont feel that many of those are really going to give me no control on his mouth. its just like he was never mouthed
help!!!!!!! lol most things i can work through and maybe we just had a bad day but i prefer to get on top of things before they become major issues. out of all my horses this boy is my baby and i only want whats best for him
i may have missed something vital but im going crossed eyed from reading through and through trying to make sure i havent missed anything