Help I have a clumsy Horse!!!

My boy stumbled alot when I first got him- usually at a walk. Have been working with the farrier and he has been bringing my guys heels up which has helped a lot. The farrier thinks some of his stumbling was pain from stones, etc since he was so far back on his heels he was getting stone bruises. I also started him on Cortaflex, since he seemed stiff. But sometimes I think he just does not pay attention to where he is going!

My mustang Jack has been thru "the clumsies" a couple times.

The first time, he was having a problem with being very forward. We spent a lot of time working on getting his hind feet to cross up under him and getting his weight back over his hind. As one of the other commentators mentioned, a lot of it was building up strength in his hind.

The second time was definitely a question of distractedness. He was spending most of his time paying attention to anything except his job and I wasn't giving him enough support. By working on getting him with me, building his confidence and keeping his attention busy and focussed, we eventually worked our way to where he's pretty good now.

This is a pretty common problem among horses who spent their entire lives on flat, grassy areas like many horses do. If they spend all their lives in a flat paddock or in a stall and are never ridden out of an arena or a track, they begin to think that the entire world is flat and smooth. Then when they end up in an area with rocks or holes or even mild hills, they don't know how to adjust and that results in stumbling.

Ground poles will help, but IMHO, there is nothing better for these types of horses than to ride them at a walk through slightly rough country. Nothing dangerous, but plenty of cattle trails and a few washout places. Hills, trees, deadfalls, etc. Working them in an area where they really have to think about where they are putting their feet and how they are using them will help a bunch.

All of these posts are really good, but I want to emphasize having a vet check him as well. My TB gelding had the same issues, and we had his feet checked and just thought he was lazy. No matter what kind of training...conditioning...he was still clumsy. And he got worse. We had the vet check for wobbles. It turns out that he had some sort of damage to his spinal cord that was causing the problems, he couldn't really tell where his hind feet were.

Star the arab is a clutz, he will be walking and trip out of nowhere then do the look to make sure no one saw it.... but when he works he's graceful... today he tripped because he was paying more attention to coming to me rather than watching his feet.

Now Sadie is a different story, she's been worked hard in a previous life (amish started) and has a bum knee that will trip from time to time. We keep her healthy with Adequan shots regularly.

Another thing i've seen is they will trip on purpose if they don't want to work.

I'd check the joints make sure there are no problems there, check with your vet but a round of MSM powder in the feeding may show improvement but like us the horse's knees have the same problems, a good glucosamine and chondroitin (not sure I spelled that right) regimen can help with that also.