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Another lazy and stubborn mare

2K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  ditzydoo 
#1 ·
Hi, I have a 5 yr. Quarter Horse that I am currently trying to train for barrels. The key word being trying. When we are trail riding she is pretty good. I don't usually have to ask her more than twice to go faster than a walk. When we are riding in the pen or working on barrels she doesn't want to go. It takes sooo much work to get her going and sometimes she just stands there. I have tried pretty much everything that I can think of and read a few posts on the other threads and tried some of those too. Nothing seems to work. I have tried spurs, whip, crop. I have tried kicking and just squeezing. I have tried the squeeze, cluck, spank. It doesn't matter how easy or how hard you whip her or how much leg pressure you use. I haven't tried treats just because the guy that was helping me with her told me not to. She has been given a clean bill of health by the vet and had new shoes put on last week. She just won't do anything. If you keep leg pressure on her or keep spanking her until she goes she just starts doing little bucks tossing her head and still won't go. I have checked all of her tack and everything seems fine. The trainer just said that she is lazy and needs work but I can't work her if she doesn't respond to anything. I can't send her to the trainer because I don't have the money right now. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
 
#2 ·
Is she only doing this in the arena? Sometimes a sour horse will refuse to work. If that is the case, give her some time off from the barrel training.

Does she behave the same way outside of the arena where you are training?
 
#3 ·
Today was the first time I had tried her on barrels again in about a month. She does the same thing out of the arena just not as bad. In or out of the arena she will do what you ask for about the first ten minutes or so and then she just decides that she is done.
 
#5 · (Edited)
It sounds like she just doesn't like being in an arena, and has learned she can shut down in there, and doesn't have to work.

I'd suggest you start from the 'ground-up' on the arena work...instead of trying to ride her immediately, go to the arena and do ground work; longing, bending, flexing, yielding, etc...from the ground; get her to start unsticking her feet from the ground, THEN start focusing on getting back on her and riding her in the arena. Have someone longe her with you on her for a while, then move from there.

I would also work within her 'thresh-hold' time, when you do get up to ride...if you already know she only goes about 10 minutes, then go five, get off, and call it a 'day' for arena work; go out and trail ride after that, if you want to keep riding.

If she refuses to move for you, instead of trying to force her foward, try getting her to yield her hip to you; atleast then you are able to keep her feet moving, rather than her standing there getting fed up with you kicking, clucking, or whipping her, and eventually moving off bucking.
 
#6 ·
I have ruled out all tack problems and it's not just in the arena. She does it outside too, just not as bad usually. She won't even yield her hip most of the time. She just stands there no matter what you do. In order to get her to move her hip you have to stand beside her and push her. Been working on that but she either isn't catching on or just won't do it.
 
#7 ·
Then I'd say attitude. Do what Mom2 said. Start back at groundwork. Work inside the arena and outside, all back to the basics. If you're trying to get forward motion out of her turn her in a circle and move out. If she stops again, more circles.

Keep doing that until you are getting some improvement out of her then work on doing it on her back. If she stops, circles to get forward motion.

My boy will through a temper tantrum and either just stop or his favorite. Back up. He can back up an entire lap around the arena if he's really throwing a tantrum. Finally I learned to pull him off to the side into a circle to get him going forward. Eventually he decided he didn't like the small circles so much and would stop throwing the tantrum.

Might be something to try.
 
#8 ·
Ok, another problem. She has also decided that she doesn't like lunging. Which is something she always did before with no problem. When I try to lunge her she will run at me and I have to flip the lungle line at her head to get her to turn away from me and she will turn her back to me and kick. She has also started trying to reach in and bite me on small circles and try to bite when she runs in at me. She will lead fine when we walk, but if I try to get her to trot while leading she just pulls and either just keeps walking or tries to go wherever she wants to go. She has never acted like this before and I have racked my brain trying to figure out what in the world happened to make her start doing this. She was supposed to have been broke when I bought her but it was very obvious when I got her home that she was still green. I have spent the last year training her and she was doing great. Oh yeah, she wouldn't back for me today either. She just stood there. I tried constant pressure, slight pressure, lot's of pressure, she wouldn't budge.
 
#9 ·
i no your feeling i realli do i used to have a palimino who was absoloutly wonderful to do evrything with , jump, dressage evrything but as soon as you took him to a compitition and aimed for the first XC jump on the course he would stop, about 4 metres away from the jump dead in his tracks , you could kick, cluck, spank, whips, spurs treats i tried evrything evn training at home with flags on jumps treating it like a show conditions its didnt works all it would amount to was rearing bucking and backing , we were told to take him away from training for several months and do fun stuff like galloping around paddocks going to the beach, ribbion days, pony club stuff , fancy dress , jumping on him bareback in the paddock, quality time small things like that it worked fr the first couple of shows but then he turned sour again but he loved doing the pony club stuff we found something he was better at mayb it will work for her just having fun and nothing stressy for a couple of weeks?
 
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