Your general idea is right but you need to refine things a bit more.

She's green so keep it simple, you don't need the side rein while lunging or to lunge in a bit. At this point you'll just get her mouth more dull as it's a fighting match. The same under saddle, don't wear out your aids.

I actually prefer to address herd bound issues under saddle, it's less work.

However, if you want to lunge, that's fine. Lunge her in a rope halter and start pretty close to the gate. For a couple minutes ( or not even that long), I would just have her trot a half circle on the side that the gate is at. When she get's to that point, ask her to do a rollback and go back toward the gate. After that, let her make a full circle. When she is on the side of the circle away from the gate, don't put any pressure on her at all, even if she's cutting in on the circle. When she gets to the side of the circle that's by the gate, cluck to her, swing your whip, maybe even tap her on the bum. Make that side of the circle not very pleasant for her.

Soon she'll start to cut in on the side of the circle by the gate and drift away. In this case, that's good. Walk with her away from the gate and keep up the same concept. Pressure on the side of the circle by the gate and no pressure away. When you make some progress and get away from the gate a bit, stop her and rub on her while she's resting facing away.

The riding version is ridiculously similar, but less effort for you.

Mount at the gate with a dressage whip ( she needs to be comfortable with this before you mount). Flex her head and slide your leg back to disengage her hindquarters. Just lay your leg there, don't push her over. If she doesn't move, use your whip to tap her on the bum, getting increasingly harder until she does move. Then, kind of annoy her with it. Keep disengaging her hindquarters and make her respond pretty snappy. After a few circles, she'll get sick of it and try to find a place that the pressure goes away. As soon as she starts drifting away from the gate and her nose is pointing away, turn loose of her and let her walk away.

Chances are, she'll try and turn around pretty quick to go back to the gate. Let her, if she speeds up more than a walk, bend where with one rein back to a walk then let her continue on. When you get to the gate, repeat the above. Don't even try and steer at this point, with your rein or leg, you'll use wear out your aids. When she goes a little ways away from the gate, stop her while she is facing away and rub on her. Make it a pretty good place to be away from the gate and really suck near it. As this improves at a walk you could also trot near the gate and let her walk away from it. It's not terribly important what you do at the gate as long as it's more work than away from it. Resting her away from the gate is also just as important as the work near it.

You will need to repeat this for a few days before she loses that magnet if you will toward the gate. After your gate issue is gone, she'll be much more likely to listen to what you're asking as there isn't any place that's better to be. Personally, even after I get rid of the barn sour issue, i'll do some preventative measures on it. I'll work just a tad harder on the side of the arena as the gate and a bit less on the side away.

 

Here's a simple thing you can do that may help. Take an ordinary orange rubber traffic cone and set it in an area where you can ride a circle near something that draws her whether it's a gate or the other horses. I like to use cones because they're cheap and don't get damaged (or damage a horse) if they get stepped on. Anyway the cone is the center of your circle, and by using a cone you can really tell whether or not your circle is round. As you ride your circle at a walk and trot you'll observe which side she's naturally pulled towards. Say you're walking the circle and she's pulled more toward the gate. You'd let her go there - don't try to stop her. As she gets there though, that's when you might get her a little busier. Trot her out. Then as she comes to the far side of the circle, ease off. Make the place away from where she wants to be the place where you rest her. Let her stand there and relax and pet her. If you can find a little shady place even better. Then have that also be the place where you quit her, and pretty soon she'll want to be where you want her to be, which is underneath you and not running off to find her friends!

I'd do all this on as loose a rein as possible but I wouldn't let her get too fast. If she broke into a canter fine, but I'd slow her down within a few strides. Posting the trot is great for this kind of exercise.

When it comes to herd boundness an easy way to remember what to do when you're actually up there and you don't have much time to think about a lot of theories is "don't stop her from going there (where she's pulling you), just don't let her stop there".

Of course you want to set up a scenario where this could be done safely in your particular situation. Adapt the technique to suit yourself!
Posted via Mobile Device

 

Go back to starting with this one. And video would help us to see better if your mechanics are at fault.

 

Thanks for that, BreakableRider. I will try out your suggestions. They sound just the right level for her. I was wondering if it would help lunging her with a rider, to give leg aids in a situation where she can't break out of the circle?

Ian, she's not up to doing circles yet. She falls in uncontrollably and if I try to keep her in the circle she starts the jogging sideways trick. Turning even at the walk is unpredictable. That's why I was doing straight lines, halts and turns on the forehand with her, to try and get her to follow where her head and neck are pointing.

I realise she does the sideways thing when she decides to head for the gate and I try to turn her away. So perhaps for the moment it's better to let her go to the gate - going straight forwards - and then turn away and continue.

Palomine, I'll get someone to do a video and post it when I can. It sounds better than me trying to describe what's going on. Thanks!
Posted via Mobile Device

 

Personally, I wouldn't lunge with a rider, it goes back to you're wearing out your cues. At this point she's green under saddle and most likely doesn't really know different leg cues all that well in the first place, much less enough to make a correction with them even with the help of a ground person. Just pick one or the other to keep it simple for her.

All of the disengaging her hindquarters will lead up to her being able to get off your inside leg very well. Although I personally don't use an inside leg on a youngster for quite a while.

It will be easy to teach her to move off your outside leg. After you've eliminated the magnet and you are ready to steer, i'll use turning right as an example; softly press your left calf against her, then pick up on your right rein ( on a greenie it's helpful to hold that rein out to the side to give them something to follow) and hold until you feel her right front hoof take a step forward and to the right. When she does so, however slight release your pressure.

When I first teach steering, I don't worry about where the horse goes at all. You just pick up and wait until the horse tries. As they start to understand HOW to steer, you can actually steer more. At this point I still don't do circles. I work on straightness in a very roundabout way.

What you'll do is ride around on a loose rein and wait for her to pick a direction. Then you'll simply pick up and steer the opposite way. Not to just put her back on the line she was going, but really over correct and go the opposite direction. I'll do this for a few minutes even on older broke horses. The more you do it, the more the horse gets used to being corrected and they'll start to stay straight without any input from you for longer and longer. If you find a magnet somewhere, go work her there for a minute.

After you can do the above bit pretty well, then the horse is ready for circles.

 

i am subbing this thread as it is similar to an issue i had with my daughters horse

http://www.horseforum.com/horse-training/how-stop-drifting-sideways-368130/

 

i am subbing this thread as it is similar to an issue i had with my daughters horse

http://www.horseforum.com/horse-training/how-stop-drifting-sideways-368130/

I read through your thread ( I've read some of your others but not that one), and found it interesting. I particularly liked Cherie's comment:

"Some spoiled horses run out sideways much worse than just 'drifting' and it takes more drastic action to not be dangerous. With those horses, I will pull them around hard the opposite direction -- the direction they were drifting toward. This throws them so off-guard that they pull around quickly and let you get them headed back the right direction."

This is just what I have discovered. If she is drifting to the right, for ex., and I try to correct her and make her go left (left rein and right leg), she just runs through my leg even harder. The only way is to suddenly demand she goes to the right, and out of pure surprise she straightens and I regain control.

Any more gems of wisdom on this one, Cherie?
Posted via Mobile Device

 

BreakableRider, I did what you suggested at the gate yesterday afternoon and she started out nicely. Disengaged hindquarters and moved away and pretty soon she was walking a squircle (undefined shape neither square nor circle ;-) ) at the gate. I didn't lunge her first and she was more relaxed than other days.

I kept up the impulsion every time we passed the gate and kept everything relaxed on the far side of the squircle. We stopped with her back to the gate and she chilled out. All good.

I tried riding round the outside of the stable block - ok until we were arriving at the point where she could see her friends and she lost it a bit, tried to run sideways to them. We straightened up and continued to the gate, forehand turns at the gate and then 20m up the track. Halt, forehand turn, and back. She did that really nicely, tried to jog back but listened and came back to a walk.

I should have stopped at that point while we were winning. But carried on and took her away in a different direction, halted to turn, but this time she swung and started backing towards the gate. She had a pile of rocks behind her but no problem, she backed over the rocks, swung again, and started the sideways stuff. I straightened her and went back over the rockpile to where we had been and tried again. But by now she was getting in a nervous strop and when I turned her she tried to hotfoot it for the gate. Back to the same spot, asked for halt and relax, and got the 'halt' but no relax. I say she halted because there was no forward or lateral movement, but she was constantly pacing on the spot.

In hindsight I should have disengaged her hq at that point. She felt like a little bomb about to explode, and I was fixed on "what will happen if she explodes?" She's never done anything nasty, just gets all bottled up. And the pacing on the spot was in all certainty taught to her by her previous owner. Spanish men love making their horses pace around and dance on the spot like that. If he had seen her yesterday he'd probably have been chuffed.

So anyway, not a bad session and I learnt to not prolong things when she's doing well. But on the other hand, maybe she gets antsy because she's decided it's time to stop, and in that case shouldn't I be riding her through it so she realises that when we stop work is not her decision?
Posted via Mobile Device

 

You pushed too hard too fast :wink: You started off well but got a bit ahead of yourself. She needs to get it in her head that going back to where ever she wants isn't such a good idea after all. It sounds like she had just barely thought that the gate wasn't where she wanted to, from your post it sounds like she was still circling pretty close to it? At that point you tried to steer her away and things got a bit hairy, correct?

In the exercise I laid out in my above post, there should be no steering at all until she has no desire to be near the gate and will wander around the entire arena pretty evenly. This is so she can make the mistake of wanting to be near the gate. When she does, she gets a correction and then complete release when she chooses to move away. It CAN work when a rider steers but it will take longer and there will be more bumps along the way as you saw in your ride.

I'm also going to assume that when she was pacing in place you were using two reins to keep her stopped? You are correct, a disengagement of the hindquarters would of been the best option. On a nervous horse, using two reins is just going to add tension and more nervous energy to the equation, this is why I suggested that you bend her down to a slower speed or walk using one rein, even when a horse is just bending down, as they relax they'll start to disengage their hindquarters as they spiral downward. That's the point where you know the desire to do something silly is disappearing. When a horse is disengaging properly, they can't do much physically and are not mentally prepared to do anything. This is why she felt more relaxed at the beginning of the ride.

It will be a bit boring for a few days but after that you'll progress much quicker. You'll also find that in months down the line, if she does decide she wants to be in a particular spot, it will only take a moment to remind her. It was a good first day, you started off well it sounds like, now you just need to build upon it. Let her progress to the point of not wanting to be near the gate ( or her buddies, whatever she's drawn to), instead of trying to make her.

You're also correct in that you need to call the shots on when your ride is over, but you need to be smart about it too. Quit her before she quits you, when things are going well, step off. As I said, the first few days may be boring. Heck, if you find that she doesn't want to be near the gate after only ten minutes, step off and call it a day. As she gets better, you can do more.

One thing I forgot to mention, don't dismount by the gate while you're teaching this. Dismount as far from the gate as she has progressed to, loosen your girth a notch and then walk her back. She'll remember where she got to rest and end the ride at, it'll help neutralize the desire to be near the gate as well.

 

Thanks for all your advice, Breakable Rider, all your suggestions have helped me immensely.

Our last session (Friday) was an improvement although I didn't manage to do things in the structured way I had planned. ;-) Xena started off with high energy and she quickly got fed up with the gate and started to avoid it which was fantastic. But I should explain we are not working in an arena, the gate in question is the gate into the dirt paddock and stables where they live. Outside the gate is a track just wide enough for lunging, where we do our anti-gate exercises, then agricultural land and an unused field I use for schooling. The anti-gate exercises have obviously been effective because on Friday she started avoiding the gate. A few times she decided it was time for home, but when she realised home meant the gate I could see her thinking "NO, I don't like it there anymore", and she changed direction. So I kept with her and made her go to the gate at a brisk trot and carry on past the gate. Soon she was trying to NOT go to the gate .... Great!

After ten quite intense minutes of high energy to and fro, she relaxed and I managed to do some drifting on a loose rein, and she was eager to explore away from home but not too far. She even stretched her neck out and snorted a couple of times like "I'm enjoying myself" : a very far cry from the nervous jogging with the head high of our earlier rides. I took her twenty metres up the track to finish, we stopped there, relaxed on a loose rein instead of tense and planning on running home, and I dismounted and led her back.

So a modest success She still has a pathetically low tolerance distance of how far away we can go from home without freaking, but at least we have made the first step and have got out from the darn gate!
Posted via Mobile Device

 

Whoo hoo! That sounds like a huge success to me, not a modest one You should be proud of yourself!

This was the big hurdle, now that you've overcome the area that she used to want to be, it will be much easier to build her confidence up to go farther from home.

As you progress farther from your starting point and she starts to get less enthusiastic about moving forward, do the same disengaging that that spot as you did at the gate with a lot of energy then as she faces where you want to go, leave her alone. That little reminder every so often that where you want to be is a good idea should keep her moving forward. Then you can chill out for a moment once you've made some progress and rub on her a moment before you go farther. The better she gets, the less corrections she'll need.

 

Breakaway Rider has given some great advice, love reading her posts.

As for using spurs...unless you have good leg and heel, your horse is use to them and you know how to use them, don't. I would NEVER suggest using spurs to someone who may not know how to properly use one or on a horse who may react badly.

Both my QH would of had me eating dirt had I ever tried to use spurs on them, they don't like it and my mare is very sensitive on her sides. So do what your doing now, your doing fantastic and will get a good ride start to finish soon enough

 

I think it's time for an update on this thread.... nearly three months on!

Xena is improving.... by inches rather than miles. And that's literal, we still haven't left the immediate area around the barn

She is still tense and very reactive. I can get her to walk or trot on a loose rein away from the barn up to a certain point; this critical distance varies depending on which direction we take, but it's maximum 500m when unaccompanied. When we turn towards home her energy explodes and she tries to trot. But if I allow the trot, she wants canter.... and in a question of seconds she is uncontrollable. So my aim is to be able to walk home on a loose rein. Sometmes we manage fine; other times (this depends on our approach route) I have to do one-rein stops and disengage her repeatedly in order to keep things halfway sane.

A big thankyou to Breakable Rider for xplaining how to spiral a tense horse down to a halt (this was in a different tbread). You saved my butt the other day when Xena wanted to buck/gallop home/ditch her annoying rider and hang out with her mates Lol!

I've done some round-pen work with her which has improved her attitude to me. But it hasn't translated to an improvement under saddle.... yet.

She picks things up and learns incredibly fast. I'm wondering if she's confused about what she's meant to be doing. Before me, I doubt she knew what going on a loose rein was about, so she's got quite some relearning to do. My latest tactic is only ever to put pressure on her when she tries to head for home before or faster than I want. Apart from that I'm being easy on her. Let's see if going right back to basics gets the message through that there is life beyond the barn
Posted via Mobile Device

 

I'm sorry to hear that you haven't had more progress, but at the same time happy you are making progress, even if it is slow. You should be very proud of yourself for the progress that you have been making and that you have had the patience and dedication to work with this mare. So many times I read posts and wish I could see the horse and rider in person to better help out. I'm glad that spiraling her down has kept you safe!

Without rereading everything, here is my first thought.

Don't walk home in a straight line since this course of action hasn't been helping. Since she has learnt to relax into a stop by bending down, use it to your advantage. Try doing serpentines back to the barn, if they're small enough then it will require her to disengage slightly behind, as well as keep her focus more than if you just turn her loose. It should help her get the message that all you want is her to walk.

As you know, I'm a huge fan of groundwork helping out everything else so correct round penning can only help.