If the horses are only being caught when someone wants some sort of work out them (baths count as work), the horses will always be hard to catch.

The simple answer is catch them for no reason except to give them a treat, then let them loose. That takes extra tIme and effort on the part of the humans but in the long term, it is less work than running the horse to death for several hours --- I can't believe people still do that----

 

This method has been tried. The owner often goes out to pasture, pets everyone, offers a few treats and leaves, then comes back and does the same thing several hours later, this has not helped at all and the pony still refuses to have anything to do with people coming near her.

 

You have to make them want to come to you and that means doing what walkinthewalk said.

 

Agree with the above. With a horse this resistant to being caught, you have to work on the positive experiences for a long time before the horse will believe they're really not going to be worked or ridden most of the time.

Instead of even catching the horse, quite a few days need to be spent just going to the horse and giving a treat. You might spend twenty minutes getting close enough to give a carrot, and then walk away. You don't bring a halter along until the horse really believes you are just coming to give them a carrot. Then the next step is just approaching with the halter but not catching the horse over and over. No hiding the halter or games, because horses like this are suspicious. After the horse will easily let you walk up and do that a few times, then you can put the halter on. After all this, you can lead the horse three steps, then turn her loose. As you can see, the progression is very slow, and you can't catch the horse for a ride or trick the horse into being caught in the meantime. Otherwise you erode the trust you are building.
One thing to try when you get close is to turn your back and hold the treat out behind you. This is less threatening to the horse.

After all this is accepted by the horse, you can take the horse outside the field, graze for several minutes and then release the horse. Then begin with walks away, treats and scratches, then release the horse. We're talking about a horse that has been resistant for ten years, so things must go slowly or the horse will revert. When you finally begin tacking up, don't ride, just tack up, untack and then send the horse back out. After this you can begin riding, but you need to take the horse out for treats and a quick release two days a week for every day you want to ride if you really want to solve the issue. Then you can begin slowly weaning the horse off the releasing days. If the horse ever begins to revert back to the old behavior, you have to go back some steps.

My rescued mare took over a year before she would allow people to walk right up the first time and not think about leaving. For a couple of years I sometimes still had to turn my back to her and have her approach me for the treat, because mentally she could tolerate that way of being caught. Finally she grew to trust me enough to always let me catch her right away. If riding is too important to give the horse a break while you fix this behavior, you may never solve the problem. If you can stop riding or working the horse for awhile and just focus on this issue, it is very solvable.

 

I should also add that for ten years the owner will go out and give everyone a bit of love before leaving, that is why they have resorted to other tactics that also have not been working. After so many years of such positive reinforcement is it possible the horse just will not ever accept to be caught willingly?

 

When I was growing up on the farm, my horses and the one neighbor's pony suddenly became hard to catch.

Turns the the new snot-faced neighbor kid down the road got caught in our pasture chasing the horses. Seems he had been jumping on anyone he could catch and riding them thru the pasture (we had 98 acres) until he fell off.

If the horses you speak of Had been easy to catch in the past and now they are not, what has change in the herd dynamics or outside influence?

1. Was the pony feral, such as a Chincoteague rescue or it ran loose for years with no human interaction? A horse like that will drive the others away.

I once bought a Mustang from someone that was a good broke trail horse. The guy did tell me the horse could "sometimes" be hard to catch. "Sometimes" my butt --- the only time that horse was easy to catch was in the stall; when he was in the pasture, he drove my other horses away. At that time, I was a single mom working 50+ hours a week plus trying to give my son quality time and get him to whatever activities he was in. I had zero time to fuss with a horse that had the mindset to run and take everyone else with him. I made the guy take him back.

^^^^Thats the dark side of the coin to everything I said in my previous post. If the pony is the "catch me if you can" trouble maker, but the others are easy to catch, then separate the pony from the rest of the herd. The pony should still be able to be a fence neighbor but keep it separate.

The pony will be just fine living life alone, as long as it can see the others. I am down to two horses and they have to be kept separated. They share several fences but one is a biting bully and the other is a peace sign carrying hippie that has foundered

2. Also, is it possible Someone is messing with the horses when the owner isn't looking.

 

Put the pony in a corral and handle her regularily.
Make it so she has to be haltered and led to where ever she is fed. Not having free choice pasture, does not take a horse long to figure out , that if they wish to eat, they get haltered first.
Being this hard to catch, i doubt the pony is over worked, to the point of accounting for her attitude
10 years of this? A pony out full time on unlimited pasture? Surprised she has not foundered
If she is hard to catch, then I very much doubt she is handled regularily, so that is the first thing I would do-put her somewhere that she does not have a continuous buffet, and handle her
Does not have to be work-just halter to feed, either leading to a stall, or tie her up if she is allowed some beetpulp, or some low sugar formulated feed. Tie her and groom her
Regular handling does wonders for such ahorse or pony

 

She has foundered is often put in a small corral for the seasons where the grass is richest so that this does not become an issue. She is very well taken care of and played with regularly (once caught of course). She was the owners first horse and gets a lot of time spent with her grooming and cuddling. The owner however lets her out when the horses have chewed down the larger paddock and the grass isn't so lush (this doesn't cause her to get fat or founder) and let's her out to be with her other horses. Of course keeping her in a small corral allows her to be easily caught and is probably the best option, the owner would like to be able to turn her out and teach her that it's okay to be caught again. I personally agree she simply needs to stay in a small corral by herself all the time. There is absolutely no chance anyone has been tormenting her, however when the owner got her at four years old, she had seemed to have been abused, so I'm wondering if it's just an issue that is ingrained in her from that and once she's caught and realizes no harm done, she's relaxed.

 

I agree with Smilie.

I was taught from the start that when caught a horse/pony should have a tidbit/feed when it is brought into the stable. This might be a carrot in the manger or hay but there is a reward for coming inside.

 

I'd put the pony in a separate fenced-off area for a good, long time. Easy to do with some step-ins. Once in a while, catch it, and take it into the pasture haltered for some hand-grazing. Nothing good happens until the halter comes on. A pony probably doesn't need a large pasture anyway. And I would leave a breakaway or collar on it (maybe they already do this, not sure) to make it easier to catch.

 

A small paddock, building-up contact and removal from her herd worked for a mare I owned a number of years ago.

She seemed to see any contact with people as work. We tried catching her three or four times a day with food for months on end but she’d usually take-off before or as we reached her.
When she first arrived she could be really sleekit and would stand until a hand was placed on, or lead rein through (never clipped on) her head collar and then rear and attempt to take-off. A yell and a tight spin to interrupt her actions and thoughts always worked. Rearing had obviously stopped past owners and so correction always brought her to a shocked standstill.

Unfortunately, the yard had a rule that no horses were allowed out overnight so some nights ended with us moving her into increasingly smaller areas until she was trapped. Any benefits gained from bringing her into a warm stable with plenty of feed were negated by the fact that she was usually sweating and upset.

The situation only improved when we managed to persuaded the yard owner to create a small paddock for her and a companion and to be allowed to leave her out. We basically ignored her and gave everything to the pony; it took ages but she eventually started to come over with him, which progressed through soft, no pressure, touches as we passed or gave her a feed bucket, to proper handling and catching. Importantly, she was always made to come to us at the gate and if she decided not to come over, then she was left out on her own with pretty poor grazing (and hopefully miserable weather). Usually, she'd last for a couple of hours and then start pacing the fence waiting for someone to come and collect her. Can’t say she was cured, but life got a lot easier.

@walkinthewalk I had similar with my gelding, I was absolutely fuming when I found out. He went from glued to my side in the field to politely turning away when I went to catch him and occasionally turning up sweating and upset. I found him on the far side of the land surrounded by kids from the High School which was across the road from his fence. They were sitting in the field and he was being fed every bit of junk food they had but they swore blind that they hadn’t ridden him. All grazing was moved closer to the buildings where the two guard dogs ran free and I complained to the Head Teacher. Of all the horses he was just too trusting.

 

I think I have to agree with snippets from everyone who has posted so far. I've worked with feral, neglected and mistreated horses on a large scale, and the biggest thing that I think will affect how well and quickly they learn something is how appropriately the handler uses pressure and release. The biggest mistake I see is someone trying to catch a horse, but as soon as the horse moves away, they stop. Pony stops ("yes, right answer, they took the pressure of when I walked away"), and the handler moves towards them again.

You need to set the goalposts to an achievable level, and keep them there until the behaviour is solidified. There are way too many options for the horse to use as an escape route in a large pasture. What I would do, as already said, is have the horse in a smaller area, and then work towards just making contact. Move towards the horse, if it moves, keep the same distance between you, don't increase the pressure by moving closer, just maintain it. As soon as the horse stops, hold a beat and release the pressure by moving away. Build up in stages until you can walk up, touch the horse all over the withers neck etc. then start thinking about introducing the headcollar again.

I would be doing this in quick, ten minute sessions as many times a day as you can. Don't overload the horse by chasing it around for half an hour, it just leads to more frustration for you and the horse. And whilst I think using treats can be great, I wouldn't want the horse to be reliant on them to be caught, but rather I would do the session, then as you are finishing, put something tasty in a bucket on the ground, reinforcing that the session is a positive experience.

Just my two cents, but I've used this method on horses that have been born feral and lived that way for years, and horses that have experienced high levels of abuse and neglect, and there are few that it doesn't work on, overlooking minor tweaks to methods.