[pennywise]

I recently began a lease with a 14 year old quarter gelding and he refuses to move when i first get on him. His owner tells me that if I do ground work I have to use spurs and a whip, or else he wont get up. The first day I went to meet them she rode him around a little bit and I noticed right away that if he wouldn't go fast enough, she'd smack him on his hind quarters as hard as she could until getting him to a gallop. I'm not accustomed to riding horses like this; I've never taken the whip and gone after my horse. Likewise, I've never used spurs is such a strong way as this horse has been ridden with---a slight tap, yes, but this guy "needs" jabs, apparently :neutral:.

here's the kicker:

If lead him and get him to a trot just on the ground, he'll be more willing to move. And if I get n him bareback and then put on the saddle after circling the arena in each direction, I can get through the entire ride without him "needing" a whip or spur. In fact, getting on his bareback, he moves forward easily. Every time I've tried to put the saddle on, and then get on him immediately after and expect him to go on into a warm up... he stands. The owners response to this was simply to use spurs and a whip.

This horse will be moving from the residence house and into the barn that their trainer works out of. I can start working with her once a week. For now, my job is basically just to exercise this guy... on my own, as she hasn't required as part of the lease for a trainer to be present. I'm a decent rider for exercising, but I don't know what this is telling me about the horse. Because his owner has been "mentoring" as an instructor, and I've taken a lesson from her (to evaluate if she trusted me to ride him, basically)...and her instruction was to use the whip and spur. My brain is telling me that this is how I aught to be riding this horse for the best results... but that's the thing... I don't get the best results, I get a horse who's doing something because I'm hurting him. And besides that, even when I've tried to ride him like this, my whipping is never hard enough. This is weird to me.

To clarify, this lease is going to work into full ownership as the owner is getting ready to move out of state and sell her house. I'll be keeping him at the trainers barn where I can pick up with regular lessons. Ultimately, the worry here isn't that I'll be training him to behave differently (I have no qualms what-so-ever about never riding him with a strong whip or spur again). But for now... I haven't been riding him for long and already he responds so much better to this way of warm up (on foot, or bareback). Though I have a few friends who tease me about this, saying that they've never seen someone trot their horse bareback before starting a ride (???), my gut instinct wants to stick with it. At the same time, I wonder if this is technically "giving in" to his protests, and lots of riders would say that the horse should never refuse to do anything, ever :icon_rolleyes: or that we should never go out of our way (such as I am) to get the horse into the ride head space; he aught to do what we say even if he doesn't want to...

Any thoughts?

I feel like I'm "playing" trainer...

 

[ApuetsoT]

Hows the saddle fit? If he's better bareback than saddled, that could be part of the problem.

Probably ditch the spurs, keep the whip. Spurs aren't for making a horse forward.

Whats your warm up like? Are you doing circles, or actually making him do thing to engage him? Does he ever get time ride out?

He needs to move when you tell him to. Having a horse behind your leg is the root of so many problems. Ask, tell, demand.

I'd be looking at what is different between your new warm up and the standard saddled one. If the saddle isn't causing him pain, there's no reason not to get the same response.

 

[Avna]

The short answer is that this horse has been conditioned to only respond to the grossest cue for forward. You can retrain him to respond to a very light cue for forward, but it would mean never listening to his current owner, because she is the one who taught him the wrong thing.

Horses learn by release of pressure. If you ask with the lightest cue and there is ANY response, reward by ceasing to cue. This is how you gradually teach the horse how to obtain the quickest reward -- by responding quickly to the lightest cue. With a horse with the ingrained habits of this one, you are going to have to re-teach him from the beginning. It will take patience and attention.

Thinking that 'you can't let him get away with anything' is not a useful way to approach this issue. The best attitude here is "let me help you learn how to do this differently".

Example. When I got my filly she did not know how to go forward on cue. She would just stand there wondering. I was shown how to apply pressure (in the very beginning, just rhythmically thumping her sides with my heels -- not accelerating, not punitively, just thumping moderately) until she took a step forward. One step! Then I quit thumping, that instant. Let her breath and think about it. Then start the thumping again. Thump when standing, quit when stepping forward. Very quickly, she learned how to avoid the thumping! This is the basic idea. From there, we refined it, always aiming for the lightest possible cue and the quickest reward I could give her. Timing is of paramount importance, otherwise they won't know what they did to make the pressure stop.

Always remember than horses want to be in harmony with their environment, which includes you. They want to know how to behave to avoid jarring and confusion and ugliness. If they consistently don't avoid it, it is because they don't know how.

 

[jgnmoose]

I think this is basically the same thing as the blown up barrel and team roping horses who want to charge off as soon as someone gets on them.

The horse doesn't choose, they are doing what they understand to be what is expected of them.

You gave the horse a different deal and had different expectations and got a different result.

I say follow your instincts on this, they seem to be on the right path.

 

[pennywise]

Hows the saddle fit? If he's better bareback than saddled, that could be part of the problem.

Probably ditch the spurs, keep the whip. Spurs aren't for making a horse forward.

Whats your warm up like? Are you doing circles, or actually making him do thing to engage him? Does he ever get time ride out?

He needs to move when you tell him to. Having a horse behind your leg is the root of so many problems. Ask, tell, demand.

I'd be looking at what is different between your new warm up and the standard saddled one. If the saddle isn't causing him pain, there's no reason not to get the same response.

He has a few healed saddle sores and now wears a half pad. The saddle doesn't fit him perfectly but it also doesn't give him any pressure points (that I can feel).

For warm up I start on the wall and then take him over a few poles at a trot, go down the diagonal, random loops to wake him up, etc. They also have a large pasture just outside the arena with a leveled space where we'll sometimes go to if it hasn't rained.

 

[Dustbunny]

Too bad you can't buy the horse outright...and get a saddle that fits. Poor guy.

 

[loosie]

Sounds likely a saddle issue to me, that the owner has ignored - if he has actual sores from it, it's a terrible, painful fit & while there may not be obvious 'pressure points' to YOU it is highly unlikely that a 'half pad' or any other half baked measure will make it acceptable. It hurts him to move out under it. So the owner causes more hurt to make the easier option just putting up with the saddle pain. Being such a long term bad fit will also mean body issues - bruising, muscle damage, sore back from moving in a bad way trying to minimise pain for eg - are likely & may be ongoing despite getting him a comfortable saddle. Therefore I would suggest getting him treated by a chiropractor or such, not riding this horse and waiting for him to heal fully before fitting him for a good saddle.

Of course, could be solely about training, as others have said, the horse has many holes in his training & the owner has addressed this by just using force.

 

[pennywise]

Too bad you can't buy the horse outright...and get a saddle that fits. Poor guy.

Well I was thinking of getting a used one from my local tack store. Ideally the saddle should be fine with just a regular pad, although I have ridden in saddles that had wedges everywhere.... That never works good enough in my opinion. Always feels off.

I feel stupid for not thinking the saddle could be the culprit ? I do remember placing it on his back because ideas curious why he needed the half pad and it definitely tipped around with the pads. I'm thinking the next time I see him i'll measure the gullet....

 

[Smilie]

The horse sounds like one that endures, where other horses would have bucked
Poor fitting saddle, spurs used incorrectly, give that horse no incentive to work willingly.
Of course, there could also be some training issues, but none of those can be addressed when there are physical reasons for his attitude

 

[ApuetsoT]

May be saddle related. Even if the new one fits but after effects from the old one hasn't been addressed. Or the new saddle is fine but he's learned that it's uncomfortable. Or he's learned to ignore you.

Check the saddle out.

Then look at it from a training pov. Your warm up is pretty boring. Get off the rail. Add rapid transitions, figures beyond circles(half turn, serpentine, squares. Hack him outside if possible. Varying pole set ups. If he ignores you, one swift correction with the crop behind your leg. Get a reaction(not just an ear twitch). Repeat as required.