I think a lot of the training issues people run into are down to inappropriate choices for that individual horse at that time. The training can seem to focus on what we can get the horse to do, how quickly, or be based on what we’ve decided is good for the horse, rather than looking at the horse in front of us and seeing he is struggling and fatigued. This starts to damage our relationship and spiral into mounting issues, tacking up issues, handling issues, physical discomfort issues etc. We can very quickly condition a negative association with us and with training.
With permission, I’m going to tell you a client story, names changed to protect identities. Sarah bought a lovely, safe as houses pony for her novice daughter a year ago. This pony had come from a pony club home, recommended through friends and for the first 6 months everything was great, they were enjoying hacking and clear round jumping and the pony was extremely reliable and quiet in all respects. Through some life circumstances, the pony ended up having a few months off and gained a lot of weight, I believe they were body condition scored at 4.8/5, so we’re talking significantly overweight.
Under advice from their instructor and yard owner they immediately got an older child to start working the pony hard several times a week to try and get her weight back down. So we have a very overweight pony who has been out of work for several months now being ridden hard and cantered for significant periods of time several times a week. The pony started refusing to catch and was even spinning around the stable when they were tacking up, but she still behaved well once the rider was on. Sarah was recommended to have some sessions with a natural horsemanship trainer to help with handling the pony. She was told the pony was testing boundaries and the training consisted of using a flag to work the pony in trot in tight circles around her and continually “move her feet out of your space” to show her who “the leader” was. Sarah saw huge improvements in the pony’s behaviour when she was clipped on, but her behaviour when loose deteriorated.
The pony would trot away when they tried to catch her and, after an incident where the pony had spun and kicked out at her daughter in the stable when she was just trying to muck out around her, Sarah called me to try and figure out what on earth had happened to the sweet, safe pony she had bought. When I first met this lovely pony she was extremely rigid, braced through her body and defensive. Even a light touch on her neck resulted in pulled faces and nipping. She was so sore through her heavy body from having to brace and compensate while she was being pushed to do things her body simply couldn’t cope with that she, understandably, wanted absolutely nothing to do with people. Her behaviour was her desperately trying to defend herself and she was “well behaved” once she was clipped on because she was scared of what happened if she didn’t comply.
Sarah and her daughter absolutely adored this pony and were so upset at how things had turned out as they were trying their best to do what they were told was right for their pony’s welfare. We had a very long chat and made a plan to move forward. We took all pressure off the pony and started to work on creating positive associations with people again through enrichment games and really, really simple groundwork to get her moving her body gently. Through trickle feeding and in hand walking the weight slowly started to come off, as their pony started to find movement more comfortable, she was able to move more and we could gradually increase her exercise.
When we felt the pony was feeling better we re-introduced the tack using positive reinforcement to again create positive associations and her daughter is now quietly riding again. They have their old pony back with a much better relationship and a new skillset to really understand their pony and listen to what she is communicating. Throughout this they were told the pony was dominant, aggressive, rude, taking the mick, stubborn, mareish and even dangerous. The pony was none of these things, she was sore and struggling and desperately trying to communicate that. She had to escalate the behaviour because nobody was listening.
I’m so grateful for being allowed to share these stories, these are not to be negative or to make anyone feel shame, I just hope someone may recognise similarities with their own horse and it will plant a seed or an idea they hadn’t thought of. It is extremely hard to navigate these things when you’re relying on professionals to guide you and their advice is perhaps inappropriate. It doesn’t matter how short a time you have been riding or how many more years of experience someone else has on you, you can advocate for your horse and your opinion matters more than anyone else’s. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. 🐴
Photo of me and my horse Dan playing bucket game in the burning heather haze the other night 😎 making movement fun for a horse who finds movement difficult
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