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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 898
  
Location: Idaho | So, I have my four year old and I would consider him green broke. He is my first baby that I have trained from the ground up.. I have had a LOT of help along the way and I am so grateful! But he is really sticky going to the right at a lope. At a left, he is not as bad. He has been look at by a chiropractor, and he was checked out good. I don't think pain is the issue. I just have recently started to kind of be firm with him.. being he is my first baby, well.. he was my baby! and I wasn't that stern with him like I should have been. But now.. I am working on being assertive, and I think he is just used to throwing his weight around. He knows I am not as strong as he is.. and he just tries to get away with stuff.
But the problem is, when I'm loping to the right in circles, he will try and either rub me up on the fence or just veer off the other way so he could go to the other end of the arena. Granted, I do stop him and turn him back around and make him go back to where I want him to go, and make him listen. A friend of mine did get on him, and he is a bit bigger and stronger than I am, and a more aggressive rider, and my colt tried it once with him and he got corrected.. and he didn't do it anymore with him. So I think it is me. I do have a hand whip, to kind of reinforce him NOT to veer off.. but I feel like I am over riding him? Like, are you supposed to wait till he 'makes' the mistake, and then correct him.. because I can feel him start to shoulder out, and I try to correct him BEFORE it happens.. and it seems to only get worse? So am I doing that right? Or what is a good way to correct this behavior? I was thinking of putting spurs on, but I just want to see what kind of advice I could get before I actually do that. He is not a mean baby, he is actually a very good baby but like I said.. I just think it is in part to me starting to implement me being the boss a little later, so he is having a bit of trouble accepting that in some occasions and he likes to test me. How do I not let him get away with this, but do it correctly? | |
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Expert
Posts: 2121
Location: The Great Northwest | OMG! Your horse sounds like he/she has no respect. You need to astablish that you make the decisions. You are the Captain and your horse is your soldier. I highly recommend that you get help with someone in your area or send out to train. The longer you try I'm sure you will end up with a horse that is going to have to have a big rude awakening or someone is going to get hurt. Sorry, I'm sure the next one you will know more of how to react. | |
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 Expert
Posts: 1857
| Correct it before it happens.... Growing up I was always told that: once is a mistake, twice is a test, and the third time is habit. Meaning the first time the horse does it, its because they don't know any better, the second time they are trying you to see how far they will be allowed to push it, and the third time they have made it a deliberate act and it's going to be twice as hard for you to correct. If he has been doing this with you for sometime and being allowed to get by with it or even bullying his way into doing it, you are going to have some difficulty getting him out of it. Be firm with him and make sure you are making it very clear to him what your asking. You have to be all in or not at all, if you are going to correct him it has to be at that moment, no hesitation, and as firm as it takes to get the point across. He will love you at the end of the day, even if you have to bust his butt a few times! Try spurs but please let him get used to them before you really stick it to him. If he has never had them used on him, he might be very responsive to them and you don't want to get bucked off i'm sure! | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 898
Location: Idaho | Skye, I have help. Trust me ;) I never ride by myself either, there is always somebody around in case I do need help. But I would like to figure this out on my own too.. Trainers have ridden him, and they make him listen. Now he needs to know he has to listen to mommy too.. just trying to make sure I get it right.
JT, Thank you! I wasn't sure, I remember watching a Clinton Anderson thing and him saying something about letting the horse commit to the mistake and THEN correct it, and then I was just told to hit him once with the whip when he tries to veer off. But once wasn't cutting it because he didn't move over like I was expecting him to. It's not like a beat him, once he moved over and stopped veering then he of course I stopped so there was that release of knowing that he did it right. But I DO need to nip this in the butt, because I don't want him to learn that that is okay behavior. I need to get used to spurs again too..I'm a little nervous to do it, because I haven't used spurs in what feels like years because my other two didn't require them. | |
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