Excited Pony

[Ali Hugs]

Some sensible advice please

My daughter has a 13hh Welsh Sec B who is fantastic is almost every way apart from when he's in the company of other horses (when ridden). He becomes incredibly over excited and jogs and tries to take off. He 'hops' around and has even reared a couple of times. Another thing - he's a great little jumper but takes the jumps at 100mph and need some advice about this too. We've tried trotting poles in front of jumps which has helped to some degree. My daughter is a very confident rider and is not worried at all by his antics but I want to try to sort it out now in case it get worse. He's not currently being fed on anything apart from grass as he's a good weight.

[Piaffe]

Hi Ali,

You don't say how old he is? Also, how long has your daughter had him and do you know anything about his past?

My horse is 19 and still gets over excited and wound up when jumping and at shows where there are lots of other horses. There is little you can do about the excitement at shows, except to keep your horse away from the others as much as possible and stay calm.

The jumping - you will need to go back to basics. If he has been allowed all his life to tank towards jumps, instead of calmly approaching, it will take a while to remedy this. I would enlist the help of a good instructor to help your daughter reschool the pony over poles, jumps etc. He needs to learn to behave calmly when jumping.

With my horse, as we approach the jump I can feel him wanting to 'take off' - he won't trot up to the jump calmly - when he does this, I circle him away and keep circling away until I have a calm trot. It does take a while but it is worth doing - having said that, my horse still gets hyper, but that's just him!!

[Ali Hugs]

Hi thanks for your reply. He's 10! We've only owned him for about 4 months and his previous owners had him for around 3 years and only sold him as he was outgrown. He seems to have been very well treated and cared for with them and was never hit with a whip as he's petrified of them. It's very possible something happened with whips prior to them owning him. He's obviously been very well schooled in the past and behaves very well in the menage (as long as he has a quiet rider on his back). When other horses share the menage with him he 'shows off' by arching his neck and extending his trot but doesn't really misbehave until a jump appears when he speeds up considerably! He's happier at the front of a hack but this does not completely solve the problem.

[cvb]

one thing to do is to keep jumps up all the time and do your flatwork around them. After a few times he will work out that being near a jump does not necessarily mean he is going to jump.

Also when you are jumping, thenwork on a circle in front of the jump, and only let him actually go over the jump when he is going calmly. This can be very boring and repetitive for the rider, but pays dividends in the long term.

Lots of flatwork to improve general way of going helps too.

My old guy was exactly like this about jumps (but not bothered about company) and I had to work and work at it to get him to calm down. But he did. However if we stopped working at it for a while he woudl revert. Jst loved jumping so much.

For the company part - is there anyway to arrange to lunge him or school him with other horse's around so he gets used to it ? Often this excitement is because they are not used to company and feel they have to do all the meet and greet stuff. A bit like a hermit who suddenly comes to town and is overwhelmed by it all !

[Maya]

My pony, Maya is JUST like that. She races around courses, takes off when she sees a jump, jigs, jumps and rears on trails etc.....and shes 20! The boy i lease her from used to gallop her around courses and i think thats partly the reason. Shes mellowed out a lot though. Some days she'll lazily trot a jump and others she takes off. i dont really mind anymore because shes nowhere near as bad as she used to be, but i still dont take her on trails. I just stayed patient with her and showed her that its not good to gallop at jumps. I still usually cant get her to trot to jumps over 18" but she doesnt take off unless shes in one of her "moods". Ok, i just thought i'd share!

[Princess]

Firstly I would get his teeth, back, tack and diet looked at just to check that pain is not the reason. I doubt that it is as he is fine on his own but it is better to check just in case.

Is there anyway in which your daughter can school her pony in the arena on her own, while still being near other horses (for example: maybe workng in two different sand schools if they are near too each other, or in to seperate parts of a field).

When the pony is calm like that, you could try bringing the other horse slightly nearer slowly, until they are working in the same space (like field or sand school).

As for the jumping problem, I would recomend using trotting poles as part of his genreal schooling. Start off with just one or two and when he is going over them sensibly then slowly work up to a line.

When he is ready to begin jumping start slowly using the trotting poles on the approach to he jumps to keep him calm.

Good luck!

:)

[Ali Hugs]

Thanks for all the advice - we'll give them a try

[jUmPingIsLifE]

making a circle before a jump could teach him that its ok to run out. if he is running at/over/after jumps go back to flat and troting poles and canter poles to back him off. than set up a cross rail and rais it. if he speeds up make him walk to the jump (a horse can jump from the walk as long as the jump isn't to much over 3'). don't let him stop or run out though! circling could teach him to run out so be careful if you do that.