Balking and completely refusing everything I ask

[winterbalto]

I've had it with my horse lately. Ok here's the story. I've only owned him for a little over a year. All through winter and spring I was having leg/hip problems and was unable to ride. During the summer I started getting better and better (thanks to flax) and now I have most of my health back. I started riding my horse again and much as expected he refused to go out on trail. I managed to get him out by yo-yoing between the arena and trail until he realised it was easier out on trail. A couple of times he went out on trail no problem but he started refusing to go out on trail again. It's so bad that the second I face him to go on trail he just starts going in reverse/sideways and just plain refusing every command to go forward. It's so annoying! It literally took me an hour to get him out the other day.

Right now I'm riding him 4 times a week and unfortunately have absolutely no time to ride him more than that due to work. Will this be enough to correct this problem? Does anyone have ANY ideas at all on how to fix this? It's so aggrevating and frustrating to have him balk and smash us into a fence :mad:

~Nicole

[Pink's lady]

He's refusing to go out because he's frightened. He lacks confidence in you or himself that things out there aren't going to be scary or dangerous.

There is a couple of things you can do. Practise your ground work until he trusts and respects you 110% (ask yourself honestly if his ground work is perfect).

Find someone else to ride out with until he feels a little more confindent.

Take him out in-hand. If he still won't follow you you need to seriously consider your relationship status with him.

You need to build his confidence slowly. Start small and build up until he can do what you require. Hacking is seens as the very bottom of the riding and training skills tree but in fact requires a lot of hard work and confidence building for many horses.

Prancing around the areana on three legs is easy. Getting them to bravely and confidently go out into the big bad world full of scary horse eating monsters with no other horses to protect them and only a small human to help isn't so easy.

[winterbalto]

Pink Lady - He's worse with other horses. I actually try to not ride with other people since the few times that I have he acts up terribly out on trail. He's far better on his own (which I know is the exact opposite of most horses). I know that you say that it's fear but I'm starting to wonder if that's what it is. I've been with him when he's spooked at something and he basically bolts when he's scared but this balking thing happens at the barn and at random places out on trail. And he doesn't seem scared at all! I could be wrong but it seems like he just plain does not want to go out. I'm not saying that you're wrong or anything I'm just trying to convey what his attitude seems like.

And I can get him to go anywhere on the ground. While my leg was messed up I would walk him out on trail no problem. I can still walk him out on trail fine but when I'm in the saddle he won't go.

[KateWooten]

THere's a lot more in the 'confidence' thing than you'd think at first sight. It doesn't matter either way you look at it - he's choosing not to go on the trail ! He's weighed it up, and on the one hand there's a trail which is a lot of work an somethign scary might be there - at any rate it's an effort .. and on the other hand, he can invest a bit of energy in backing up and then he'll get to go back to his stall/paddock, where he knows he's safe and he doesn't have to work.

He's choosing option b !

But, here's the deal - the solution is the same.

Imagine if you had a set of exercises in your pocket that you could bring out at any time to put his feet to work. Imagine, that these exercises are so good that they always work ... and that whatever the horse chooses to do in evasion - like backing up or whatever - that you can always choose an exercise in response that made him work even harder ! That would be cool because then you could offer him the chance to ride forward, quietly down the trail on a loose rein, then if he chose not to, you could say ..... <<a thousand NRers are all thinking 'Oh No ... here she goes again with the woo hooing ...>> You Could Say ...

" WOOO HOO - my favourite .. I love this ! A chance for me to put your feet to work .. YAY "

and you'd work his butt off for five minutes, going sideways, and backwards, with elegant butt-shifting swinging turns ... round and round ... forward and back ... PHew ! What fun.

And then you'd offer him the quiet walk forward again.

And after you'd done this 50 times, you'd be able to watch him think ... ooh, I think I might start balking here ... and you'd watch him roll his eyes ... and you'd see him decide not to bother after all.

Now then. I have such a set of magic powerful exercises for you. Would you like them ? Cos they will work :)

[winterbalto]

Kate - That basically is what I did to get him out on trail -> Work him hard in the arena! Believe you me, after a couple rounds he was walking out to trail on his own! He didn't want to work anymore. But now it seems like it's taking more and more trips to the arena. Like the problem is getting worse.

Now about these exercises :) Are you being seious? Do you really have some good one that I can use? I am going to go ride him in a little bit right now so please answer back quickly!

[Joyscarer]

Would he be able to make the association between work in the area or light work on the trail?

Doing the exercises on the trail would let him know that the only option is the trail and he can make it as easy or difficult as he wants :)

[KateWooten]

Yes ! I do have them for you :) And joyscarer's quite right (as always) ... because yo0u can use them - RIGHT THERE - on the trail where you need them, without the delay of coming out of the situation and into the arena to work - it all flows so much better. The problem with using the arena to do the 'now work you bugger' is that he's already got the release - he's already said 'No, thanks' to the trail, and gone away from it. Any extra work after that is irrelevant - he's already got the positive association between backing up, and not going down the trail.

So what you need, is a on-man instand portable, go anywhere arena that you can simply pop-up when you need it. Magic - Ta Dah !

What I'm getting at is the traditional ways to move and work a horse, of the old cowboys. Recently taken on and introduced to the wider world by expensive dvd and video etc by the likes of the dreadful Mr Parelli and Roberts et al. You start on the ground, and develop an understanding. This is what Pink means when she talks about groundwork. Not english groundwork, but more the energetic, moving and playing of the western, or now the 'Natural Horsemanship' world. The reason they will work for you is because they transfer so brilliantly under saddle. Because you start them in the arena, practice them til they're perfect and automatic ... then when you get on the trail, the very instand he thinks about giving you a no answer ... you immediately disengage his hindquarters (taking all his power away and giving it back to you ) ... then you swing him round and round and round around his haunches ... then sidepass a hundred yards and swing him round his forehand.... You can even use his natural dessire to back up, but this time around, since you're in command, you back him up a hundred yards, then find a nice obstacle to back up around and around in a figure 8. Believe me, five minutes of that and he'll regret having told you how much fun backing up is and he'll be unlikely to suggest it in the future :p

[PurpleUnicorn]

You'd really go backwards 100 yards? That's not an exaggeration?

[winterbalto]

I'm in a parking lot when I leave. If I continue to go backwards I'll hit the fence to the paddock rather quickly (after a few yards). If I go sideways I'll hit someone's car after a few yards as well. The only thing I have room for is disengaging the hindquarters. I guess I could just try to do that till the cows come home. The last few times I did that in response to his backing up we eventually would run into something because we would go back and forth between backing up, circling, asking to go out on trail, that all the times he backed up would add together and we would run into something (fence, car, etc) :confused:

[KateWooten]

The key is getting really really busy with it. If you're in a very limited spacce, then yes, you have to get creative - but that only works out to be more fun. Don't forget that you can get a huge amount of energy into a single step. And you can double that and then add some, by switching to a step iin the opposite direction. So, if you can only back up three steps, do them HUGE and on the second .. reverse it for a trot forward three steps and just when he's thinking 'aha ! I'll tank off with this' reverse it again. Your space will get bigger the more tools you have. Same with a butt-spin. spin it three times and turn it into a forehand spin instead, round round round with the butt, then step, step, step with the shoulders. Get Busy ! Get LOUD, get creative. Do it all with joy and gusto. (And Vim, although these days, I believe Vim is more often a scouring powder than a state of energetic joy ?)


PurpleUnicorn - yes, but only with Rosie ! Rosie is a well-cooked noodle and thinks nothing of bending any which way, at great speed, for long periods. Yes, I have backed her up vigorously all the way down the road. I've done our local road ride (it's just to the end of the road and back) with half of it in reverse gear ! Not only that, she can shoulder-in at 90 miles an hour and leg-yield at a 90 degree angle flat out ! (but no of course, I AM lying about those last two :p )

[PurpleUnicorn]

KateW- Rosie sounds great, and I love the "well cooked noodle" bit! I can see your thinking too, and I think I would have done this "distraction" riding, but I don't know that I would have thought to go on so long!

[puzzles]

He's refusing to go out because he's frightened. He lacks confidence in you or himself that things out there aren't going to be scary or dangerous.

There is a couple of things you can do. Practise your ground work until he trusts and respects you 110% (ask yourself honestly if his ground work is perfect).

Find someone else to ride out with until he feels a little more confindent.

Take him out in-hand. If he still won't follow you you need to seriously consider your relationship status with him.

You need to build his confidence slowly. Start small and build up until he can do what you require. Hacking is seens as the very bottom of the riding and training skills tree but in fact requires a lot of hard work and confidence building for many horses.

Prancing around the areana on three legs is easy. Getting them to bravely and confidently go out into the big bad world full of scary horse eating monsters with no other horses to protect them and only a small human to help isn't so easy.

Ditto :) I really don't think he is refusing to go out because he feels like it, or he has to work hard (trail riding - work hard??!!), which is why I agree that his lack of confidence in general (with himself, you and the surroundings) and makes me inclined to think that this comes from/is part of lacking trust in you. Think about it - if, say, following an incicent that has since unsettled him whenever confronted with the memory of it again, or if a strong relationship between the two of you has never been able to develop (which, quite easily, it may well not have considering the events of the past year) then he could feel that he cannot trust you to look out for him and keep him safe and secure. As a result of this theory, he may feel able enough to cope in the arena; where it is far more predictable (the surroundings, your behaviour as a rider and the work you both do) than the scary world outside of the enclosure. When confronted with the outside world, your horse's insecurities may come crashing down and, if pushed far enough, he could forget all logic and panic. A horse who is completely happy and comfortable in himself and his rider can - often will - tackle anything with bravery and confidence. If this is not the case then something has gone wrong - after all, your horse doesn't want to have to feel like this - and you need to look deep into the causes of this behaviour, rather than just the symptoms (i.e. you need to properly teach him to behave well by establishing a foundation of trust, rather than just learning how to get him to 'go', of you know what i mean). After all, it isn't really in the nature of horses to make such a fuss for no apparent reason.

Good luck!

[Harry Hobbes]

And I can get him to go anywhere on the ground...I would walk him out on trail no problem. I can still walk him out on trail fine but when I'm in the saddle he won't go.So what do you surmise to be the difference?

From the horse's perspective (rather than from yours.)