pulling to the left

[Mark]

I sometimes have problems with a horse who seems to get into a bit of a state in certain circumstances. On occasion he will get worked up when the horses in front go into canter and will prance around, throw his head around while all the time going sideways - but always to the left. Eventually we manage to go forwards in to canter but after some struggling.

The problem is trying to find a pattern. You can go one direction along a route with no problem; but in the other direction on the same route there might be a problem. It does not seem to depend upon whether you are heading away from the yard, or too the yard. I used to think it was if there was space on the left. However, if there is space on both sides it will always be to the left and if there is a fence or something on the left and space on the right he will never play up and prance about to the right and there is no problem. Then I wondered I was lopsided but he behaves the same way with other riders - and always goes left.

Someone told me they had been watching an animal programme and there was a feature where an expert had been brought in to deal with this specific problem. There was a simple solution but they could not remember what it was. Can anyone remember the programme or know what causes this?

Thanks

Mark

139th and final post

[virtuallyhorses]

Yes horses are left and right sided just like us and therefore can be stiff on one side or another causing them to get upset if they are having to stretch\work the side that is very tight or weak.

Alternately,this may seem silly but are you (and the other riders) right-handed? If so it may not be the horse - because you are right-handed you could be gripping much more solidly on the right rein and thereby causing this lefthand effect on your horse. And yes, you will be left\right sided just like your horse so again this can impact (and just because it happens with lots of riders doesn't mean much since lots of us are lopsided :) )

You could try some experiments to see what affects him - try riding on one rein only for instance (or on a completely loose rein).

The canter thing just sounds like a training issue - where he thinks that anytime anyone else canters he should be allowed to follow and if not puts on a bit of a strop. Alternately, the rider may see the others cantering - grip up or shorten the reins in anticipation (even without thinking about it) and then the horse gets excited but can't go anywhere ...

[galadriel]

I'm pretty right-handed and so were most of my lesson students. At one time I put a leftie on my lesson mare, and the lefty couldn't get the mare to halt! Instead, when the rider pulled on the reins, she'd just veer to the left. Mare was used to stronger signals coming from the right but interpreting them as about the same; the left-handed rider was using much more strength on the left, and so pulling straight back felt, to the mare, like a request for left.

Rider or horse being unbalanced can cause a lot of different problems. It's very hard for people to realize when they're not balanced left to right; I'm used to being stronger on my right, so to me it feels "normal." And I've worked all my life to try to stay relatively even on both sides, since I knew my left from my right [I was a strange kid ;)]; I'm probably more balanced laterally than most people are.

[kedwards]

The three things I could think of are:
(1) imbalance/sideness in you and other riders (right handed thing)
(2) imabalance/sideness in the horse (whether training or physical)
(3) vision problems in one eye (long shot, but a remote possibility).