Scared of Gates.

[s1obhan]

Last week we had a terrible accident coming through the main gate of the yard. Our mare has been known to rush through them and as she is quite new to us we think its because shes scared of them hitting her bum (which it has done on a couple of occasions). Well last week my daughter was riding her and she opened the gate with ease but as soon as it swung open our mare rushed through lost her footing and went over on her side, my daughter was fine and our horse escaped with nothing more than a graze. But for the first time last night I rode her up to the gate (the only way out) to go for a ride but she wouldn't go near it she walked backwards, reared and bucked - she didn't want to know. Eventullly she was lead out, on returning I got off opened the gate and walked her through and again she rushed through and tried to get as far away from it as quickly as possible with me in tow. She has also started to do this with the gate to the paddock. She is six years not the most confident of horses anyway and she never had any real problems with them in the past . Any ideas ideas on how to battle this problem of her fear of gates.

[Still Falling]

Tis new increased fear of gates may have something to do with your daughter falling off! The fall may have panicked the horse a bit and now the gate is associated with both pain and fear!

I don't know how to say this without sounding mean but....i think you need to do quite a bit of work on first getting your mare to trust you a bit more. If she can trust you enough she will go through the gate because in time she will realise that she will not get hurt when around you.

Try gettng into doing natural horsemanship with her. This is a slow process but is well worth it if it does work!

I know a mare who gets scabby legs ad would not let you clip her legs with so much as a pair of scissors. She was worked on with natural hormanship to gain more trust in her owner and now her legs can be clipped with small clippers and tomorrow her owner will be giving it a go with the large clippers!

Also you may find your horse is much calmer around you and you will also find a lot of other things easier that you may find a little difficult to do now!