trotting poles

[zoelouise]

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i have a 11 yr welsh sec d on loan i have had him for about 4 months now he is lovely and going really well for me i have been riding about 18 months now and doing really well.
we have lessons together but hes previous owners never did anything with him as they didnt have the time and basically he has lived in his stable for most of his life which i find very disturbing, but i am willing to put time and effort into making him better but he hates trotting poles and he has a lovely jump and really high but he hates it, he is terrified of trotting poles, we have been doing a lot of work every day just letting him go over 1 or 2 everyday and he was really showing improvement but the other day he kind of got it wrong and when he stood on the pole it kind of flipped up and hit him and now i have been knocked further back than when i started every one has told me to give him back but im sure there is a way to over come his fear.
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pick your self up and try again !!!!

[Cheeky]

Heya ..

Hmm .. I think he needs his confidence built up :) Just start with one pole .. and work with that until he can accept it in his stride :) When he has confidence .. add another pole. Also, make the poles interesting .. you can go between them, diagonally over them, do pivvots .. lots of stuff :)

Slowly add up to about 4 poles and ask him to walk and trot them confidently :) Also remember, because he is learning, let him have room with the reins so he can lower his head and carry himself over .. let him do the work :) Also have you tried lunging him over?

Good luck .. cant wait to see piccies

[zoelouise]

i have tried all sorts he just does his best to run away and hide in the corner he sees them then spins around and bolts off, when i try and get him near them it takes me about 10 mins cos he just does not want to go near them i dont ride him over just yet cos he jumps the lot i do it from the ground i understand he doesnt want to go near them but i try my best to reassure him they not goingt o hurt him but then he manages to go and do that and scare himself to death.

[mogadoga]

Maybe let him loose with one pole, leave him there for hours if need be, wait for him to sniff them etc. Then go in with him and you kick them etc so he sees your fine even when doing so. Then if hes ok at leading (lunge line!) lead him over one. Then two, then three. Then pick up the pase. Then start again with one when your on his back. Follow someone else over, that always seems to work. Hope thats help full.

[KateWooten]

OK, so check if I've understood - he's really scared of the trotting poles .. you've taken him over some before, but now you're sure that he's not ready for that, and even if he sees the poles in the schooling area then he's scared ?

But you're going to keep going with this horse aren't you and not send him back to the sort of people who think its ok to imprison him in a stable ... :(

Right then, here's a kind of plan.... step 1 - you need to find a baseline, a point at which he is happy. For example, if you put one trotting pole at the far end of where you work with him, and then only work with him at the other end - is he ok with that ?

Just find where he is happy to start with. Step 2 - I wouldn't be riding him just yet. I would be standing on the ground, and for maybe a week or two, working every day (well, as long as it takes obviously, but that would be my rough guess) I would be doing all the exercises that you do with a young horse. The reason for doing them with any horse is to gently establish you as the leader that he can trust. Once you have taken the time to do this, you find that all sorts of fears and issues get less - for example, he'll be much better prepared to accept the poles if he has this confident trusted leader with him (that's you !). He sees you're not scared, so he will be less scared. That only works if he sees you as a good leader.

Ok, so maybe first just start doing the groundwork, then after a session or two if that's going well, put a pole at the far end of the field, and after a session or two start approaching it, while still doing the same groundwork exercises. After a two weeks or so, I'd like to see him happily being 'sent' over a single pole.

Sometimes a horse has a 'bugbear' exercise. For one reason or another, there's something they really hate. Sometimes that exercise is not the best place to be establishing trust ! With my abused baby, I simply didn't put a bridle on him for 6 months. It wasn't worth putting him through it because he was phobic about it. It didn't hold us back any other way - I had a special bridle made up for him that worked - and 6 months later the problem was gone ... because we'd developed our trust in lots of other ways first. Maybe trotting poles is your bugbear exercise - maybe you need to ignore it and build up trust and leave them for later.

Anyway - the actual groundwork exercises are quite specific, and will do wonders for your confidence and understanding. They involve ... ensuring the horse keeps out of your personal space, backing up, yielding shoulders, disngaging hindquarters, lateral flexion, circling with energy and change of direction (turn on the haunches).... If you are interested in doing the groundwork with him, let me know, I'll gladly explain each step in detail if that's the route you want to take.

Kate

[teabiscuit]

what excellent advice KateWooten, i'll try that with my pole phobic tb, thanks.
zoelouise sounds like youre doing a good job with your sec D. I used to jump my sec D, he had no abuse, he just had a wariness about poles and used to give the jump about a foot and a half clearance if it was a coloured pole fence. i think it made him feel vulnerable, exposing his tummy to the pole as he cleared the jump.
Good luck with your sec D- don't give up on him. :)

[zoelouise]

kate thank you so much your advice is just want i need to hear
i say they abused him in a way they did and in a way they didnt he just got out of his stable once a week if that did a lap of the inside arena which is very small then put away and that has been his exercis for 12 months in which i hated.
hes last owners wouldnt even ride him cos he bucked till he got them off but asoon as he bucked and got used to the idea no one was going anywhere he was fine that was 12 months ago and i have never had any of that behaviour at all all he does when he is scared is run back wards quite funny but not too dangerous to deal with.wheni put the poles down he just runs the other side of the barn and starts snorting with ears forward looking at them then putting his head right into the corner.lol poor thing
i just think its bout time he manged to trust some one to be his leader he gets scared of his own shadow at times and thats no joke but he is lovely his stable manners were disgusting till 4 months ago and now he is an angel to be round, but i need to still go a long way. to gain his absolute trust but we are building it.
im not the greatest rider but i can hold up really well at trotting and walking with good postion and good signals which is really starting to pay off cos now when we do school work you can see him really listening to me and aiming to please the nagging for trot has gone with have a good trot and no nagging for decent walk so to me he is really enjoying it.
any more exercise are welcome im not that good with lateral work but he his very skilled he learnt me to leg yield which he loves to do and its really easy for me to ask him i think its his favourite move whils hacking out when he just drifts or loses it whilst working round i give him the aid and in he goes to the side lol

[danielle:>]

ZoeLouise, your loan horse sounds exactly like the share pony I have taken on. He is totally petrified of poles, jumps and anything to do with jumping. He freaks out if another horse is in the school jumping. It is a shame, because I know he is genuinely scared, and not just "taking the mick". He also loves doing leg yielding, it is his show off trick :p

All the replies you have got have been really helpful to me as well. I think I will try some of the exercise's with Jester. :)


Kate, you mentioned you would explain some groundwork exercises? Could you please PM me or post them here, if you could? It would be much appreciated :)

ZoeLouise, good luck with your horse, I hope you manage to get him over his fear of poles.

Danielle
xxx

[zoelouise]

well after buying him i gave him a rest from poles and tried some ground work he does lovely at word commands but only when he wants to listen (swine)
any way today i thought right he has com eon in leaps and bounds and the yard owner is till on at me to get rid of him due to him rushing in one lesson to get to the back of the pony thats another story.
The other day i turned him out to get some fresh air and to my disbelif there was trotting poles all over the paddock and he just strolled over them like they wasnt even there i couldnt belive it so the day after i thought i would lunge him over some well he just started rearing woulndt listen i was mad so i yanked him with a firm no and tried again he did the same so i made him just walk backwards and forwards over them but he just rushes like there are going to eat him lol and tried to get him to stand near them to re assure him they dont hurt but he wont have any of it.
any one any ideas to stop the rushing

[Emz]

I'd suggest turning him out with poles in the field/school
How about doing some inhand work to build your trust??
What's he like if you use planks instead of trotting poles??

and what material is the trotting poles you're using? If they 'flip up' when your horse knocks them they're not safe to use a trot poles!

Sounds like he's been hurt by them in the past or been hurt whilst doing polework- will he lunge over poles? YOU need to tell/show him that you won't let them hurt him and that he can trust you.

Good Luck!

[zoelouise]

they are soild wood poles he wont lunge near them in the school but in the outside paddock where all jumps are he walks over the same poles they are no different but wheni want to do work with the poles he freaks out.
i have done loads of work to build trust but he is cocky and bolshy when he wants i think he thinks he is a stallion at times, lol
ill just keep chipping away at his attutude he will come around eventually i suppose hes done wonderful up to now and i think cos he has done so well with everything i might be expecting a little too much from him everything else he has exelled his self and this was a major issue but cos he has done so well i thought this trotting poles would of gotten easier by now.
but with the trotting poles being in the indoor arena when i ride past them he just freaks out but the indoor school is same as outdoor but he doesnt spook outside wierd :o :o