Hacking woes :( Really upset.

CharliesAngel

CharliesAngel

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Jan 15, 2010
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A bit of background. I love hacking, its mostly what Ive done for the past 25 years. Id hack anywhere, for hours and hours, usually on my own. Ive dealt with some napping over the years, usually the plant and refuse to move kind, it never bothered me. A couple of years ago I had a fall off someone else’s pony,completely out of nowhere he went from trotting nicely across a field to head between his knees, all 4 feet off the ground broncking. I stayed on for a bit but had to bail when he took off. I was very lucky it wasn’t worse, I didn’t break anything but I really hurt my lower back, cut my hand and had a bleeding nose. I was there trying the the pony.. funnily enough the owner said he’d never done anything like it before. Anyway, this fall really bothered me. The feeling of being bolted with while i was hanging on and having to bail was about the most terrifying thing Ive ever experienced. It took me a long time to regain my confidence but thankfully with some help from a good instructor and friends I did. I then bought myself my little Highland rising 4 year old as a bit of a project, she was only 13hh, I hoped she would grow a bit at least. Towards the end of the summer she threw in almost exactly the same move. No warning, she’d been hacking brilliantly for months and then she suddenly spun round and broncked in an open field and had me off. Thankfully by then I had an airjacket and wasn’t hurt at all. However I had a major wobble about being able to see it through with her. Long story short, I did. It took 6 months of lessons, help from someone on the ground, hacking in company until I felt 100% confident to deal with whatever she tried and I got her through it! She actually never got me off again, although she tried and a year later she was 100% to hack on her own. I sold her as unfortunately she never did grow any and we’d started jumping and doing some xc and I did feel too tall on her. So back in October I bought a 5 year old irish cob, through people i know, had a lesson on him before I bought him and RI agreed it was a good match. I love jumping him and in the school he is spot on. He hacked out well on his own, which was crucial for me. He is quite sharp and sensitive and I discussed this with the owner and RI as having had a previous massive confidence knock I was aware that I wanted and needed something basically, kind. Anyway, from the first hack I took him on he was very very tense. The first few times I tried to let him relax and just kept my leg wrapped round. After hacking him out like this maybe half a dozen times he started to nap, they were sudden refusals to go forward and bunny hops sideways, running backwards, spinning round. Ive kept telling myself I can deal with this and have led him out inhand, getting on when I feel him relax and riding a bit then home. I could feel my own nerves by this point so did everything i could to not let them show and sang songs etc. last week he upped his game after a series of threatening little rears he took off in the direction of home. I admit I was terrified and managed to pull him up however he continued to spin and go sideways and i bailed off. There is a main road we have to cross to get home and I was terrified he would take off and the worst might happen. He hasn’t actually done anything bad enough get me off but he does a very convincing line in threatening that he is about to do something truly horrific. I led him out inhand again after this but he wouldn’t even let me get on so I ended up leading him round and home without riding. I then managed to persuade my husband to walk out with us on foot (child in a carrier on his back). I could feel he was still tense but all was ok until I asked him to walk infront of my husband on a fairly narrow track.. we got a couple of hundred yards before he suddenly spun and tried to take off, my poor hubby thought he was going to go right through him and I think it was a combination of him shouting and waving his hands and me managing to turn him into the bank that stopped him.

Bottom line now? I have lost all confidence hacking him out. All the confidence I had regained has gone and I will only now ride him in the school. I don’t have anyone here I can hack out with either. Ive spoken to my RI and am going to trailer to hers at the weekend and have a ‘hacking’ lesson whereby she is going to follow us on foot and see what happens but Im already terrified. I was really worried this is down to me, that Im causing it but I started out really confidently with him and when he was initially starting to nap I was confident I could work through it. He’s definitely picked up on my weakness and is exploiting it. He’s settled in so well otherwise. Im utterly devastated , hubby cant understand why and tells me it’s simple, if I don’t enjoy it then don’t do it (hacking) but I LOVE hacking and if I had the chance to hack out tomorrow on something safe and go for a damn good blast then Id love nothing more! RI reckons it will be easily solved and that she will get on him if needs be but I have to admit Im not over confident.
 
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Oh dear, your story has just bought ALL my horrible hacking moments right back with a bang! I can't tell you to not be worried and I can't tell you it will all be fine because I know just how hard it is to overcome those horrible demons yelling in your ear. The only way I have regained any of my confidence - and I'm not saying this is what you should do before anyone has a pop at me - was to get myself a total safe plod, I've owned said total plod for almost four years now and still every now and then those nerves just get the better of me, despite the fact that she has never really put a foot wrong, like you though I LOVE hacking, it's all I ever wanted to do so I keep on persevering, but I really do know just how hard it can be.
 
In theory I also love hacking, well I love the idea of hacking. I own a supersafe horse who rarely puts a foot wrong (bar spinning 180 degrees and chucking me off the day after my 'hacking confidence course' which was designed to get me back hacking!!). Many years ago I had a nasty accident which involved being bolted off with towards a main road where I was so scared I thought I was going to die. I had NLP on my course to help me with this and now when I think of the accident all I can hear is YMCA song going through my head and a scrambled mixed video of the event playing backwards! It really did work in mixing up my mind.

While I can do think of the accident and not feel fear, I still have not conquered the hacking nerves. I think that I have so many negative associations with hacking out and I have an inability to relax. I am lucky that I am able to ride round our 200 acre farm with no problems, so I do still get out of the school and ride in woods and fields, but I long to do a sponsored ride or TREC competition where I just disappear off into the sunset. Maybe one day.....
 
From what you say you have only had the new one three months. It's possible that they are picking up on your anxiety that's resurfaced. It's a new partnership so this takes time.
How often were you hacking out? Sometimes young horses need more input than we can offer/were offering. I aim to get mine out twice a week over winter to keep her ticking along with the outside world.

How much hacking has he done solo being a five year old?
To spin and try and go home was what mine used to do. On two occasions successfully without me. Her default button is run, then think about it.
There isn't anything wrong with inhand leading, it's how I built up her confidence. I built her up to lead out, ride home.
If it was me that had the wobbly I would do the same. It's just a stroke of luck that I love doing things on the ground as well, so mine is safe to lead places.
 
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I wouldn't say 'he's picking up your weakness and exploiting it', you are obviously terrified and he's picking up on that and thinking 'if mum thinks this is scary, why the hell are we doing it, let's get out of here!' Every horse does silly things sometimes, but it isn't (in my experience) that normal for all of them to bronk out hacking. I would strongly suggest you do some confidence work first, rather than just trying to push on through with the hacking. I think you could wind your horse and yourself up and just end up consolidating your fears, rather than beating them. Try Jenni Winters - she really helped me with my hacking issues, in fact, I got over them after a session with her. Or there are other good NLP practitioners out there, and MP3s you can listen to to boost your confidence. Also, give yourself time. It takes a good few months to bond and feel confident with any new horse, so try not to worry about it not happening straight away.
 
Thanks for the replies. I wasn’t terrified when the napping started tbh but I definitely am now, it’s not taken much at all to undo the confidence I had re-built but I am just so cross and upset with myself after all these years of hacking to feel like this :( . He done a fair amount of hacking on his own over last summer but obviously is green and young but I knew that. I was hacking him out 3-4 times a week and either working in the school for 20 mins beforehand or schooling on another day. Having had youngsters before and sorted through napping issues I really thought I could work through this with him and felt very confident at the start, hence I didnt think it was bourne initially anyway from him picking up on my fear... it was only when he upped his game and it wasn’t resolving that I felt my fear coming back, or maybe I was riding defensively before that without realising it and he picked up on it, thats what I meant. I’m not going to be trying to push on through it as it isn’t safe for either of us and certainly wouldn’t be good for him to learn to do this anymore than he has already. My RI suggested instead of our usual fw lesson at the weekend that she walks behind us hacking out watching what happens. I trust her, so will see what she says. She assures me it’s nothing Im doing and that it’s just bad luck, she also assures me he isn’t the type to actually be really nasty and follow through with his ‘threats’ but every time anything happens in an open space with him I find the fear from that previous fall returns. Other than that though I have no intention of trying to hack him, we’ll stick in the school and go back to our inhand walks but I miss it already (which is what my OH can’t figure out). squidsin thanks, a friend suggested a trainer this evening who does self hypnosis and riding confidence courses so Im going to message her, Ive obviously got a more deep seated fear than I thought :(
 
I too loved hacking- it was the reason I learned to ride and I did it pretty fearlessly whether accompanied on an RS hack or solo on my share. I always took lessons too but mostly hated them. My real work of learning and learning to communicate with horses was done out hacking. Now I have got into a position where I can shine in the school and am somewhat nervous of trying out new horses to hack.

Reading your post, I think there are certain realities.
First that hacking is more risky than riding in a school. One of our more experienced staff had a bad fall in November wearing an airjacket and that makes me wonder how I can hope to succeed where she failed? OH has an air jacket I can borrow but I am frightened of the air jacket and how it might affect my ability to slither off without hurting myself.

Then my experience is that no matter how safe and non-spooky the horse, sooner or later any horse will run off with you. Being a learner out hacking, this being run away with was something I got used to. People on NR coached me in how to manage - and indeed I never fell off. It simply became something I accepted. It was attributed by the RS to my inability to control the horses! Not so. The only difference between me and the staff was that I accepted the inevitability of being run away with from time to time, if a horse was spooked, or over excited heading for home, or upset by another horse. It was very different for members of staff - who refused to ride my share horse after she affronted them or even threw them off by running away. In all the time I shared her, she only spooked and ran with me twice.

I am typing the wrong thing here - I am saying that being run away with is something that does happen and best to relax and put up with it -Dont let it alarm you, but think out strategies both for allowing it to happen and ways to control it. There are people here who have had to bail out because of the danger from roads and traffic - That hasnt ever happened to me because I dont hack on busy roads. But one can teach routes and behaviours to horses.

My share napped (she napped with anyone, including her owner) but again I just sat it out or circled till the old girl felt able to go forward. The big thing about hacking is to avoid a confrontation. Good riders are more likely to impose authority - both physical and psychological. I dont stress the horses.

I rarely corrected a horse out hacking, but I did do my homework - whatever I was learning to do, I practised out hacking - which inadvertently taught the horse too. RIs described this as schooling -something I still do. However proper schooling sets out to correct a fault in the horse - to improve its going or behaviour. My schooling was not correctional. I was experimenting with the extent of my control of any particular horse. On the way out or in canter I would test my brakes and transitions. And steering. On the way home I would test my ability to get the horse calmed down and more sensitive to the tiniest cues. There was no way I ever got on a horse and left the decisions to the horse. And it seems to me that keeping myself and the horse fully occupied meant neither of us had a moment to think about nerves.

Since I can type this out so reasonably, one may well ask why I have not resumed hacking? Lack of a nice horse but also laziness, I think. Going in the school, riding counter canter, rein back, changes of rein - having everything just so - and being challenged to coach any horse to do my bidding and give just what I ask brings satisfaction and applause. Going on an event-free hack wins no plaudits -You might as well be sat on a bicycle. And if you do have to exercise visible authority or sit a spook, the drama scares the living day lights out of you and people assume you havent controlled your horse.

The final thing that put me off hacking was the psychological approach to riding - sometimes bundled in Natural Horsemanship. We were taught that horses were flight animals, that they survived in herds. When I began to ride I had a different view point. I regarded horses as a means of transport, many of them reliable hacks used by 19th century doctors and clergy or to take goods to market. Very often they were the only horse owned by their rider, with no herd in sight. Horses in the 19th century might be bred and bought for that purpose. I hacked safely because I assume the horses I was given were bred for that job, knew that job and did it well.

This was reasonable since I began to hack from a hacking yard where horses were bought for that purpose. That is no longer the case. For health and safety reasons, more and more riding is taught in the safety of a school. The horse I am about to try as a hack is a wonder in the school. Pure delight. But unlike Maisie she was not bought as a hack. Horses now are expected to be multi purpose and hacking is regarded as their recreation. Younger and more proficient RS clients will even prefer to hack a horse that is fast in the open and a little hard to control.

It isnt just we who have got older, and whose horses have died, it is that times and approaches to riding have changed. I cannot unlearn what I have learned about horses and riding, nor put the clock back to 2001, to the horses and the routes we could hack in those days. Tho I wish I could.
 
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You're an experienced rider. You're doing exactly what I did. Walking out in hand is the only thing for it while still riding in the school if you don't have any backup. It will all help build that bond between you.
As for the nerves, I don't know how you think, but I had uncontrollable 'movies' playing in my head where I would repeatedly see it all going horribly wrong. These movies would play while I was at home away from my horse and also when I was on his back causing me to tense and send that panic message to my horse.

It took a lot of effort and determination on my part to stop myself from scaring myself silly with these visions and I worked through it by almost meditating (sounds totally naff and probably won't work for many but it helped me !)
It's about conscious thought to stop yourself from playing that movie in your head and seeing it all go wrong. Id catch myself imagining a hack and seeing the spin and go efforts of my horse and I'd have to use all my effort to stop that movie playing and really focus on playing a good movie where that didn't happen.
I still have the occasional moment when I start to see things go wrong in my head but I have serious words with myself and can recognise it happening immediately to nip it in the bud.
I did have a work colleague do some emdr therapy with me to help reset the negative fear thoughts which I think helped a bit, but essentially it's about having determination, appreciating that you will have set backs, but every good experience no matter if it's in the school or out walking in hand, will help build that bank or good stuff.
Take care Mrs. Prove your hubby wrong.
 
Flipo's Mum said:
It took a lot of effort and determination on my part to stop myself from scaring myself silly with these visions and I worked through it by almost meditating (sounds totally naff and probably won't work for many but it helped me !)
It's about conscious thought to stop yourself from playing that movie in your head and seeing it all go wrong. Id catch myself imagining a hack and seeing the spin and go efforts of my horse and I'd have to use all my effort to stop that movie playing and really focus on playing a good movie where that didn't happen.
I still have the occasional moment when I start to see things go wrong in my head but I have serious words with myself and can recognise it happening immediately to nip it in the bud.
I did have a work colleague do some emdr therapy with me to help reset the negative fear thoughts which I think helped a bit, but essentially it's about having determination, appreciating that you will have set backs, but every good experience no matter if it's in the school or out walking in hand, will help build that bank or good stuff.
Take care Mrs. Prove your hubby wrong.
Click to expand...

Not totally naff at all - this is exactly what NLP is! If you can do it yourself and save the money - win!
I totally agree you have to accept that you will have setbacks. I only hack my own horse, and so am not massively qualified to generalise, but Roxy reacts to whatever I do. If she's leading the ride or we're going out on her own, she is often more head in the air and 'looky' than usual, but basically if I am calm and happy then so is she. There are certain things that will freak her out no matter how calm I am - for example, when a man crawled unexpectedly out of a hedge! We both jumped out of our skins then! But these things happen (that said, I have no idea why he was in that hedge!) We've also done some big rides over the last year, 15 miles - (3 of which were by accident) being the longest! She WILL try and gallop off with me, I accept that, and that's why she has a stronger bit for sponsored rides! Learning this stuff together has really helped with our hacking bond. Not that I am suggesting someone who's scared of hacking should jump straight in and do a 15 mile sponsored ride, but it's all incremental and I personally find that if you work towards goals, it helps.
 
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From one hacking addict to another I can completely understand where you are coming from. I love hacking, love having the partnership with my horse and exploring places together and I would be gutted if I couldn't do that any more. I can also remember how nervous I was when I started hacking out with my previous loan horse. He was nappy and it scared me a lot to start with, but he didn't do anything dangerous or particularly frightening like rearing or spinning and running for home, he only planted or backed up. However it does remind me how fragile confidence can be and I'm sure if I had a bad experience I would very quickly be back at square one.

You haven't had your new boy long at all and I think you are becoming discouraged too quickly. IMO you are doing exactly the right thing asking your RI for help. We did the same when my OH had trouble getting his horse out hacking and after only a couple of sessions he was back on track.
 
thank you all :) yes I definitely do get that ‘movie’ playing in my head and I know what I need to do is accept it may happen, know I can deal with it, ride it through and realise it wont necessarily end in disaster. Before having the bad fall I would never have bailed out. In a break in the bad weather I rode in the school this morning and he was so good, we even finished off with doing a bit of jumping andI couldnt have asked for more from him. I will see what happens after I see my RI at the weekend but have also spoken to a friend who has a yard, it is a good hour away but she has offered to have him there for a month or 2, ride him and hack him for me (she is young and fearless) and I could go down on the weekends and ride him myself. It would also mean I could hack out in company a few times as well. Thanks for the opportunity to get this all off my chest. I cant describe how much being able to hack means to me, life is stressful and challenging and this is literally the ONE thing I can do that helps sometimes and makes me feel alive.
 
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little update :) I had a lesson yesterday over at my RI’s yard. I tacked up and instead of going into the school she wanted me to hop on and ride him down the track and she would follow. I literally bottled it and said no I dont think i can!! :eek: (She had said she would get on him if needs be but tbh in my heart I wasn’t confident that someone better than me getting on and sorting would personally help me deal with him.) Anyway, she kind of fooled me into it and said ok pop into the school and hop on there and I’ll be in in a minute... she appeared and opened the doors and said, right out we go!

Well I literally got about 50m along the track and he threw his moves :( RI was shouting instructions to me but I have to admit I had complete breakdown about it and although I was managing it and despite him trying he wasn’t taking off and I was keeping him circling, I burst into tears and begged her to come and grab him so I could jump off :( She did come over... but she didn’t grab him and she didn’t let me jump off. She made me turn him in much tighter circles, right around her, walk on a few strides and then the same, over and over again. Then I had to get off and lead him and when he was walking too fast or not paying attention he got sharply brought back until he was being more mannerly and I would get on again and repeat. Then we walked back to the yard and set off up another track, this time with her further behind and did the same. He didn’t try anything again but we didn’t push things, I stayed in walk and we ended on a positive note. RI has told me she does fully believe ‘I’ can sort this with support and that basically I’ve just been being too nice. I knew that circling him would prevent him being able to do anything but in my fear I wasn’t pulling him round tight enough and allowing him to get away through his shoulder. Amazing how the realisation and proof that actually seeing this works brings. I was absolutely mortified at my age to have had such a meltdown but it felt like a blister waiting to be burst! Somehow at almost 40 I reverted to a tearful child!

We have a long plan ahead in place, whereby I only ride in the school at home and do inhand hacks working on the things Ive been shown. I go there twice a week for ‘hacking’ lessons and she is also going to travel here to help me. If things need more input then she has offered to have him at her yard and me for me hack him out from there until we are safe... she has told me having seen him yesterday in no uncertain terms I am not to take him anywhere near the roads and to hack out from here I have no choice.

Feeling so much better, sorry for the essay! Will let you all know how it goes and thank you all for listening!
 
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Your RI sounds great! It sounds like you're getting on top of this. It took me well over a year to get my nerve back after repeatedly being bronked off by my old horse - after that, every time I got on another horse, I just curled up, panicked and didn't even try and ride the horse properly, as my panic made my brain shut down. But I'm fine now and you will be too!
 
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thank you squidsin, fingers crossed! Ive had lots of different RI’s over the years and have only been going to this lady a few months but she is a revelation to me!
 
Firtsly well done for giving it a go and second don't feel bad about crying, you are not the only one who has been through that and you will come out the other side, onwards and upwards and all that. Your RI sounds like just the right person to help you get your confidence back.
 
thank you Kite Rider.. unfortunately we did not have a good morning :(

So I brought him in to ride in the arena and as soon as I was on he was rushing forward and jogging and head tossing.One of my other ponies was galloping about up and down the side of the school but tbh I have ridden him in there plenty of times with a whole group of ponies cantering abut and other than a look and prick of the ears he hasn’t done anything! Anyway, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to do as I had been shown and brought his head round to circle. He is capable of being very strong though and without the RI there he grabbed the rein almost out of my hand and threw in a few little bucks and bunny hops. I did not get off!! I’m proud of that at least, I rode him forward, did a couple of changes of rein and then tried again, same thing but this time it was a hump in the middle and a little bronc. I stayed on but this exactly what scares me most and how I had my bad fall :( I rode him on again in walk to , just the long side of the school, made him stand and then got off. I thought that way I hadnt just bailed off and I could do some of the inhand things she had shown me until he settled down. Well , as soon as I went to circle him he went vertical , I tried to hold onto him but I half fell, had a moment where I thought he was going to land on me and had to let go and off he took. Ive really hurt my shoulder :( I couldnt then get near him and he bronced round the school for about 10 minutes before finally jumping the top arena post and rail fence, which is at least 4ft and taking out the top 2 rails as he did.. thankfully this was into one of my fields where eventually I got near him, caught him, dragged his tack off, threw a rug on and chucked him back out in his own field.

Feeling completely at a loss now and away to call my RI later.
 
He does sounds really unsettled. How long have you had him? How old is he? What is his history, do you know if he's done anything like this before? Does he seem frightened, or is it your instinct that he's just trying to get out of being ridden? What is he fed?

I don't know if you are already, but I would definitely be adding a calmer to his feed! I am assuming back/tack/teeth have all been checked?
 
Ive had him for just over 3 months.., he’s rising 6, I bought him from someone I know who had brought him over from Ireland a year ago and had him as a project for a year to sell on. I had a lesson on him with my RI (who’s yard he was on for that year!) before I bought him too. He had a full vetting, back , teeth and saddle checked and was fed nothing except adlib hay... until about 3 weeks when this started to escalate and I put him on a tiniest handful of safe & sound chaff with nupafeed magnesium calmer.. Ive also given him a few doses of valerian to see if it had any affect but it didnt. My gut feeling is that he is incredibly clever and remembered the ‘lesson’ damn well from Saturday and as soon I went to bring his head round he knew EXACTLY what he was going to do about it. Tbf I dont think he ever had a chance to behave so badly with his previous owner as she was a young and very gutsy teenager who backs and brings on SJers and was only a huge yard with several RI’s about at all times to help nip things in the bud. Here he is kept at home on my own yard with my other ponies and only me going about the place.
 
I really do feel your pain, as I had an Irish cob that repeatedly bronked me off - she was sold to me as a safe plod, which I wanted at the time, and I had her for a year, it got to the point where I just couldn't bring myself to get on her any more. I felt I was lucky to have escaped serious injury. She also bronked off my RI, and the trainer I sent her to, to try and get her out of the bronking habit. She would start like a rodeo pony and carry on until you came off. I had everything checked - which cost me a fortune - and couldn't find a physical reason. In the end, I rehomed her as a companion. She was sweet unless you tried to get on her! (Although she could be a bugger to catch.) I never really found out why, and the person who had her before me - who it transpired had lied about a fair few things, including how long they had her - claimed she never did it with them (which I don't believe.) I never got to the bottom of why she did it. Just take care of yourself, and don't put yourself at risk.
 
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