Handling Undesired Gallop

S

sally

New Member
Oct 13, 1999
57
0
0
Visit site
It seems like my horse keeps increasing my challenges!
Now that I'm fairly comfortable at the canter, and even if he
speeds up a bit, I can stay calm.
Today though, he panicked at a strange noise and truly went
from a calm stop to an all out gallop in one second.
A few strides into it, I realized "Ok, this is too fast" "Ok try to
stay loose" But I must have given up control of any steering when he made his first hard left turn and headed for a wall, which I fell into on the second tight turn. I thought I was going to go through the wall! Please, can you all give me all your tips on staying calm and getting
your horse slowed and calmed when he is way toofast. I know some things, but Id like to hear more.
thanks. sally
 
was this out on a hack?

I had problems myself last week with my mare taking off with me. I didn't succeed much with keeping control so i'm not best placed to offer advice but try to breathing, shoulders back, heels down, try to circle the horse if you have space to try and slow him down. someone also mentioned bridging the reins but i haven't tried thatso can't comment on how well it works.

Is this a one off or has it happened before? what type of bit are you using?
 
He has been with me about two months and is new to the barn.
He recently started startling at various things; as soon as we
work him through one issue, he finds a new one.

So he has done this before which forced me to learn a relaxed canter and slow down from a too fast canter. But today, the challenge was real high. We were indoors. He is wearing a very gentle french snaffle bit with copper.

I know about circling and also learned( post crash,) about double
handing/pulling the reins on one side,upward) to force disengagement from the
rear.

I know this sounds nuts, but I almost feel like he keeps upping the "ante"(stakes) on me, to see how much I can handle.

S.
 
it seems to be the week for horses running off..
'my' lovely darling thought it would be absolute hilarious to spook on a very quiet road at an umbrella that was open on the floro outside someones house..i never knew my mare could spina round so fast :D she galloped back up the road and i stopped her too seconds later.
 
I've found in the past when riding horses that are prone to spook, keeping them focused and listening to you helps. I've found the worst bolts/spooks I've had is when I've stopped giving the horse my undivided attention and allowed their focus on me to stray.

I'll never forget the day I was riding in an indoor school, I'd stopped concentrating and a hen shot out from behind one of the kick boards, flew up and hit Dizzy in the stomach. To this day I couldn't tell you what her reaction was - I was in the saddle one second and running along side her the next, with my instructor shouting 'well dismounted'. To be honest I had no idea what had happened, I certainly had not intentionally got off!

She ran off with me so many times it was embarrassing, especially in company. I found the best way to slow her down was to sit deep and do my best to keep balanced, if your weight falls forward they'll go forward. And don't pull constantly, this gives them the 'fifth leg' and they'll lean on your rien. Ask, release, ask, release. If you have room to circle, start large and spiral in, outside rien speed, inside rein/leg for bend. Try to remain relaxed and continue to use your aids.

Bridging the reins helps, you don't need short reins and can ride on a nice contact, but both hands are independantly holding both riens, when your asking for a faster than you would like bend you can slide your inside hand up the inside rein and because your outside hand has contact on both riens you never lose the contact.

Another thing is don't move your hands towards your tummy when you ask with the rien, this will throw you onto the her forehand, your thumbs should be aimed forwards normally and if closing your hand is ignored, turn your hands in towards each other so your thumbs are facing each other, really open your hips and shoulders, send your weight down, close your seat and legs and lean back, have your pull come from your shoulders and arm, not your hands, then release and keep on ask, release.

But keeping them focused, going forward and listening to you all the time your riding is a big help.

Lesley
 
Thank you for your suggestions. When you say "bridging"
the reins, are you saying what my teacher did today , about running your (hand) down towards the horses mouthand pulling
into a tight circle to disengage?

And when you say outside rein is speed, inside rein leg /bend,
I assume you mean, tug/release on the outside rein for slowing
down, and inside leg( in know this part) to circle. That would
still give a horse a chance to slow down on his own? before
yanking him completely to disengage his hips...

a Technical question...if you find your are leaning forward, and
encouraging the forehand, isnt that less powerful than the
rear? my horse works from the rear in an outstanding fashion.
I know leaning forward is awful for balance issues for both of us.
I guess weight falling forward on him could scare him more?

The run today happened during a second, when I was just relaxing, or had even stopped at the walk.
thank you. s.
 
nope bridging the reins is something different..here i got an instruction how to do it in a n old book :
take a rein in each hand, either sid eof horses neck. Bring together your hands and place the left rein (i think it coudl work with the right too :D) and let th eloop hang down.

duunno if that helped
 
Leaning forward makes the horse go faster usually because the rider, by tipping forwards, has put more weight onto the horses forehand than it can balance and in order to stay upright the horse has to go faster faster. It's the same principle as when a person runs down a hill.
 
Oh :)

I never thought of leaning forward in those terms before.
I had always visualized that the jockeys are up and forward
to make their horses go faster, but I hadnt learned it the
way you just said it( if that makes sense to you). s.
 
If you have only had the horse 2 mths, then he/she is testing you, and trying to find out how far he/she can push you. If you set the limits now it will make things a hell of a lot easier later.

Kally started off being a good girl, then once she got a bit cocky, tried it on left right and centre. I managed to cope and overcome it all, and it is just coming together in the past 2 mths or so. (I have had her 9.5 mths)

Tasha
 
testing what a fun time that is :rolleyes: not!!! :eek:
turning in circles is about the best thing, but it's been a long time since i have been properly bolted with as my mare practicually bolt proof, instead she throws stroops and spooks a lot!!!

sorry to draw your attantion away but i would like to know people say point the head away from what the horse is spooking at but don't you end up in the middle of the road if you do that i seem to??? also my mares awful at spooking at stuff on the floor so what do you do then let her head go right to the floor or keep it fairly high???.

she has a habit of trotting along dropping her head and skidding to a halt i fly forward i have never come off, but it's scarey, she has done it on a hack when i was galloping as well!!!
 
Last edited:
dont let her drop her head..you have to encourage her to keep her head up. 'my' horse use to do tat all the time and when i feel her head going to drop i just have to give slightly stronger leg aids and block her head from going so far down
 
When a horse shies the best thing you can do is completely ignore the object that your equine friend hates and keep a firm but gentle contact on the rein opposite the scary thing, so object on left, firm contact on right rein and vice versa, keep both legs on firmly but not too aggressively as this can cause some horses to run out from underneath you!. A lot of novice riders pull on the rein nearest the object and this sends the horses bottom into, what could be oncoming traffic. It's also a bad habit to look at where your horse is looking, again a bad mistake.
As for flat out gallops, that are really out of control, take a forward seat, weight down in heels, hold reins in one hand slid your hand at about half way up the horses neck and spin the hand around, near to you waist. If you want to go right pull the right and vice versa. You won't go flying because the method brings you back into the saddle. You can practise this but you leave the turning bit out as it's not gentle, it's only for times when nothing else works. The reins should never hang in loops as going at such a speed out of control is dangerous. Circling is excellant for bringing things under control
I should imagine the horse is just testing you, keeps your hopes up and keep trying! If he really does shy a lot it might be worth checking his eyes, but this is not often needed.
It is best to keep the horses head up as the further down it is the more chance of him pulling off a wicked buck etc!!
Make sure you can control him at all paces in the school, and practise some basic schooling movements, like leg yield. Jumping is a good way to test brakes too and can highlight problems on the flat.
Lamprellsarah: You don't point the horses head away. You just have a slightly firmer contact on that rein, this straightens the horses head. Some people do pull on the reins and do end up pulling the horse around, but this is not the right way and can be dangerous. I know this method works as I have used it time and time again, it's never failed me! If your horse is shying at stuff around her feet this can hint at eye problems. School movements can help you get safely around objects on the floor like drains for instance. I wouldn't encourage the horse to have it's head too high as this can make balance difficult if he suddenly darts and it's not good for his back either.
Leaning forward does make the horse go faster but if he's not properly schooled he ends up running faster because he's fears he'll fall over. That's why when riders fall off the horse comes to a stop nearly straight away!
Try to make hacks interesting by doing some school movements and don't just let them slop along, ask them to work in an outline. If you do hacking and schooling by them just slopping along on a hack you're undoing all your hard work!
Keep everyone updated!;)
 
wow long post katie but a good one :)
thanks, she is hard to keep her head up as she will shot it down, and i ride her with her head fairly low but rounded, as this is how she travels best, she's not too bad with drains but i never let her walk over one as she always slips but shes pretty good at just moving slightly then yeilding back, although i do not school her much as she dislikes this a lot!!.
i know her sight is fine she has had it checked a year ago and 6 months ago, and she has always done this she is 20 now so old habits are hard to break!! :)
oh she only stops suddenly when she spooking, although what ever i introduce to her, when jumping or schooling she takes it all in her stride and is fantastic!!
she loves jumping best though!!!
 
John Lyons recommends teaching your horse to FACE the scary object. If your horse spooks, turn him to the object and have him look at it. You don't have to have him walk up to the object or touch it (although that would be good) just have him face it. If he backs away from it that's a heck of a lot better then running away :) This will teach him to confront his fears.
 
yeah that is true but sometimes that just doesn't work or it not possible at that place or time, because it scares them too much, if there is something i can take my time over i will get off and coax the horse slowly towards it, then when i am close enough i will stroke the object or sit on it, and encourage the horse to sniff it, often if it is a real problem i will take along titbits, and put them on the object!!
 
The practise of letting your horse look at the object can be a good one, but I use it in few circumstances. These usually occur when I'm handling a young horse or one who is older and needs retraining. This is always on the ground, not on a road with traffic. The other time I use it is if I am riding a horse whose character is unknown to me, even then it's on my asking, not the horses. Some become so used to being 'shown' the object they will not go past it unless this is offered. If I am certain the horse hasn't seen it before he will get a look but only on training ground.
If the horse has a fear, you work on it, on the ground then when riding. It progresses from in the school, to around the stables fields etc. Then you test it by riding in the above areas. The horse should have so much trust in you that he thinks 'she's not scared and she's my leader, she looks after me in a quiet and gentle way. I can not come under any harm.'
I try not to hack out horses who are really scared of something, I work on it then ride out, knowing that I have at LEAST managed to school my horse and keep it under control in such a situation it can take a while for the actual fear to leave. We owe it to the people around us to help our horse be safe and to our equine friend.
Few horses I have ridden, have been scared by an object, they are usually in high spirits, trying you on, or are reacting due to bad and highly strung riding. So if I know the horse has seen this object and gone past it, he will do so again, because I use the methods I have mentioned, and because I am being gentle firm, leader like and considerate.
These days there are few areas where you can let the horse safely look at the object, and in my view except in training cases, it is not needed, that doesn't mean I then replace it with rough and unacceptable ways.
Luv to all.
 
:) John Lyons also teaches your horse a cue to spook in place. Spooking is natural for horses because they are flight animals. So if you teach them to spook in place you don't get this full blown bolting problem. Also try sacking them out during your ground training. This helps by showing them scary objects in a controled area like a round pen. John Lyons also has a claim down cue that you can use on trail when your horse spooks. But all these cue go hand in hand with a lot of ground work.
Pennylane
 
Re: spooking:
Introduce your horse to as many "scary" objects as you can. Think of it as getting your horse ready for a parade or for becoming a police horse.

Don't think about "What will my horse spook at next?". Otherwise you'll be tense, the horse will pick up on it and THEN he will spook.

I event and we cannot allow the horses to go up to the fence, check it out and then return to jump it.
So our rule is you can get all bug-eyed, snort all the way to it (& over it in some cases :rolleyes: ) but you ARE going over it!

Also we don't do repetitions of getting past any scary object. If we were doing leg yields/figure eights/jumping, we continue on as if the spook didn't happen. Spooking is natural for flight animals. Trust me, you stop your horse too much from going forward, you'll be in some serious trouble! Forward is good!!

Keep YOURSELF busy. Set out a plan of what excercises you'll do, where you'll make them, where you'll do your transitions, etc.

I had to work some boarders horses recently past our USA decorations on our arena fence (similar to car sale lots flags, make a lot of noise and a lot of movement).
Number 1 Rule: keep moving.
We walked a straight line calmly. (I was ready for the horses to spook away or forward, but praised them the entire way. )
Then again. Within a few passes they forgot all about it.

Good Luck!
 
newrider.com
Top Bottom
Back