Ideas Please 8YO very nervous riding pony.

Libbyo

Libbyo

Active Member
Mar 5, 2006
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West Sussex
At our yard we have a rising 8YO British Riding Pony 12.2hh bay gelding.

He is the lushist little man to look at, he looks like a manature horse.

Purchased a year ago to bring on and sell.

He long reined, lunged, wore tack, and we were told had been sat on.

Life took a bad turn( yard folk not the pony) just after arrival and he was turned away for the winter, without any new handling.

He came in in March April.

He long reins well, lunges well, and has been broken to ride. With a good rider he works very well.

So here is the problem.

He is terrified of life. He tosses his head continioiusy, cant cope with any changes in his enviroment, he panics when riden and bolts. He is very very sharp and gone in a flash. Fast too.
He cant take loud noises.
Ive long reined him on the roads, but hes never been ridden out. Hes in the bushes if anything goes by.
Ive tried to love him, care for him as my own, but it doiesnt change him. There is no difference in his bahaviour. If he was calm and sensible Id break him to drive.

Hes on magnesium. His weight gain is poor.

To the yard hes not someones horse, but a sales horse.

What do we do with him? Sell him to an experienced home, loan him, sell him as a companion? Or something else.
 
http://www.newrider.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1537503#post1537503

I think it would be well worth while for you to read through Tiny Ponies thread, there is some very good advise and it will take time. Well also have a very nervy pony, who to be fair is better under saddle than on the floor, but thought id just put the link on for you to see!!!! Its long but lots of useful advise if you have the time and patience!!!!!!!

Heres a picture of Tommy with his trophies after a long hard slog and a big improvement!!!!!!!!

tomtrop.jpg
 
take him ogg the grain as it will take about 2 weeks for all that high energry to die down during this time continue to work on ground and feed only hay

once he becomes sane - get on him and work him `
if it was me i would be up and on and out from day 1

starting with 20mins hack to get him back into thhimgs
my guess is hes fed up as in food and no work so ha got above himself
and no ones go the confidence to actually work him or correct him properly so hes taking **** big time
 
Sorry but have to diagree.

Hay + a few nuts and chaff nothing more. The YO broke him and rides him. Confidence is something she has by the gallon. Taking the **** has been excluded.

We have one young 9YO rider who sits on him, and can ride him 90% of the time.
We have very much tied the nice nicy aproach, as well as the tougher line.

Remember. This is not a pet but a sales horse. Tough but reality.

What we dont want is to put him on the martket place and a child get hurt, but we do need to move on.
 
We had one like that, he came right with time and was sold to a confident child.

To be fair we had him for almost 2 years but he did come right and he was so nervous that he would look down, see his feet moving and spook violently.
 
Im afraid if you dont have the time etc you have to count your losses, and do as you need to do, let him go at a reasonable price and explain his problems and let someone else deal with them. I totally understand your problem as hes a sales horse - so was Tommy but we kept him as I couldnt bear the thought of him going from pillar to post and ending up with his head off!!! At least he has a reasonable life.
 
Gain the ponies trust.

Perhaps because he doesnt "belong" to someone, there is no one person that he can put his trust into. I don't just mean following you around, I mean really putting his trust into you, and you'll know when he has.

Also, if you haven't tried already, take 'charge' of the situation. Scary wheelie bin? Go up to if first (keep him on the lead ofcoarse), touch the bin, rub the bin, show him it's okay. Usually, your horse will be curious because you've touched it and may come over to have a sniff. Reward any improvement.

Honey was a bit like this with water .. wouldn't take a bar of it, until I got off, and jumped into the puddle. after seeing me in the water (ruined my boots lol), she was fine!

Maybe he's looking for a leader?
 
If he's 90% you can sell him to the right home as long as you're honest about his faults. A confident kid who **loves** him will make a huge difference. We've had ponies like that and some them went into junior eventing. They'll never be novice and they remain highly strung, but they'll do anything for their owner in exchange for never ending TLC.
 
Well, thanks every one for the thoughts, ideas and advice.

Id like to think we could sell him with honesty. But who ever takes him on will need a huge amount of patience.

I love him to bits, he is so very pretty and funny, but wether he will be trustworthy for a child.....

For his sake I think we must try to sell.
 
Libbyo said:
Well, thanks every one for the thoughts, ideas and advice.

Id like to think we could sell him with honesty. But who ever takes him on will need a huge amount of patience.

I love him to bits, he is so very pretty and funny, but wether he will be trustworthy for a child.....

For his sake I think we must try to sell.
Click to expand...

how about selling him to a small adult? Thats how I got all 3 of mine, they are definately not childs ponies and Sofi is actually scared of kids but she has progressed so much since I bought her. Small adults looking for ponies are often rare but we are around and that way you won't have to worry about him hurting a child and he is also likely to have a permanent home if he is intended for an adult
 
Libbyo said:
At our yard we have a rising 8YO British Riding Pony 12.2hh bay gelding.

He is the lushist little man to look at, he looks like a manature horse.

Purchased a year ago to bring on and sell.

He long reined, lunged, wore tack, and we were told had been sat on.

Life took a bad turn( yard folk not the pony) just after arrival and he was turned away for the winter, without any new handling.

He came in in March April.

He long reins well, lunges well, and has been broken to ride. With a good rider he works very well.

So here is the problem.

He is terrified of life. He tosses his head continioiusy, cant cope with any changes in his enviroment, he panics when riden and bolts. He is very very sharp and gone in a flash. Fast too.
He cant take loud noises.
Ive long reined him on the roads, but hes never been ridden out. Hes in the bushes if anything goes by.
Ive tried to love him, care for him as my own, but it doiesnt change him. There is no difference in his bahaviour. If he was calm and sensible Id break him to drive.

Hes on magnesium. His weight gain is poor.

To the yard hes not someones horse, but a sales horse.

What do we do with him? Sell him to an experienced home, loan him, sell him as a companion? Or something else.
Click to expand...
ok....WHAT I suggest you do is trun him away AGAIN into a field which is close to LOUD traffic to get him used to noise an activity, and go and feed, brush, love him atleat twice a day. Then you can bring him back home then tack him up and lundge him over POLES and around CONES! this will build his confidance and calm him down! Then when you are ready to back him just walk around the yard and school and hack out with an EXPEARIANCED/VETERAN horse and perhaps turn him out with a very quite veteran too! this will help!
its all about building confidance! please tlel me if i have helped and if u want more info!xxx
 
I have a horse like that, he's 22 now and still as nervous as all get out, some with that kind of personality need stability and a one to one home.

I think he will only start to calm down and trust once he;s in that kind of home, it's a bit chicken and egg situation.
 
I had a horse like that !

My current thinking is that there was nothing wrong with her all along - I just think now, that a little horse who can only be ridden by children, can very easily be made into a nervous wreck by simply reacting 'wrongly' to the pony's behaviour.

What I suspect happened in Tiny's case, was because she's so pretty, some little kid bought her too early. Then she spooked at something (of course, young horses do) kid tenses up, Pony gets confirmation that there's something scary, Pony spooks more, kid screams more, Pony spooks more, screaming kid flies off, and Pony finds she has done The Right Thing, because the screaming stops and the lion or whatever it was that caused it all has gone away.

So, next time ..... <<repeat>> ... before too long you've got an unrideable, uncatchable, terrified Little One with a bad reputation.

I hung about for a year just about, not making any progress with Tiny, falling off alot, becoming scared of her ... it's an incredibly easy cycle to get into even when you are completely prepared for it and have gone through it before.

At the end of the day, the cure boils down to - what do you do when the nervy behaviour starts ? What do you do in response ? Because if you could shut the behaviour right down, within a millisecond, before the pony moves away from the situation ... if you could stop the situation from accelerating, then you can progress. In fact you can stop it - within 20 minutes. No BS.

I was reduced to tears with Tiny last month. We'd made no progress - I was bravely trotting her round the big arena when all of a sudden nothing happened at all, and she freaked, and I realsied she was a brain-damaged nutcase with no hope of a cure.

So I sat and cried and before anyone found me I pulled myself towards myself and got a grip. What do I do when she spooks ? Well, I try to avoid situations where she'll spook, and ummm .... I sit very still because she doesn't like it when I raise a hand to scratch my nose or whatever, so I don't do that. And umm.,.....she doesn't like turning so errr... we don't do that ... And all of a sudden I called myself an idiot and spun that pony round. One two three and spin her to a halt. Kick her on into a big Tiny trot and one two three and spin to a halt. Over and over again for twenty minutes. Just do it. Now every time she needs to spook, guess what - it's no big deal ? half a spook and spin to a stop.

Twenty minutes later and she wasn't the perfect kid's pony, but she was pretty darn solid. I took her out for her first ever trail ride the next day and she took to it like she'd found her meaning of life. Through steep trails, rough forest, branches slapping her and me in the face .... bombproof. Yesterday she went hunting - first field - and yes, she had a little spook - when all the drunk Tenneseean whips and master thought it'd be a grand idea to all turn and gallop flat out towards her on their big mahoosive hunt horses, shoulting and flailing them whips. I forgave her the two steps she took in that situation - apart from that, solid as a rock all day, and much, much solider than many of the experienced hunt horses.

I know I go on and on and on and on and on and on about it.

BUT

if you haven't got a one-rein-stop on the horse, then you're flailing about in the dark. For the pony in question - I'd be looking for someone who can understand the O-R-S - it is becoming increasingly common, even in the UK - and sell him on as a project. If you can, get the groundwork part of it done yourself - it's really simple. I can't say for certain that your little one hasn't something worse going on, but the more I see of them, the more convinced I am. My Tiny was the worst case of it I've seen. She's already been through really good homes and trainers - and still this is the result. Her previous owner and trainer were both on the hunt yesterday. Neither of them believed I was taking Tiny. Neither of them could believe it was really her, standing like a rock, keeping up with the big guys, rating her speed, leading the trickier horses through the more difficult creek crossings :D
 
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