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A Stabletalk reader wrote to us with the following query


My horse is a 5 year old skewbald tbx light weight 14.3h. I have had her a year .She was bred from a flat racer sire and a standard feathered coloured mare.She is very sweet.

After various health problems such as very poor skin condition on purchase, lack of weight and then a large sarcoid on her inside left leg at the groin site.The last 3months she has been fit and well,so I began her schooling in earnest, as she was very green when I brought her .

With the help of a very qualified and skilled rider and dressage instructor. My horse goes so well on the lunge, balanced and happy but in the saddle however she changes .With draw riegns I can achieve good contact and work in walk and trot.

But without them and in canter she becomes a bucking bronco. Although she will stop when I pull up, the whole swituation is becoming so stressful to both of us. Her saddle fits and her bridle, bit and teeth are fine. My instructor thinks its just attitude, I just cannot except that and I don't want to employ more discipline. Please help!!

There are afew comments you have made in your question that concern me a little. You say you have enlisted the help of a 'qualified and skilled rider and dressage instructor', yet you are using draw reins on a 5 year old that to all intents and purposes is at the stage of a 3 - 4 year old, due to various set backs in its training so far. Any dressage instructor worth her/his weight would never resort to this practice! Draw reins do not create a good contact!

To the layman's eyes it might look that way, but believe me, what you are doing is storing up trouble for the future, developing muscles in the wrong places and setting up resistances. If your horse was poor when you got her, you can assume she had a rather poor start in life, and her backing and breaking process may have been erratic, abrupt and badly done. So you really have to take this horse back to basics, allowing her to work for the most part in a long, stretched out outline to help develop her top line muscles. You will have to read up, watch and go to training sessions to pick up all the tips you need to help this horse develop in the correct outline, it's not a trial and error affair, you need to know what you are doing.

Once your horse is developing muscles in the right places and can walk and trot comfortably over poles on the ground, change direction, describe a good 20 mtr circle, lengthen down the long side, all in the correct outline with a soft gentle contact on the bit, (not pulled in) using her legs from behind, then you are ready to introduce canter work, but very slowly, and only for few strides at a time. It takes a while for horses to become accustomed to carrying the weight of a rider, and they need time to adjust their centre of balance, this is amplified when the speed increases, and if the horse fears that she may become unsteady on her feet, she will want to remove the cause.

Horses don't usually have an 'attitude' as you put it, unless something or someone has created it, . The horse is trying to tell you something in the only way it knows how to, listen and try and find out what the problem is, and perhaps get a second opinion about your schooling and training techniques.

It's a long learning curve, but well worth the effort. At the end of it you will have a well schooled, happy, obedient, loyal friend.

Good Luck!!
Sharon
StableTalk Team