Big scaredy cat?

Question

I excercise a lady's horse for her and she really doesn't know anything about horses (idk) and her horse is over 16 hands and afraid of everything. One time I was riding and my mom was sitting in a chair next to the fence outside of the arena. He saw her there and refused to go anywhere near her. He slammed on the brakes and started bucking/trying to turn around whenever we got close to her. She moved farther down the fence and he did the same thing there too. What do you do about that?

Another time when I was jumping, I decided to go over the roll top (its a solid jump with green fabric on the top and side). He kept refusing to go near it. My trainer showed up and said I should keep trying to get him up to it so he could see it wasn't going to kill him. They have that jump in shows and it's always in the arena somewhere, so it just wont work for him to be afraid of it.

We kept trying to get him over it until he jumped ON it. He completely broke it and he's still afraid of it. Help?

Answer 1

sometimes if your really firm with a horse (not letting them have control and being persistant and stuff) and ignoring the things their afraid of gives them a Lot of confidence. dont do anything that excites or scares them but they start to focus on You and less on what their afraid of. also familiarity calms them. like find a pattern to do in the arena and make him do it over and over again. make it easy though so he dosent overdo anything. h**l get bored and because your being so bossy wonder 'what on earth is she trying to get me to do!?' lol. good luck!

Answer 2

lead him upto wateva it is he's shying at and pat him etc wen u bring him up to it, make him associate it with praise

wen he gets up to give him a succulent

if you know wat hes scared of show him pictures of it

ride him round for ages and fettle him then bring him upto it becus he'll probs be too tired to react and just shy slightly

use a whip on the shoulder of the oposite side of wat he's shying  from

keep ur reins low, like keep ur hands on the d-ring so he cant escape thru the shoulder

Answer 3

I'd make a cource with heaps of scary things and make him go near all of them.

As soon as he relaxes , sratch him to tell him his a good boy. For example put a plastic bag at the end of a stick and move it atound the horse gently , if the horse frets , keep going , as soon as the horse relaxes( Head goes down or no white in the eyes ect) scratch him and stop the movement. Then make it a bit more scary , go wround his legs with the plastic bag , if he moves keep going , but as soon as he stops moving , stop the plastic bag . And scratch , just remember to keep a safe distance , and start of slowly not to scare the horse.

Answer 4

Check out my answer on this question...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 5

I'm probably not the huge expert in horses, but i do have some experience with them in the past, As you've probably herd the old saying "Animals Can Smell Fear", that is somewhat true. In the case of your horse, and your mother, The horse might be afraid of your mother, because your mother is afraid of him. And the jumper obstacle, that's probably because another horse got injured there, and your horse can smell the blood, I would try a different jumper obstacle.

Well, I hope my info was helpful to you. Feel free to ask me ANYTHING!